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Several Fridays ago I had the extreme pleasure of spending a morning with Elisabeth Agro, the Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
She inspired, educated, danced. She was alive, passionate, smart. She was breeze on a summer day. I adored her.
And so I wrote about Elisabeth for the
Philadelphia Inquirer in this weekend edition that extends an open welcome to politicians, delegates, media, and conventioneers. Why not take a break from the balloons and debates and slip in among the art? Why not go to a quiet, thoughtful place and ponder the future of us?
A link to the story will go live on Sunday.
Meanwhile, those of you arriving or departing from Terminal D at the Philadelphia International Airport will perhaps notice the LOVE display that was unveiled a few months ago, in anticipation of this week. Based on the essays and photos in my book
Love: A Philadelphia Affair, that mural, too, celebrates the museum as part of a broader celebration of our region.
We hope for peace and intelligent conversation this week. We hope to be a city well received and well remembered.
Today was the day. Long-awaited. More wonderful than imagined. With greatest thanks to Leah Douglas and Ursula Stuby of the Philadelphia International Airport Exhibitions Program for their glorious interpretation of
Love: A Philadelphia Affair (Temple University Press), now on exhibit at Terminal D (10). How glorious it was to spend time with these two wonderful women, and to spend time as well with the Airport's delightful CEO, Chellie Cameron—learning about the plans for this airport and the future of travel in my beloved city.
With thanks to my father, for joining us, and to Bill, for taking the photographs you see here. I'll be forever honored by this.
For the past many months, Leah Douglas and Ursula Stuby have been working with their incredible team to bring my
LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair photographs and thoughts to life at the Philadelphia International Airport.
Today they unveiled the exhibition. It is up. It is real.
An exhibition like this one stills the whirligig thoughts that haunt me. It makes me stop, pause, be grateful for all the wanderings and ponderings that have led me here.
The exhibit is located in Terminal D, accessible by ticketed passengers and presented by the Exhibitions Program at the Philadelphia International Airport. It will be up through the Democratic Convention—its own brand of welcome committee to those who travel to and from our city.
I am, and always will be, grateful.
If you are en route and happening by, this wall would love to greet you.
The glorious hours I spent in the company with Jim Cotter and his entire team have produced these minutes on film that I will always treasure.
Here are so many of the things I care about—Philadelphia, the Schuylkill, Penn, memoir, story, language—all in one place, all at one time.
I'm not beautiful, as I always say. But maybe it is enough if beautiful things live in my world.
You can watch the segment, which also features literary translation and tenor Stephen Costello, here. Or watch this evening at 10:30, WHYY TV, or on Sunday at 1 PM.
Articulate—all of you—thank you.
Gary Kramer of Temple University Press: you have opened so many doors. Thank you.
My friends, the hour is soon. The chance to see if Beth is smarter than she ever manages to look on "Articulate," that glorious WHYY art show that Beth (still speaking of herself in the third person here) can hardly believe
she'll soon be on.
(All thanks to Gary Kramer, by the way, for forging the bridge.)
As part of that program, three of my books will be offered to lucky giveaway winners on three separate social media platforms:
Love on Facebook
Flow on Twitter
Handling the Truth on Instagram Look for them and enter in, if having a free signed copy of one of these books is on your wish list.
Speaking of wishes: Wish me lots of luck. By which I mean: Wish me luck in surviving the panic that is slowly creeping in.
Show times on Philadelphia's WHYY:
Thursday, February 25, 2015, 10:30 PM
Sunday, February 28, 2015, 1:00 PM
Finally, can I just say, again and forever, how nice the entire "Articulate" staff is? And what fun it is to spend an hour talking to Jim Cotter. Even when you do just blow in from a storm. Sit down. And start speaking. Looking up minutes later to ask, Wait. Are those cameras actually on?
Yesterday, bitterly cold from all the bitter cold, I stopped briefly at the Thirtieth Street Station bookstore while en route to
my first day at Penn. There I was greeted with a tower of books featuring Ted Koppel, Chelsea Clinton, and me (
Love). Everyday, ordinary company? For me, not really.
