I went away to celebrate my birthday—up the Delaware River, on the New Jersey side, in the town made famous by Elizabeth Gilbert. I wore funky boots and worried about nothing and bought the coolest felt coat for close to nothing, gifts for a friend, a brass feather for my hair. Walking and walking beside my husband, who had surprised me with Frenchtown, who understood my deep need to be elsewhere.
These few things, while I was gone:
One Thing Stolen was named an April Editor's Pick by Amazon and a Top 14 YA April book by Bustle. I am grateful and humbled.
Galleys for
Love: A Philadelphia Affair arrived. This book becoming a real thing, then. More gratitude.
The German edition of
You Are My Only showed up in a white box. It is always deeply interesting to see a story remade in another language, announced to the world with a new image. I'm grateful for Hanser's faith in the novel.
I had many thoughts while I was away about what really matters, what makes me happiest. Family. Friendship. Time. Peace. These things I seek, above all else. You can make something special without spending lots of money. You can say love without wrapping it in a bow. You can look ahead and worry less. I keep getting better at that. Family. Friendship. Time. Peace.
Familyfriendshiptime.
Peace.
The only thing benign about Herman Koch's
The Dinner is the title—which, like almost everything else about the story, is designed to throw the reader off.
"My Dinner with Andre" this is not. Politics, culture, morality, and childrens' lives are at stake (only the first three were at stake in the movie). The questions: What would we do to protect a child who has committed a heinous act? What would we do if we had somehow (implicitly, explicitly) encouraged or modeled or genetically produced an evil creature? Who do we love and why do we love them and what does familial happiness look like? At what cost, secrets?
All this unfolds over the course of a meal in an expensive restaurant. Two brothers and their wives have come to High Civility to discuss a horrific, seamy event. Paul, whose jealousy and creepiness are transparent from the start, tells us the story. He tells us who he is, even as he repeatedly cautions that many parts of the tale are not our business.
It's a brutal, brilliant book (compared to
Gone Girl, I think it greatly supersedes it). It's not the kind of book I typically read, it oozes with contemptible people and scenes, but I was riveted by Koch's ability to see his vision through—so entirely relentlessly. And then I got to the paperback's extra matter and an essay by Koch himself called "The First Sentence."
For me, a book is already finished once I've come up with the first sentence. Or rather: the first two sentences. Those first two sentences contain everything I need to know about the book. I sometimes call them the book's "DNA." As long as every sentence that comes afterward contains that same DNA, everything is fine.
Koch's first two sentences, in case you are wondering, are: "We were going out to dinner. I won't say which restaurant, because next time it might be full of people who've come to see whether we're there." And absolutely, yes. The entire book is bracketed within them.
I believe in the power of first sentences, too. I think about them as setters of mood and tone. I wondered, though, whether I could say, about any of my novels, that the entire story rests within the first two sentences. I decided to conduct a mini-experiment. I grabbed a few books from my shelf. Opened to page one. Conducted a self-interview and assessment. I had to cheat in one place only (
Dr. Radway), where more than two sentences were required. Otherwise, I'm thinking Koch is onto something here. (And if it is true for my books, I suspect it is true for yours, too.)
From within the fissure I rise, old as anything. The gravel beneath me slides. — Flow
Once I saw a vixen and a dog fox dancing. It was on the other side of the cul-de-sac, past the Gunns' place, through the trees, where the stream draws a wet line in spring. — Undercover
In the summer my mother grew zinnias in her window boxes and let fireflies hum through our back door. She kept basil alive in ruby-colored glasses and potatoes sprouting tentacles on the sills. — House of Dance
There are the things that have been and the things that haven't happened yet. There is the squiggle of a line between, which is the color of caution, the color of the bird that comes to my window every morning, rattling me awake with the hammer of its beak. — Nothing but Ghosts
What I remember now is the bunch of them running: from the tins, which were their houses. Up the white streets, which were the color of bone. — The Heart Is Not a Size
From up high, everything seems to spill from itself. Everything is shadowed. — Dangerous Neighbors
My house is a storybook house. A huff-and-a-puff-and-they'll-blow-it-down house. — You Are My Only
The streets of Seville are the size of sidewalks, and there are alleys leaking off from the streets. In the back of the cab, where I sit by myself, I watch the past rushing by. — Small Damages
There was a story Francis told about two best friends gone swimming, round about Beiderman's Point, back of Petty's Island, along the crooked Delaware. "Fred Spowhouse," he'd say, his breath smelling like oysters and hay. "Alfred Edwards." The two friends found drowned and buckled together, Spowhouse clutched up tight inside Edwards's feckless arms. — Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent
We live with ghosts. We live with thugs, dodgers, punkers, needle ladies, pork knuckle. — Going Over
If you could see me. If you were near. — One Thing Stolen
Sidenote: In every case, the first two sentences of my books existed within the book in draft one. Sometimes they weren't posted right up front in early drafts. But they always eventually got there.
