You could say that I have pretty lousy book-launch party luck. Once, for example, a short first printing left us with only a handful of books for the book party. Once we launched the book on the very same night that every available parking space had already been consumed by another event, sending some would-be party goers home.
And then there was last night—24 hours or so into an historic deluge that had drains busted, streets flooded, cars stranded, basements swimming. This was the GOING OVER launch day. My email kept pinging with notes from people who had planned to come but couldn't. Oh dear, I thought. Oh, my. Because who would drive flooded streets in dark, unstopping rain for a book? Who would dare float toward Berlin?
You could say that I have lousy luck, but I'm not going to claim that here. Because the fact is this: despite impossible weather that demanded all variety of rubber foot gear, we had a party. Pam and Molly of Radnor Memorial Library are famous for their generosity, and there they were again—gracious, open-hearted, slicing into that cake. Beside that cake stood the
GOING OVER vessel my clay-arts friend, Karen Bernstein, had made.
And in the audience—because we did have an audience—were my father and husband, neighbors of now and a dear neighbor of then, long-time friends, fellow writers, a Berlin scholar and a Berlin traveler, the inimitable Kevin Ferris of the
Inquirer, three sweet-and-smart-as-heck Little Flower Catholic High School students (Kathleen, Amber, Julia) and their Sister Kim, and a Radnor High contingent—Rib, Jim, Tom—who had orchestrated a sweet surprise. They look precisely the same as they did those years ago. I could not believe it.
Then there was Heather, that gorgeous young woman featured above, who was the inspiration for Ada in GOING OVER. Her face. Her deep connection to color and life. Some of the secrets she once whispered into my ear while I sat in her hair-salon chair. I love that I can show you who she is, right here. Ada is one of my favorite characters, and Heather is even greater than fiction.
Those who came last night had to brave the weather. They had to decide to leave their homes in a sinking mess of a day and make the drive. Sister Kim and her girls ultimately spent three hours in a car. Soup had to drive the highways. My father had to dodge the flooded potholes. Kevin had to walk a long block in soaking rain.
Everyone had to disregard the police barrier that signaled that, due to excessive rains, the road to the library was closed.
It was not closed. Pam and Molly made sure of that.
Afterward, my dear friends Elizabeth Mosier and Kelly Simmons treated me to their glorious selves, their raucous laughter, pizza, white wine. But let's get back to their "glorious selves" part.
Thank you. Everyone. For coming. Thank all of you who would have been there if you could. I really believe in this story, GOING OVER. But more than that, I believe in you.
My dear friends Elizabeth Mosier and Chris Mills sent me this photo last night, following their excursion to Radnor Memorial Library.
We writers live in the forest of doubt, or at least this writer does. This photo startled me—this idea of a dear librarian (Pam Sedor) taking the time to locate my books and to place them all on one wall. This idea of a celebration going on while I've been going on elsewhere.
I forget, often, about the words I've left behind. I focus, too often, on what must be done
right now, on what isn't done yet.
I neglect to pause. This celebration at Radnor Memorial Library—discovered by friends—is cause for a pause.
We'll be celebrating
Going Over at this very Radnor Memorial Library on April 30, 7:30. This will be my only formal reading from the book, and this party is open to all; cake will be served. Please join us.
In the meantime, today, I am celebrating the work of Michael Sokolove and editor Avery Rome at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House. My class has read Sokolove's fantastic
Drama High. We have questions. We look forward to reflection, to a deep and true conversation.
I have just returned from the matinee showing of my very own high school's production of
Grease, which stars an incredible cast of singers, dancers, attitude shifters, and actors, among them my young friends Alison Mosier-Mills and Cat Mosier-Mills. They belong to that lovely couple Elizabeth Mosier and Chris Mills—okay, so "belong" is the wrong word. But they look just like them, and they have talent coming out of their ears. My father, who was my date and always is at these productions, had a smile on his face for two long hours, and so did I, for many reasons.