Later, at the Penn Bookstore, I was searching for something else when I discovered all these
Handling the Truth's (Handlings of Truth?) beside Mary Karr's much-publicized
The Art of Memoir (about which I'd had
so many (politely stated) concerns).
Last week I heard from a kind soul who had found
Going Over at a train station in Germany.
My point being: We write and then we let our words and stories go. We can't do a whole lot about what happens after that, except to be happily surprised when we're discovered (or when we discover ourselves).
Speaking of books, submissions have now closed for the
This Is the Story of You giveaway. I'll have some news about that later today.
Today I'll give what I'm pretty sure will be my final talk emanating from
LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair. I'll join Liz Dow, the extraordinary woman behind Leadership Philadelphia, and her leaderly contingent. We'll talk about this city we believe in.
The rest of the day will be a father-daughter day. Museums in the afternoon. Dinner. Then my father's early birthday present—tickets to "Once," which won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 2012.
I. Love. This. Story.
I. Sing. Those. Songs.
And while I gave my father many choices when we were planning out this day, I was secretly very glad when he said that "Once" was his first choice.
So off we will go.
Away, for a day, from here.
Last night I saw a movie ("The Danish Girl") I have long wanted to see, and it was gloriously visual and terribly heartbreaking and genius acting, and it was good. Afterward, my brother called and we talked for a long time (I talked to his daughter, too) and all of that was good.
In the dark hours before this dawn, I began to read the memoir
The Hare with Amber Eyes, and it is good. I set the
Hare aside to sketch out the outline for a new and interesting (to me) nonfiction book, and I think it will be good.
After the sun rose I added fresh mint to the strawberries, the banana, and the coconut water, spun the Ninja, and that breakfast smoothie was good. I went online and found a very generous
LOVE citation on Savvy Verse and Wit Best of the Year round-up (thank you!) AND ALSO an uber kind citation for ONE THING STOLEN, and that was good and very good.
Today we will see dear friends in a new place, and it will be (it always is with them) good.
This is the last day of an old year. The sun (which hasn't made much of an appearance lately) has decided to show up, and I'm hoping that augurs something new, something good, for all of us. I'm hoping that the unsettling headlines dim, that our planet is respected, that terror is abated, that homes are found for those seeking homes. I'm hoping that more people do happy things. I'm hoping the people I love get good news, have good health, have good dreams come true.
I'm hoping that for strangers, too.
To the new good, for all of us.
At the
Big Blue Marble Bookstore on a warm Saturday afternoon, I sat with Elliott batTzedek and Sarah Sawyers-Lovett (of
Book Jawn Podcast) and talked.
Oh boy, did we talk.
About what happens when authors become brands. (It isn't pretty.)
About what happens when an author remains true. (Or, put another way, when an author, despite her success, works as hard and as fierce and as brave as she once did, before the world knew her name.)
About what happens when an author puts more stock in a trend than in her own imagination. (Leveraging a movement to the detriment of the story she might have told, for the making is always more important, ultimately, than the marketing—or shouldn't it be?)
About how picture books work. (Which is to say, how picture books stop time, in the hands of those who want to fully feel.)
About
Kent Haruf, Sy Montgomery, Spirographs, Pigeons,
A.S. King, Coates, Skippy Jon, living among noise, and the life of a ten-year-old community bookstore that serves an intelligent neighborhood and offers up its wares to those who believe in the capital B Book—and put their money where their faith is.
In and out the patrons came. A fifth-grade boy whose mother had to persuade him (gently) out of the stacks. A young man seeking a book for a friend. (David Levithan! Sarah and I said, nearly in unison.) An older man seeking lyrical nonfiction. (
H is for Hawk! I shouted out.
The Soul of an Octopus!
Bettyville! M Train!) Such a seduction, sitting there, listening to what readers want, pointing the way, sharing the life and love of books with two intelligent readers who let me pretend, for part of an afternoon, that I was a book trader, too.
We are living in harsh times. We are trying to rise above the vitriol. We are hoping that the world will see beyond our wearying headlines, our damning theatrics, our brazen banners to the people so many of us actually are.