We woke to a deep mist here, a roiling fog. It seems the skies understand, that they, like us, are weeping.
It will be difficult for any of us to move forward. To stop putting our imaginations elsewhere, and grieving. And maybe that's okay. Maybe we do just need to stop.
On this necessarily quiet day, I want to thank two extremely generous people for kindness—an attribute more important to me than any other. The first is Michael G-G, always a smart writer and blogger, always a dear soul, who read two of my books at the same time and had
this to say. Michael understands my relationship to the color blue. His words on this and on so much more touched me so deeply—and arise out of the mist.
The second is Jennifer Brown, a former school teacher and now the woman I love to call (because it is so true) "the ambassador for children's books." She was a terrific panel moderator at the Publishing Perspectives conference held a few weeks ago, just after the storm Sandy stopped us all in our tracks. She reports on the conference
today in Shelf Awareness in the meaningful way that she does all things.
Love, and (somehow) healing.
Musehouse: A Center for the Literary Arts is everything it promises to be—"a home for writers of varying ages and levels of experience in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and scriptwriting through workshops, conferences, readings, and special events." Let's focus on that word
home—the welcoming front porch, the long living room, the Stanley Kunitz wall art (oh, baby), the green-icing cupcakes (it being St. Patty's Day), and all those warm-hearted souls.
I first
wrote about Musehouse long before I had had a chance to visit. Last night I was honored to share the mike with
April Lindner (who wrote
Jane and has
Catherine forthcoming) and Doug Gordon, a writer I met in 1997 when we both won a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant (along with Justin Cronin, who went on to write
The Passage, among other things).
I met people last night whom I'd been hoping to meet for years, saw people I'd first met eras ago, and spoke at length with a young woman whose face I remembered from two long BEA lines. It was a fine night, a peaceful affair.
Many thanks to Musehouse. To learn more about the workshops and readings that are offered there, on Germantown Avenue, please visit the
web site.
Many months ago, I received an invitation to read from
You Are My Only at The Spiral Bookcase, a new independent bookstore in Manayunk, PA. I was, of course, keen to meet the store's very dear owner, Ann. And I was thrilled to have a chance to support a
new independent (how many new independent bookstores do you know?) But how much more fun would be had, I thought, if I could be joined in the event by some of the best young adult writers around.
And so Ann and I talked. And so one thing led to another. And so it is with a great sense of anticipation and pleasure that I am sharing news of the inaugural
Teen Day in Manayunk, to be held during the afternoon of
March 24th. There will be writing workshops for teen authors. There will be a writing contest with winning entries (judged by Elizabeth Mosier and yours truly) appearing in the extraordinary teen-lit magazine
Philadelphia Stories, Jr. and on The Spiral Bookcase web; I'll also be excerpting winning work here. There will be marching bands and media coverage and appearances by some very special souls.
I encourage teachers, parents, and young writers in the Philadelphia area to find out more about the writing contest, workshop, and meet-and-greet by contacting Ann at
The Spiral Bookcase. I encourage the rest of you to consider spending time with some truly fine writers along the canal.
Here we all are. There we all will be.
Susan Campbell Bartoletti is best known for her nonfiction books, including the Newbery Honor-winning Hitler Youth: Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow (Scholastic) and the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Honor-winning They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: The Birth of An American Terrorist Group (Houghton Mifflin). Her most recent titles include the novel The Boy Who Dared (Scholastic) and a picture book Naamah and the Ark at Night (Candlewick 2011), illustrated by the amazing Holly Meade. www.scbartoletti.com <http://www.scbartoletti.com> <http://www.scbartoletti.com>
Beth Kephart is the National Book Award-nominated author of thirteen books, including the teen novels Undercover, House of Dance, Nothing but Ghosts, The Heart Is Not a Size, Dangerous Neighbors, and You Are My Only; Small Damages is due out from Philomel in July. Beth, who is an adjunct faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania, blogs at http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/.