I share some of the photos I took—without a flash, I promise. Please also note the uber talented Blake Thomson, a member of my own St. John's Presbyterian Church. He's the blond greaser who shows up in many images; you know it's him because he's kneeling before the old non-souped-up Beamer.
Congratulations to the entire cast!
Last evening, at Bryn Mawr College, the multi-media legend Patti Smith was given the 2013 Katharine Hepburn Medal at an absolutely beautifully orchestrated event.
And oh, did she make us cry. From her heart, without prepared words, she spoke directly to us from the stage above about
Little Women, Jo March, and a certain season when Patti was twenty-two years old and Katharine Hepburn herself came shopping at Scribner's, where Patti was working. Ms. Hepburn had tied an overlarge man's hat to her head with a green ribbon. She asked for help in locating books. While Patti escorted her down the aisles, Ms. Hepburn would note that Spencer (Tracy) would have loved this book or that, giving Patti (she said, so eloquently, so flawlessly) permission years later to shop for her own husband, even after he had passed on.
Sometimes people really are who they are on the page, and I have never doubted that Patti Smith is the Patti Smith of
Just Kids, a book
I loved so much (for its integrity, its soulfulness, its ungreen love, its sentences) that I forfeited meetings with writers at a certain Orlando, FL, event so that I could stay in my hotel room and read it.
Woolgathering, too, reveals the Patti Smith we met last night.
Patti Smith has, she herself has said, always sought to lessen the distance between herself and her audience. She does. She did. Taking on the obvious questions from passersby during the cocktail and dessert hours, allowing us to exclaim over her, noticing us.
"I like your dress," she said, as I stood near, photographing my friend, Elizabeth Mosier, second photo down, above.
I very rarely like my own clothes. I will always love this dress.
Oh, and in case you are wondering? That bit of graffiti up there does in fact belong to me. I try to stay in the background, whenever I can. But sometimes you just have to tell someone how much you love them.
What are we to make of
Woolgathering, this hand-sized book by the legend Patti Smith? First published in 1992 as a Hanuman Book and described by its author (years later, upon its re-release) as absolutely true. The book, legendary singer/writer tells us, was such that in its writing Smith was drawn from her "strange torpor." Here she is, looking back:
In 1991 I lived on the outskirts of Detroit with my husband and two children in an old stone house set by a canal that emptied into Lake Saint Clair. Ivy and morning glory climbed the deteriorating walls. A profusion of grapevines and wild roses draped the balcony, where doves nested in their tangles.... I truly loved my family and our home, yet that spring I experienced a terrible and inexpressible melancholy. I would sit for hours, when my chores were done and the children at school, beneath the willows, lost in thought. That was the atmosphere of my life as I began to compose Woolgathering.
There are photographs in this slight book—many of clouds, many of childhood places. There are concentrated memories, phantoms, distillations intensely personal and inescapably vivid. Some of the passages begin like the beginnings of psalms, or songs, while others break toward a private vocabulary.
Here is a line:
Exclamation! Questions of origin, scope.
Here is a scene, a codex, a rebus:
How happy we are as children. How the light is dimmed by the voice of reason. We wander through life—a setting without a stone. Until one day we take a turn and there it lies on the ground before us, a drop of faceted blood, more real than a ghost, glowing. If we stir it may disappear. If we fail to act nothing will be reclaimed. There is a way in this little riddle. To utter one's own prayer. In what manner it doesn't matter. For when it is over that person shall possess the only jewel worth keeping. The only grain worth giving away.
Woolgathering is a book of parts. It is a prayer set into motion. It is a return to child awe, a vindication of at least some part of adult responsibilities to make sense of things, to cohere. What do our minds do when we let them roam and wonder? Something perhaps, like this. Let Patti Smith lead the way.
Thanks to my friend Elizabeth Mosier, I will be seeing Patti Smith this coming Thursday evening at Bryn Mawr College. Elizabeth knows what a huge Patti Smith fan I am (I could not stop raving about
Just Kids, for example (a book featured prominently in my forthcoming
Handling the Truth), or about
Smith's interview with Johnny Depp in the pages of
Vanity Fair). She knows how proud I was of her piece about Smith in her alum magazine,
here. And she knows that, even if I cannot find just the right cocktail dress to wear (because I end up looking so lousy in all of them), I will stand proudly at her side on Thursday, when the Main Line welcomes Patti to town.
