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I am deeply honored this morning by the Shelf Elf's review of The Heart is Not a Size, a story inspired by a trip that I took to Anapra, a squatter's village, in 2005. I want this book to matter because the people of Anapra do. Because theirs is a story that doesn't get told; it is suppressed, instead, by the drug-war headlines.

The Shelf Elf has given me many gifts these past few weeks—that stunning review of Nothing but Ghosts, this remarkable review of Heart. And as if that were all not quite enough, the Shelf Elf generously invited me to participate in the Winter Blog Blast Tour 2009; I'll be her featured interviewee this coming Wednesday. Please take the time to read all the interviews during this remarkable week-long feature. I've been online this morning doing just that. This is blogging at its best.

As those who read this blog know well, Nothing but Ghosts was written in the wake of my own mother's passing—inspired by the finch, the fox, and the songs that edged near to assure me that her spirit was yet within reach. Much of the book takes place in a fictionalized version of Chanticleer, the pleasure garden. In this photograph, the great katsura tree rises over a bench a gardener made, and those who sit there can look out over Doug's cutting garden and the wild profusion of asparagus. Beneath the shade of that katsura is a stone I asked an artist to create for me, a stone that Doug placed, just right, between the shade of limbs. The stone reads "the wedge of sun between us." It's a line from my memoir, Ghosts in the Garden, a line that memorializes my mother.

This morning, Shelf Elf let me know that she had posted a review of Ghosts. Her extraordinary words touched me deeply, for she had seen what it is that I try to do with books, writing in part, "Beth writes about the quiet miracles of real life. She helps readers to see that ordinary experience, all of it – the trouble and sadness and simple day-to-day joy of it – is worth noticing." I know this isn't always an approach that resonates with readers; it is, however, what I have chosen to do in this book life of mine, and I am so grateful, always, when touched by the grace of readers who wait, who read, who imagine themselves inside these worlds.

We've been talking about outlining, not outlining. Below is a scene from a novel-in-progress that emerged from nowhere, then set a tone.

Before I get to that, though, may I extend enormous gratitude to The Shelf Elf, for her truly dear and generous words about House of Dance. I've been working through the deepest dark of this night (rain outside, a drumming in my head). I found her post by almost accident. I am so grateful.

The agent left us there, outside the locked-door of our graduation house. “To the sea,” Tim said, taking the lead for once, spinning an imaginary umbrella in the spitting-with-winter air. We drew our plastic hoods over our heads and when we got to the beach, we took off our shoes and ran. Ellie got to the water before the rest of us could. She stomped down a wave, and then I joined her, and Robb did, and the waves were freezing—oh God, the whole beach was. When I turned I saw Tim and Kevin in the distance, walking the rusted pipe that stretched parallel to the shore. “All the way to Cape May,” Tim directed, and now we were running toward Tim and Kevin, our shoes in our hands, clambering up the pipe, catching our balance, marching south.

The wind blew the salt into our skin. Robb’s hair rose and fell like it might fly. We walked single file, the rust beneath our feet, until the skies grew dusky and Kevin jumped from the pipe and reached his arms toward me. I leapt high and up and down, and I knew he’d catch me. I knew that he’d hold me, and he did, and then we both turned and saw Ellie still high on the rusted pipe, Ellie alone, and Kevin put me down and reached for her, and now Tim was taking Robb into his arms. Then we all stood just inches from the first froth of waves and tossed clamshells until real darkness fell.