A.S. King is the author of the highly acclaimed Everybody Sees the Ants, a YALSA 2012 Top Ten Fiction for Young Adults book, the 2011 Michael L. Printz Honor book Please Ignore Vera Dietz, ALA Best Book for Young Adults The Dust of 100 Dogs, and the forthcoming Ask the Passengers. Since returning from Ireland where she spent over a decade living off the land, te
In early November, just as the National Novel Writing Month was getting under way, I posted a contest, the gist of which was this: Share with me your best revised sentence, post NaNo, and you'll have a chance to win a copy of either
You Are My Only (Egmont USA), which just went into its third printing, or
Small Damages (Philomel), which has not been printed yet (but I have a spare handful of galleys). I'll also be posting your work on my blog.
For more details and examples of sentences improved and empowered, please go
here. The contest closes December 20th. The winner will be announced on Christmas Eve.
I've never been to Brazil, but I have longed to go. For the time being,
You Are My Only is going in my stead, thanks to the good work of Amy Rennert and the Jenny Meyer Literary Agency, Inc. Brazilian-Portuguese rights to the book have been sold to Novo Conceito.
You Are My Only also, as many of you know, went into a third U.S. printing this week. For that enormous bit of good fortune, I have the world of generous bloggers and independent booksellers (and of course Darcy Jacobs, of
Family Circle) to thank. Thanks today especially to Serena Agusto-Cox, who placed
You Are My Only on the D.C. Literature Examiner gift book buying guide. Check out the
entire list for some spectacular recommendations from a very fine reader.
I thank you all. From the bottom of my heart, I do.
Many thanks, too, to Elizabeth Law of Egmont USA, for being the bearer of good news.
I am having a small dinner party this evening—an early Thanksgiving Day meal with friends. That means that I spent much of yesterday polishing things, trying to see my house the way others might see it. I realized, as I worked, that my little house is lit by trees. (Later in the afternoon the house was lit by Kelly Simmons, who stopped by with a manuscript in progress I have been begging to read and a bunch of autumnal calla lilies.)
This morning I did not turn the computer on at once—wanted a few spare moments of quiet to reflect and think before I got into the business of the day. When I did dial into the world, I discovered a most outrageously compassionate, well-written, and
deep-thinking review of You Are My Only, penned by Serena Agusto-Cox, a reader, writer, poet, and mom who advocated so fiercely on behalf of this book, even long before she had read it. True faith—oh so rare, and so appreciated. Serena was one of the YAMO Treasure Hunt winners, and so I have had the pleasure now of reviewing her own work. She has Facebooked and believed and conducted giveaways—even invited me to participate in a YAMO interview—the only YAMO interview on record (please check back later today for that).
I don't have the capacity to fully state how much this kind of support has meant to me—how much it means to any author. But I will share just a few words of Serena's review here, with the hope that you will visit her
blog and find out more about what she reads and how she sees:
You Are My Only is an emotional powerhouse drawing redemption out of the shattered pieces of lives rendered asunder by a single event. Through faith and love these characters can begin the heal, rebuild, and flourish. What more could readers ask for? Stunning, precious, and captivating from beginning to end.
Thank you so much, Serena.
Last night, my enormously gracious hostesses at St. Joseph's University—Ann Green and April Lindner—shared their students with me. Some had read
Dangerous Neighbors. Some had read
You Are My Only. All of them, many in the graduate program, spend their days thinking about words and writing.
I talked about the future of young adult literature. I also continued to talk about sentences. Why they matter. How they are crafted. What we put at risk if we, as a nation, a culture, foist only plots upon one another, and not song.
Yesterday on this blog,
I shared some of my own sentences in the making—a beginning place, a mid place—as well as a reminder of a NaNo
contest I am conducting. Last night, at St. Joe's, I read from that same
James Wood essay in
The New Yorker that I celebrated here not long ago—that lesson in beautiful writing.
Today I mean only to share these few words from a Pablo Neruda poem. These are simple lines, simple words. No pyrotechnics, no self-conscious gloss, no unnecessary intricacies. Good sentences, I am saying, don't have to be complex. But they must always be true.