For more thoughts on memoirs, memoir making, and prompt exercises, please visit my dedicated Handling the Truth page.
In short: Karen Rile amazes.
In long: Karen Rile is a creative force, a tireless teacher, a super-human funny one, a jaw-dropping mom, a friend. She paved the way for me as an adjunct at the University of Pennsylvania (Beth: Karen, where do you file the grades? Karen: I will call you and explain. Beth: What do you do with jubilant procrastinators? Karen: I will call you and explain. Beth: What do you do if your students don't all fit in your room? Karen: I will call you and explain.) She joins me in writing for the
Philadelphia Inquirer (Karen's stuff goes viral while my stuff remains rooted in a petri dish). She had four children to my one and every single one of them is a star, with no little help from Karen, who has encouraged, driven, photographed, packaged, and web sited up their dreams. She sends hysterical, private riffs regarding various Facebook commentaries that upend my dark moods of injustice. For that alone, she's priceless.
Karen Rile and me: we're friends.
When she told me that she and two of her daughters (Lauren and Pascale) were launching a new literary magazine (Cleaver: cutting-edge words), I had two thoughts:
* now Karen will never sleep, and
* this will be outstanding.
Friends, I was right. This inventive, thrilling, wow-whooping magazine has just been released in its .5 preview version and it crosses many spectra—art, poetry, fiction, essays, and the chop-chop stuff in between—while featuring my own other personal friends like Elizabeth Mosier, Lynn Levin, and Rachel Pastin. It's also beautifully designed. It's also technologically advanced. Choose your channel (HTML, Text, Mobile), sit back, and receive.
Also, judging from the fact that Karen is sending me emails at 3 AM and I am answering shortly thereafter, I was not exaggerating the no-sleep stuff.
I was lucky enough to be included in this first issue (
click click). I like this, Karen wrote to me, when she received my piece. But, um, what is it, exactly?
I don't actually know. You'll have to judge for yourself. It starts like this, below, and it ends
here.
I said it would be nice (look how simple I made it: nice) not to be marooned in the blue-black of night with my thoughts, I said the corrugated squares of the downstairs quilt accuse me, I said the sofa pillows are gape-jawed, I said there are fine red hairs in the Pier 1 rug that will dislodge and drown in my lungs, I said I can’t breathe, I said, Please. Go chill with Cleaver.
For reasons too complex, too personal to render fully here, yesterday was a day of deep emotion.
There were, however, friends all along the way. Elizabeth Mosier, the beauty in the dark gray dress, will always stand, in my mind, on either side of the day—at its beginnings, at its very late-night end. For your mid-day phone kindness, for your breathtaking introduction of me at last night's book launch, for the night on the town, for the talk in the car, for the bounty of your family—Libby, I will always be so grateful.
To Patti Mallet and her friend, Anne, who drove all the way from Ohio to be part of last night's celebration, I will never forget your gesture of great kindness, your love for green things at Chanticleer, and a certain prayer beside my mother's stone. Patti and I are there, above, at the pond which inspired two of my books.
To Pam Sedor, the lovely blonde in violet, a world-class Dragon Boat rower recently returned from an international competition in Hong Kong, the librarian who makes books happen and dreams come true, and to Molly, who puts up with my techno anxieties, and to Radnor Memorial Library, for being my true home—thank you, always.
To my friends who came (from church, from books, from architecture, from corporate life, from the early years through now)—thank you. Among you were Avery Rome, the beautiful red-head who edits Libby, me, and others at the
Philadelphia Inquirer, and Kathy Barham, my brilliant and wholly whole son's high school English teacher, who is also a poet (shown here in green). To the town of Wayne, which received our open-air tears and laughter late into the night (and to Cyndi, Kelly, Libby, Avery, and Kathye who cried and laughed with me)—thank you.