Look for the compassion, look for the hope, look for the conversation in your local indie. Go home with a book beneath your arm. Allow the wider world to seep in through you.
PS: Sarah. I finished the Colum McCann. I'm now onto Lucia Berlin. You?
On Thursday, while down at the Barnes and Noble off Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, I struck up a conversation with the woman who greets those both entering and leaving the store. It was a warm day, a sunny one, and a breeze was blowing in.
"Tell me about your job," I'd said and soon she was telling me stories. About those who come to the store not for books, but for community. About those who come for shelter. About those who, upon hearing her simple greeting, break down and cry.
A man concerned about a child in a foreign place.
A man concerned about a daughter.
Others.
"People think my job is about saying hello, but really my job is about listening," she said. "I'm here to offer simple hope. I'm reminding people to trust in doctors or to trust in others. I'm just letting others know that they've been heard, and that's all that many of us want or need, most of the time."
She was beautiful, this woman, with long ropes of braided hair and very liquid eyes. She had a soul about her, seemed to know just what to say to the repeat customers and the new ones. Hardly a simple job, making others feel welcome. There is a talent to it.
I'm headed to my final signing for LOVE this afternoon—the lovely indie with the fabulous name: the Big Blue Marble. What I've realized, during this LOVE journey, is that this book of mine is the least of it. This book of mine has been an excuse to get out in the world and to see how people are. To listen and reflect on stories.
I'll be curling back in toward my own life after this afternoon. But I have deeply appreciated the many people I have met through this autumn/winter celebration of our city.
December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA
For introducing me to students who change my life and for sharing my books in your store in such a gorgeous, prominent way, thank you, University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Bookstore. For snapping this photograph and sending it my way, thank you, Gary Kramer.
There are just two more LOVE signings on the radar. You are, of course, invited:
December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes and Noble LOVE signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA
December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA
Now that our son is out on his own—a transplanted Manhattanite, a guy with an intense new-media career and plenty of stories to tell—these four Thanksgiving days are the days I most live for. Our longest stretch with him
this near. Our longest walks. Our longest conversations. The thorough peace of waking up and thinking:
He's just down the hall.I arranged my motherhood so that I would have few motherhood regrets—hoped myself toward a freelance career that would spark to life when my son was at school or slept, stayed off the traveling writers' circuit, patchworked my existence. If I've sometimes felt invisible out there in the world, I've felt seen here, in this two-bedroom house, and these past few days especially I've felt more like my authentic, true-purpose self than I have since, well, last Thanksgiving.
We discovered a new trail together. We lit a candle at our table. We asked ourselves that enduring question:
How do we continue to become the person we'd most like to be? And for an hour yesterday I opened my laptop and read pages from a book now very much in progress. My son is the best listener I'll ever have, the one who gets every nuance and bend of the real life I plumb into the depths of my fiction. The one who says,
Okay, but let me ask you a question, and,
Do you know a real-life Matias? and,
Is Uncle Davy modeled on your Uncle Danny, and
Yes. I see it. This could be your movie.Last night, late, my son sat at the table and read
this story in this weekend's Philadelphia Inquirer. It's the story I'd written about the Philadelphians I've lately met in my
Love: A Philadelphia Affair travels. The people whose stories make our city what it is. I watched him read. I watched him nod. I saw him smile. Because my son may be living the NYC life right now, but he still considers Philadelphia home. This place we share and always will—no matter where he is, no matter what he's doing, no matter the miles between us.
Over the past many weeks, I've traveled through and around Philadelphia, listening as others told their Philadelphia stories. I've thought about the role the city plays as an artistic canvas and about the traces we individually, collectively leave. I write about that in this weekend's
Philadelphia Inquirer. I'll share the link to the story when it is live.
In the meantime, I share this: The photos and words of
Love: A Philadelphia Affair are being transformed into a stellar exhibition at the Philadelphia International Airport. The exhibition will run from December 21, 2015 through July 2016. It is located in Terminal D, accessible by ticketed passengers, and presented by the Exhibitions Program at the Philadelphia International Airport, under the generous direction of Leah Douglas.