From Neruda:
Only the shadows
know
the secrets
of closed houses,
only the forbidden wind
and the moon that shines
on the roof
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 11/6/2011
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Tomorrow evening, November 7, beginning at 6:30 PM, I'll be at the Haub Executive Center of St. Joseph's University talking about the future of young adult literature, reading from
You Are My Only, and convening (and cavorting) with some early readers of the book. A huge thank you to April Lindner and Ann Green, as well as to Jane Satterfield, who introduced me to April more than a year ago.
On Wednesday, November 9, starting at 7:00 PM, I'll be in West Chester, at the fabulous Chester County Book & Music Company (West Goshen Center) for a
You Are My Only reading. Last week I read from Emmy's chapters. That night I plan to read from Sophie's. Whatever happens, I'll be grateful to be inside this fantastaic independent bookstores. A big thank you to Thea Kotroba.
Finally—and this won't happen for a few months yet, but I'm so excited about it that I want to share early word—some of the very best in the business will be gathering at
The Spiral Bookcase, another indie!, in Manayunk, PA, next March 24 for an afternoon extravaganza of teen literature. We're still working out the details, but know this: Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Lindner, Keri Mikulski, Elizabeth Mosier, and I will join together for an afternoon that promises to be all kinds of wonderful.
National Novel Writing Month bills itself as "thirty days of literary abandon." I like that. I would like to add, as someone who stands in supreme awe of anyone who can write 50,000 words in a single month, that NaNoWriMo is a challenge for the extremely brave, the highly disciplined, and the bold of heart. Within this month, entire worlds will be created, characters revealed, plots escalated. As someone who can get caught in the tangle of a single paragraph for hours (okay, sometimes days) I do not know how this gets done.
The point of NaNo is to get a first draft done. To make the broad strokes, to test an idea. But what happens after those first 50,000 words are inked (or dotted), is, in my mind, even more crucial. It's during revision that the music of a story is found, the real meaning, the finer possibilities. It is during revision that the actual story emerges.
I care perhaps too much about language. I want to take risks with it, yearn to push it. I will write, for example, an Emmy character in
You Are My Only who doesn't speak with ordinary cadence and doesn't read the world through cliches, because I think we have a responsibility as writers not just to tell stories, but to try to tell stories
artfully, with originality and daring. I will spend ten years working the sentences of
Small Damages because I cannot let those gypsies, that south of Spain, that music, that old cook down. I recognize that I am in a growing minority. I recognize that what is art to me could be just so many plot-obstructing words to another. I recognize that my passion for words, my own preference for authors who make sentences that are not just compelling and clear, but startling and fresh, is Beth showing her quirky stubborn side.
Still, I am in that constant hunt for a real writer writing. I will fill my shelves with
Julie Otsuka,
Julian Barnes, Michael Ondaatje,
Anne Enright,
William Fiennes, Chloe Aridjis,
Kim Echlin,
Jane Mendelsohn, Ron Hansen,
Colm Toibin, Colum McCann,
Per Petterson, and so many more (and here I have purposefully not included any of my friends, so that you can be assured I am being completely objective) because I am inspired and informed and given hope by their commitment to the pure, hard jewel of the single sentence.
It has taken me four paragraphs to get to the point. My point is this. I am running a contest. I am seeking, from the NaNo writers, this: A single sentence as it was first written in the heat of a NaNo moment, and that same sentence after it has been reconsidered, revised. Please s
Two years ago now I started a novel for adults, a book that I thought I'd finished last March, until I started it all over again. Almost every single thing about this book has changed, but my protagonist's first name has not. She is and she always will be Becca, a name I love, a name I feel particularly close to, thanks to my friendship with Becca of the hugely wise and always calming book blog known as Bookstack. Becca reads fine books and she tells us what she thinks—honestly, without rancor. Many, many of my own book purchases have been made in the wake of a Bookstack review.
Today I am blessed to be featured on Becca's Bookstack, with a truly generous review of
You Are My Only. The odd thing about this is that I had planned to write about Becca here today. Planned to release this small excerpt from the novel that bears her name. I am but 26,000 words into this utterly redesigned book. I am writing slow, letting the story find me. But here is Becca, a snatch of fiction, surely, but written with the sense of an angel close behind me as I write.