And also, finally, to Heather Mussari—my muse (along with Tamra Tuller) for the Berlin novel, a young lady so wise beyond her years, and a cool, cool chick who (along with Sandy) does my hair—I arrived at 11:15 at your shop inconsolable. You listened. You said all the right things by telling the truth and telling it kindly. I adore you, Heather. I hope you know that.
Several weeks ago, Avery Rome of the
Philadelphia Inquirer got in touch with a question. Would I be interested in writing in occasional pieces for the paper's Currents section? Pieces about my intersection with my city and its fringes, perhaps. Pieces about the people I meet or the questions I have. Avery has been at work at the
Inquirer through many seasons—vital and invigorating, disciplined and rigorous, enriching the pages with literature and poetics, even, with different and differing points of view. If the
Inquirer has gone through many phases, it has always been clear on one thing: Avery Rome is indispensable.
Would I be interested? she'd asked.
Well, who would not be? I'd have reason to sit and talk with Avery, for one thing, which is a pleasure every time. And I would be joined in these pages by two incredibly special women, Karen Rile and Elizabeth Mosier. Both are first-rate teachers and mentors—Karen at Penn and Elizabeth at Bryn Mawr College. Both write sentences that thrill me, stories that impress. Both are mothers of children I love, children whose plays I have gone to, whose art I have worn, whose questions have made me think, whose inner beauty is as transparent as their outer gorgeousness. And both are very essential friends.
Karen and Elizabeth's zinging essays have already appeared in the
Inquirer and can be found
here and
here.
My piece appears today. It was commissioned and written during the high heat of last week, before the gentling rains of this weekend. It takes me back to Chanticleer, a garden that inspired two of my books (
Ghosts in the Garden, Nothing but Ghosts) and is a source of escape, still. The essay ends with these words and includes two of my photographs of small, sacred places at this gorgeous pleasure garden:
In the high heat of this summer I find myself again returning to Chanticleer — walking the garden alone or with friends. The sunflowers, gladiola, and hollyhocks are tall in the cutting garden. The water cascades (a clean sheet of cool) over the stone faces of the ruins and sits in a black hush in the sarcophagus. Bursts of color illuminate the dark shade of the Asian Woods. The creek runs thin but determined.
I don't know why I am forever surprised by all this. I don't know how it is that a garden I know so well — its hills, its people, its tendencies, its blocks of shade — continues to startle me, to teach me, to remind me about the sweet, cheap thrill of unbusyness, say, or the impossibility of perfect control. We do not commandeer nature — gardeners know this best of all. We are born of it, live with it, are destined for return.
Dust to dust, yes. But why not shade and blooms in between? Why not gardens in this summer of infernal, angry heat?
Wishing us all more rain, less heat, and the goodness of editors who love words, gardens that still grow, friendships that nurture, and children who move us on this Sunday morning.
As many of you know, we have been hard at work on Young Writers Take the Park—an opportunity for Philadelphia-area teens to submit their work for consideration for publication (and a public reading), to work with authors in an intimate workshop setting, to meet some of the best young adult authors living and working in Pennsylvania today, and to get to know the brand-new independent bookstore, The Spiral Bookcase.
Elizabeth Mosier, who has one of the best pairs of lit eyes on the planet (and a sophisticated critique vocabulary, I might add) helped me judge the many semi-finalists that were presented by the teachers (and friends) of Conestoga High School, T/E Middle School, Villa Maria Academy, Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls, and Penn Alexander. To all those who took the time to submit, and to all those who encouraged participation, we thank you.
We were unanimous in our selections. The winners are:
Celeste Flahaven “Untitled,” Villa Maria Academy
"Breeze rippled the tall grass and the flaxen heads of wheat bent to reveal golden undersides...."
Maria Dulin, “Prodigy,” Villa Maria Academy
"Take away anything, but you take away my music, my hearing, then you may as well take away my life."