If you are in Terminal D after December 21 and happen by it would be fun to hear from you.
Patti Smith is on the cover of the current issue of Arrive magazine (the Amtrak magazine). That's really enough, by any measure. She's gorgeously photographed—silvers and blues.
Tucked inside that edition is an interview with me about
Love and about memoir. Greg Weber and I had the nicest conversation many weeks ago. Reading these words today brings all of that back to me.
I'm grateful. I'm so grateful that I think I'll ride Amtrak every day now, for months.
Last evening, at the Cultural Series at the Kennedy House, we were talking about Philadelphia then. "We" were the wonderful Philadelphians in a 30th-floor room, shoulder to shoulder with memory.
The wooden trolley cars. The fruit peddler. The rides an 11-year-old took on her own from West Philly to the Betsy Ross House and Independence Mall. Kensington at its height as a mill town. And then that moment when the PSFS Building opened its doors and a little girl went with her mother to ride the city's first moving stairs. Up and down and up and down they went. This brand-new wonder in a world still seized by Depression-era constraints.
The history was palpable. There were stars in our eyes.
I photographed my river, the old restored Post Office Building, and the rising FMC Tower at dusk, from JFK Boulevard, on my way to the event. The city in lights.
Some things aren't surprising when I am hosted by the Radnor Memorial Library. How gracious Pamela Sedor forever is. How delicious (and pretty) is that cake. How kind my friends, husband, and father are. I hope my gratitude is felt and known. I am fully aware of how precious time is, and what it means when time is set aside to support another's floating dreams.
But last night, after photographs and stories of this regional home were shared, after I read from
One Thing Stolen, after I shared the opening pages of
This Is the Story of You (and gave a copy to Lucky Number 9)—after all that, when I was signing books, I turned over a copy of
One Thing Stolen and saw a new cover staring out at me. The formerly black title had turned red (and glossy). There were A.S. King words over my name. The back cover was different, too.
What had happened here?
A little detective work with Annie and Pam as the night wound down, and I learned this:
One Thing Stolen has gone into a second printing and Chronicle Books has taken the time to dress the book up newly—new color, Amy's words. It's like those wondrous moments when I come in from a very long day and discover folded laundry on the kitchen table, the work of a secret elf. This thing had been done, quietly done, and there was my gratitude again.
So many, many thanks to Pam and Annie of Radnor, to my friends who came, to the ladies of the Wayne Art Center (oh we, the Hidden Gems), to Kelly, Cyndi, Marie, Tom, Hilary, Bill, another Bill, and Dad, and to Temple University Press, which gave me
Love: A Philadelphia Affair and Chronicle Books, which gave me a second printing of
One Thing Stolen as well as the gorgeous cover and packaging (and Taylor, thank you for caring so much, you read it again and then again with care; you kept asking; you kept pressing; I am grateful) of
This Is the Story of You.
I've been thinking a lot lately about kindness and love and about an assumption some make that those who love hard think less, or think less effectively, than those who stand at the ready with a presumptive, lambasting, one-upping criticism.
I spoke a little about this at the
Free Library of Philadelphia launch of
Love: A Philadelphia Affair. Later, Laurel Garver asked if I might expand on those thoughts. I decided to do that through the vehicle of "The Voice," in a HuffPo post.
It can be found
here.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 10/14/2015
Blog:
Beth Kephart Books
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... and we're going to have a lot of fun talking about Philadelphia as an artistic canvas on November 5 at the Ambler Theater. We've invited Temple University student filmmakers to join us, and we're inviting the community (you) to share your memories of Philadelphia, which we'll stitch together in a virtual storytelling quilt. (Enlarge the poster above, and you'll see how you can share your stories.) I'll be reading as well from
Love: A Philadelphia Affair.I hope you'll join us. I've heard only good things about last year's event, which featured Matthew Quick.