In Siena she drank the Chianti Vin ordered. She walked beside him, down the crowded streets, in the shuffle between shops and bicycles and flower vendors, rounds of cheese, painted porcelain, trays of marbled paper. She walked among the bright silk flags that marked out each contrade—Unicorn, Snail, Caterpillar, Goose, Tortoise, Dragon, Eagle, Ram, Owl, Shell, Porcupine, Giraffe, Wave, Wolf, Panther, Forest, Tower—each with its own emblem and history of pride. The colored silks hung from poles and windows. They were draped across the shoulders of women and wrapped around the heads of men, and in every contrade, Vin bought Becca a scarf and knotted it around her waist until she wore a skirt of all Siena, and when the wind blew the colors flew up into her frames.
She photographed second hands and steeples.
She photographed herds of butterflies.
She photographed Vin asleep, Vin in the window, framed by the quivering moon.
I had one of those days yesterday (they come on me from time to time) when I asked myself some serious questions about the writing life. Does it matter, this thing that I do? Would life be simpler, less angst-producing, less panic stricken, altogether more orderly and calm, if I stopped writing stories down in favor of living more fully? Have I, in the end, achieved what I set out to achieve—or did I ever actually have a plan? What should I have done that I didn't do? What is still possible? Why, after all these years, is writing so hard? I write young adult novels (among other things), but I don't write
typical young adult novels, as the gorgeous (inside and out)
Booking Mama so poignantly points out on her blog today. I care a lot about the sort of things that many readers pass right by. I once tried to write a book that shimmered with big-time commercial possibility. I failed. Miserably. For the life of me I do not know how such a thing gets done.
For a long time I sat in a quiet place thinking about these things. I'd hear the ping of email coming in from across the way, but I didn't rise to find the news. Finally, feeling no less good or smart for all my mental meanderings, I returned to my desk, opened my email, and was forcefully reminded of why I am still, after all these years, a writer. Because I cannot help myself, for one thing. And because my life would be bereft without the many kind and intelligent souls that writing ushers in.
Yesterday my email was full of saving graces. You, you graces, know who you are (Julie P., you are pure grace, too), and how grateful I am. Among the emailers was one
James Lecesne—author, actor, activist, man of great heart—who wrote to say that he would be coming into town today to share his remarkable documentary film
"After the Storm" at the offices of one forward-leaning law firm. Maybe we could get together beforehand, James said. Absolutely, I thought. Absolutely. And so today, that's where I'll be—downtown breaking bread with James, a man I'd have never had the privilege of meeting had it not been for books and book festivals and a shared interest in writing stories that are invested in language and spring from the heart.
You Are My Only is my thirteenth book. In the early days, when that fact would surface, I was given all kinds of advice about how to go straight from 12 to 14 and thereby skip the unluckiness in between. I shrugged it off. A number is just a number, not a superstition. Right?
But in the 24 hours leading up to the long-awaited book launch party at Radnor Memorial Library last evening, I began to rethink my no superstition policy. I lost my glasses. I lost my camera. It rained most fierce just ahead of the party hour. Most concerning was that mid-day hour, when it was discovered that the copies of the books that were to be sold that night had not yet made their way to Children's Book World, which had so kindly offered to join us at the event. I admit it: A few tears were shed.
And yet, I will look back on last night as one of the luckiest nights of my life. Let's talk about what happened at six o'clock, at Elizabeth Mosier's incredibly beautiful and hospitable home, where writers feasted on Elizabeth's amazing Mexican meal. Libby is always there—a hugely talented writer and reader with a generous heart—and everyone in my neck of the woods (me perhaps above all) is grateful. Let's talk about Pam Sedor, a dear friend, who has given me a home for years at her luxurious Winsor Room. Let's talk about John, one of the most intelligent young readers I know (in fact, I refuse to believe that he is anything other than a
New York Times Book Review writer), who sent me an email at this book's very start and who, late yesterday afternoon, sent me a link to
his most stunning Dear Author review. Let's talk about
Florinda and
Amy and
Melissa and
Caroline, who wrote loving notes just ahead of the event. Let's talk about Ellen Trachtenberg, a friend who has stood by me throughout the publication of this book, lending me her perspective, know-how, and smarts. Let's talk about Amy Rennert, my agent, who was on the phone with me several times during the course of yesterday, and who sent a beautiful email last evening. Let's talk about those dancers, St. Johner's, writers, Zumbaists, long-time friends, neighbors, teachers, book clubbers, colleagues who worked their way in from the storm. I wondered, to tell you the truth, if anyone would. They did. They were there. Each one a treasure.