Calamity Rose Jung-Allen, Penn Alexander
"Pudgy cats yowl in alleyways, deserted..."
Olivia McCloskey, “Goodbye,” Villa Maria Academy
"Will remembered sliding down onto the floor, his back against the wall, the phone clutched to his ear by his white-knuckled hand. That was the phone call that had changed his life forever."
Lauren Harris, “The Confessions of a Not-So-Only Child,” T/E Middle School
<
Young Writers Take the Park — I kind of like the sound of that.
For the initiative and the daring and the perseverance, we have The Spiral Bookcase to thank—that new independent in Manayunk, PA.
We'll be joined that day by the greats—Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Lindner, and Elizabeth Mosier. We'll be serenaded by local bands Melrose Q and Evan's Orphanage. And we'll have teen writers from throughout the area on hand for a special writing workshop, not to mention a special celebration of the winners of a teen writing contest.
(I'll be there, too, moseying around.)
Please click on the poster above and consider joining us. Please feel free to spread the news.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 2/21/2012
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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
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Beth Kephart ,
on 11/6/2011
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Just a few things, should they be of interest:
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.
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.
and warms my heart on this day. There are books that don't appear to be the right match for this reader, or for that one. How do we thank those who look beyond those concerns and begin to read anyway? That is what Aquafortis did. She tells the story
here.
(Breaking my heart with her final words.)
And great thanks too, to Elizabeth Mosier, for the phone call today—the chance to talk out loud about this book and where it came from and what it means to me. Those conversations are so appreciated, especially with a reader and writer as talented as Libby.
Thank you, both.
Elizabeth Mosier has been celebrating the launch of her novella
"The Playgroup" this week, and this afternoon friends from all corners of her life gathered in appreciation of both her work and her spirit.
I came home with 114 photographs and share but a handful of them here. There's Chris, Libby's cupcake-stacking husband. There's Libby's youngest, Cat, on the right, tempting the rest of us with treats. There's Libby herself, reading to those who gathered, and, below her, her eldest, Alison, listening to words long-wrought and savored. Finally, among the cast of mothers, teachers, friends, and writers stood Kelly Simmons, whose second novel,
The Bird House, I loved, and Lynn Rosen, the creator of the fabulous
Open Book series.
Anyone who knows Elizabeth Mosier knows at least these things:
She has a fine, discerning mind, an almost unearthly ability to read into a book just precisely what the author meant to place there, even if there's still fuzz around the work's edges.
She is an extraordinary teacher, beloved by her students, who remain her friends for years and years.
She is a very fine mother of two exquisite young ladies, and a thrower of parties that are forever fondly remembered.
She is there for you. She there is for us. She makes room in her life for others.
That is why those of us who are lucky to be Elizabeth's friends are so very excited for her that
The Playgroup, a novella, is just now being released by the Gemma Open Door Foundation which, in the words of the North American Series Editor Brian Bouldry, "provides fresh stories, new ideas, and essential resources for young people and adults as they embrace the power of reading and the written word."
I had the great privilege of reading
The Playgroup early on in its making. Its language sings and sizzles as it traces the thoughts and fears of a new mother now facing a troubled second pregnancy. Elizabeth knows how women think and what they actually say; she knows the commerce of young motherhood and the landscape of Arizona. I can't wait to read the book now in its final form, and I encourage all of you to seek it out.
Brava, Libby.
Last Sunday I met Cat at Whole Foods. Cat is one of Elizabeth Mosier's two beautiful, artful daughters, and she had questions for me—questions about the writing life, the reading life, the remembered life. Noting that I site many of my stories near my home—in or around Philadelphia, at the garden down the way, within the province of the four-cornered town, up and down the roads I've driven for nearly three-quarters of my life—she asked me to explain why. She wanted, I think, to know what about this geography, this landscape inspires me.
I'm sure I didn't have an articulate answer. Often, I don't. I had, instead, all these images in my mind's eye—the slant of the sun, the black cows, the rows of unharvested corn, the pockets of color on the ridge at the Willows. Today I went out and took a photo for Cat.