Deep thanks to Lauren Smyth and Cheri Fiory, who reached out to me with this extraordinary invitation, and to Kristine Weatherston of Temple University's film department, who gamely responded to my request for work from her students. Kristine and some of her students have also agreed to join us that evening.
Finally, thank you to the Kiwanis Club of Ambler.
The Fall Men's Issue
(with thanks)
Marciarose Shestack, didn't we have ourselves a time last evening, at the Free Library of Philadelphia?
With greatest thanks to Siobhan, Andy, and Jason, to Gary, to Kevin, to my husband and father, to my friends, to all those who joined us there on a starry night, to everyone who asked a question, to all of you who stood in line.
A podcast can be found
here.
A video stream of the reading and conversation can be found
here.
The extremely dear Pamela Sedor has invited me back to the Radnor Memorial Library to talk about two books that take place in two sister cities, LOVE (Philadelphia) and ONE THING STOLEN (Philadelphia and Florence).
She is dear, that space is kind, this is my good fortune.
And there will be cake.
I hope that you can join us.
Philadelphia long ago discovered the gem who is Nathaniel Popkin. He shows up at Emmy Award celebrations, on the jackets of wonderful novels and nonfiction collections, in the pages of
Philadelphia magazine, as book review editor at
Cleaver. He is, as well, a force behind Hidden City, and what I say here is the truth: few people know more about this city, or think about it more deeply, than Nathaniel Popkin.
So it was a distinct pleasure to be interviewed by him for
Hidden City. Our
conversation about walking, seeing, thinking, and believing (and Philadelphia) can be found here. I always learn from the questions he asks.
Thank you, Nathaniel.
We're
launching Love: A Philadelphia Affair at the Free Library tomorrow night on a stage that will sparkle with the warm wit and intelligence of broadcast pioneer Marciarose Shestack. We hope you'll join us.
Yesterday was moving day at my father's house. After so many months of packing and renovation, the big truck came. I snuck away from the activities for two beautiful hours in the afternoon to celebrate the release of
The Art of Gardening (Timber Press) by the gardeners of Chanticleer. (And then rushed home, changed back into grunge wear, and began again the unpacking of boxes.)
Readers of my blog and books know that Chanticleer has served as backdrop for many of my musings, both nonfiction (
Ghosts in the Garden) and fiction (
Nothing but Ghosts). (Indeed, my Inky story about this fabled landscape is featured in
Love: A Philadelphia Affair.) But as a writer I merely bear witness. I do not know the names of most things, do not capitalize upon the folds in the earth, do not walk the garden every day looking for the ebbing away and the new opportunity.
Bill Thomas and his gardeners do. They make these now 48 acres (the garden is growing) glow, season after season, with their plants, their sense of purpose, their artistry. You'll find their winter projects—clay pots, wood furniture, metal work, hand rails, sculptures—in among the blooms. You'll hear them talking about ways to preserve the biodiversity of soil and to optimize microclimates, not to mention the secrets still stashed in the greenhouse.
The Art of Gardening, featuring photographs by Rob Cardillo (who once took this
photo of me on a rainy Chanticleer day for what has become an award-winning magazine), is subtitled "Design, Inspiration, and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer." Its authors are the gardeners themselves, with Bill Thomas editing the overall narrative and Eric Hsu providing the captions. The history and vision of Chanticleer is represented here, as are design strategies, reports on experiments, and a planting list.
It's a lovely compilation, celebrated on a gorgeous day that also marked the unveiling of the grand new path that winds up toward the Chanticleer house and (at this particular moment in time) makes the hover above the ground feel airbrushed with a color that is not quite pink and not quite purple.
Huge congratulations to the Chanticleer gardeners (and Rob) whose artistic spirits are so well captured here.
In today's
Philadelphia Inquirer, I'm remembering a recent day spent alongside my father, at Longwood Gardens. We made our way to the meadow. We stood on the cusp of a season. We thought about the summer we had shared packing up his beautiful home, and about all that might come next.
That story
can be found in full here, along with an invitation to join me and Marciarose Shestack at the Free Library of Philadelphia this coming Wednesday evening, at 7:30, as we talk about our love for this city.
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