I hope that they know they are treasured.
In my opening remarks last evening I talked a little about what it takes to be a writer.
Sunday, 8 PM. A day of writing behind me, which is to say, a day of reworking what had already been worked. In the coming week,
You Are My Only will launch. On Tuesday I will name the winners of the
You Are My Only Treasure Hunt. On Wednesday, I will return to my friends at Rutgers-Camden (thank you, Lisa Zeidner, hello, Daniel Wallace) to teach, to lecture, to critique, to read. On Thursday evening, at Radnor Memorial Library, thanks to the good graces of Pam Sedor, I will gather with my dear friends and reflect—those festivities made even brighter by the goodness of Elizabeth Mosier.
One waits a long time for a book to find itself, and a long time (too) for a book to find its way into the world. One hopes for things, and by my blogger friends, my reader friends, my writer friends—my friends—I have been blessed.
I found this single fuscia leave today on my long walk.
That, my many loved ones, is my heart.
That isn't me running for joy. She's younger, cuter, endowed with glossy hair. But when I saw her yesterday afternoon at Valley Forge National Park where I had gone after a day of peaceful writing, I stopped and memorialized her moment with this picture. I was feeling that way myself. I was leaning toward good, and toward the future.
My Facebook friends heard me tell this story on Friday, but it bears repeating here.
You Are My Only, a little book if ever there was one, a book that nonetheless believed in itself, went back to press last week to boost its presence in bookstores. I'm not going to pretend that the numbers are huge; they aren't. I'm not going to suggest that a second print run gives this writer celebrity status. Celebrity status is a state of mind. No matter what happens, my friends, I will not enter that realm. I like the world in which I'm living.
What mattered to me about the news is this:
You Are My Only would not have been given that boost without my book blogger
friends. These are people busy with their own lives—their jobs, their children, their partners, their dreams, their book projects, their countless other blogger friends—who stopped and started banging on a drum.
Pay attention, they said.
A book is coming. They stopped to read, earlier than they'd planned to. They created contests, at their own expense. They entered my own crazy
You Are My Only Treasure Hunt, a complicated ditty that took, yes, blogger time. They Twittered and Facebooked and emailed and said,
We believe in you, Beth, and in this book. This was a rally based largely on blind trust. There are no thanks great enough. There are names and people I will never forget: Amy Riley, Pam Van Hylckama Vlieg, Danielle Smith, Florinda Lantos Pendley Vasquez, Melissa Sarno, Colleen Mondor, Wendy Robards, Shanyn Day, Serena Agusto-Cox, Melissa Walker, Leila Roy, Mandy Stanley King, Ed Goldberg, Lorie Anne Grover, Little Willow, Caroline Leavitt, Aquafortis, Valerie Burleigh, Vivian Lee Mahoney, The Perpetual Page-Turner, Sarah Laurence, John Jacobs, Lilian Natel, The Story Siren, Susan Taylor Brown, Carol Weiss, Mundie Moms, Medieval Bookworm, Hippies Beauty and Books, Books Thoughts and a Few Adventures, The Reading Zone, Kay's Bookshelf, Bonnie Jacobs, Elizabeth Mosier, Ruth Koepel, Anna Lefler, and Books and Movies, who wrote Saturday evening and touched me so deeply (thank you so much, Carrie) with
these beautiful words. A huge thank you to Darcy Jacobs of Family Circle.
And for all of you who have been there in the past, for other books and other dreams of mine, don't think for a second that I have forgotten you. It has all made an enormous difference. And if I have neglected any name here (and gosh, I have feared that, especially since I do not google my own name), tell me, and after I pick myself up off the floor from shame, I will make amends.
I have been blogging for four years now. I have been privy, throughout this time, to the conversation about whether or not book bloggers can make an actual difference. I want to say here, again, for the indelible record, that of course they do. Book bloggers give writers hope that their work will be read and considered—no small thing. Book bloggers stand at the
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Beth, thank you. Your incandescent writing is a gift to me and many others. Thank you for sharing your gifts.