This is it.
This is why.
This is because.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 8/24/2010
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Today I am in debt to the many who have embraced
Dangerous Neighbors and made today, its launch day, alive and so beautiful, in so many ways.
Thank you, Amy at My Friend Amy, for doing so much, so quietly, so dearly — for finding the energy, for working (with Nicole Bonia) toward the ideas and the ideals,
for coining the phrase The Beth Effect, for believing in the power of hope, and finding it.
Thank you, Melissa Walker, for asking me to tell
the cover story of
Dangerous Neighbors for your Barnes and Noble blog at Unabashedly Bookish.
Thank you, Holly Cupala, for inviting me to
share some of the secrets behind
Dangerous Neighbors (and to conduct a book giveaway) for your own wonderful blog.
Thank you, Deborah at Books, Movies, and Chinese Food, for your
gorgeous review and for so kindly posting your thoughts on Amazon. What a kindness.
Thank you, Anna Lefler, beloved comedienne and faithful Twitterer.
Thank you, Mandy, for more than I can ever tell or say.
Thank you, Karen Mahoney, for this
incredible blog nod (and a fantastic list of other blogs you cannot live without).
Thank you, Elizabeth Mosier, for your party-hat wearing (even if it did unsmooth your enviably smooth hair).
Thank you, Jay Kirk, Sy Montgomery, Katrina Kenison, J.C. Castner, Kate Moses, Hipwritermama, Erin McIntosh, Lorie Ann Grover, Melissa Middleman Firman, Jill Santopolo, Rody Gratton, Paul DiLorenzo, Andra Bell, Ivy Goodman, Nate, Nate, Laura, Kelly, Tirsa, Richard, Liz, Jan, Barbara, Jerry, Rosellen Brown, and Alyson Hagy.
Thank you, all of Egmont USA, and thank you, Amy Rennert, for calling, and thank those of you who encourage champagne and a little private reflection on a day that so much corporate work calls, and thank you any that I have inadvertently missed. I don't mean to miss goodness. Ever.
For so many reasons, this book feels like my first, ever.
I have all of you to thank for that.
By:
Beth Kephart ,
on 5/7/2010
Blog:
Beth Kephart Books
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Today, in Elizabeth Mosier's class at Bryn Mawr College, I told stories about all those times the world has said no to me. No, this book will never sell. No, your writing sings too slow a song. No you can't combine this with this other and hope to achieve that. No, you can't make up a genre and expect that it will sell. No, you can't color outside the lines. No, we don't like the way you've colored within them. No, we won't hire you for that job. No, I do not wish to know you. No, I will not continue the friendship that only last week we appeared to be having. It happens often where I live; it doesn't matter how many books I've published or how many client projects fill my cabinet drawers or how much I think I've learned about relationships. And it doesn't only happen to me. All of us, on one day or another, are looking no-ness in the eye.
I started gardening a few years ago, and the no's started hurting less. Then I started dancing, and a greater easiness set in. I got into the habit of daily counting my blessings, and the no-ness became an even dimmer ache; I would not let it paralyze me.
Late this afternoon, I came upon the following words on MSNBC.com, and I thought at once that I must share them with you. The story is about the ways in which
bottled anger can actually damage your heart, and the words are these:
Anger can strangle blood flow in the heart and lead to abnormal heart rhythms, and has been linked to an increased risk of heart disease. I have to think that bottled heartache can do the same. My message with this post is simple, then: Learn from the no's what you can, and then move past them. Keep your own heart in tact; let it beat free.
With thanks to Elizabeth Mosier (author of
My Life as a Girl and party thrower supreme), Christopher Mills, and their wonderful girls; Jay Kirk (author of the upcoming
Kingdom Under Glass) and my dad; the fantastic people at Children's Book World, who provided not just the space and time, but this fab pinata; and all of those who took time from their busy schedules to join us for a memorable evening.
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So great to have you and your dad at the performance today! Thank you for these GORGEOUS photos!
xo