What is the what in publishing? How funny is Anne Lamott? And Alyson Hagy: thank you.

New York City was at its hospitable best yesterday.  Through the windows of a train I watched the sun both rise and set on Manhattan.  In between I opined on the future of YA at the Publishing Perspectives Conference, saw old friends (Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Jennifer Brown, Laura Geringer, Melissa Sarno, Dennis Abrams, Ed Nawotka), made new ones, did a little Amen shout as Doris Janhsen, David Levithan, Francine Lucidon, Eliot Schrefer, and Dennis Abrams (pictured above), reminded people what publishing is really about, or should be about:  good books.  By mid-afternoon, I was sitting with the remarkable team at Gotham, discussing the future of Handling the Truth.  I was thinking—truth—how lucky I am.  (Then got even luckier sneaking in a little stolen time with Jessica Shoffel of Philomel and my own son, at 30th Street Station.)

It took every bit of driving craftswomanship I have (and there isn't much) to get to Anne Lamott's talk (and promotion of her new book on prayer, Help Thanks Wow) at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church by the 7:30 start.  My father had saved a seat for me in the balcony, and a lucky thing that was, for there were at least 1,000 people gathered in this church where I grew up, wed, and baptized my son.  Anne does what I cannot do.  Talks without a plan ("I have prepared nothing," she began), works her way toward a theme, gets grace right out there, where it belongs, and triggers a bout of group hysteria with a single word (Okay) and a prop (my father's pen).

And so we laughed.  And so it was ten before I finally got home, after a day that had begun at 3 AM.  The mail had been brought in.  There was a card, the smart, precise handwriting of an amazing writer whom I love.  Alyson Hagy, you of the million things to do, you of the bad bronchitis, Good Lord, girl, you didn't have to.  But I love this from you.  I will treasure it, always.

Read more...

Tomorrow: A Day so Full, so Rich

5:26 AM Train to Philadelphia

6:30 AM Train to NYC

8:30 AM Pre-conference conversations with my dear friends Jennifer Brown (our nation's ambassador for children's books), Laura Geringer (editor of five of my YA books), Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (a very dear friend with whom I have strolled so much of New York (and Central Park)), and Melissa Sarno (the fab blogger at This, Too, and the brain child behind the title of Handling the Truth). I'll also have the great pleasure of seeing, again, Ed Nawotka and Dennis Abrams of Publishing Perspectives and, later, Eliot Schrefer. 

9:30 AM Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers:  Tomorrow's YA/
Publishing Perspectives Conference, Keynote Address, Scholastic Building, New York City

10:30 AM: Drawing the Line: What's the Difference Between a YA and an Adult Book?/
Publishing Perspectives Conference Panel, with Andrew Losowsky, Books Editor, Huffington Post, Aimee Friedman, Senior Editor, Scholastic Trade, Elizabeth Perle, Editor, Huffington Post Youth Network, and Dan Weiss, Editor-at-large, St. Martin's Press

2:00 PM  Marketing meeting with the very good people of Gotham/Penguin (launching Handling the Truth next August)

3:15ish PM  Grabbing a hug from the one and only Jessica Shoffel of Philomel/Penguin (who took such good care of Small Damages)

4:40 PM Train from NYC to Philly, second train from Philly to Bryn Mawr in time to see...

7:30 PM  Anne Lamott, speaking at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, where I will be joined by Deacon Supreme, my own father, Horace Kephart

I will do nothing on Thursday, or almost nothing.  But tomorrow, I will leap, headlong.

Read more...

Mother's Day

This morning, my email contained a message from Anne Lamott, one in the occasional essays she'll sometimes send out to the writer/reader world.  It's an essay called "Why I hate Mother's Day," and in it she makes this argument:  "...Mother's Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women:  that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha!  Every woman's path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers.  I say that without judgment:  It is, sadly, true.  An unhealthy mother's love is withering."

I've always felt odd about this holiday, too, though hate is a word I reserve for oil spills and terrorism, war and earthquake/tornado aftermaths.  I feel funny, especially, because mothering, to me, has been—well, it's just this simple:  I love the kid to death; he makes me happy.  He hasn't burdened me, he's only broadened me.  He's surprised me, and he's taught me, and he's great to look at, and he's funny.  I don't think I need a gift for getting to hang out with my kid, or some fancy meal.  I feel ashamed, in fact, when they are offered.  What I wish, though, is that my own mother were alive, for since her passing, three and a half years ago, I've been denied so many things—the chance to tell her stories I know she'd like to hear, the chance to bring her flowers and cook her meals, a reason to go hunting for the perfect mother gift.  I bought my mother gifts all year round.  I hardly go into shops anymore; there doesn't seem to be much of a reason.

Yesterday, during a wind storm, I went to visit my mother's grave, still tended by my father with extraordinary care.  Still there, on the ledge, were the silk amaryllis and the ornamental instrument I'd taken during Christmas—so many snowfalls and rainfalls since.  I rocked in the new begonias among my father's sweet pink plants while the tree limbs above my head cracked and twisted.  I doubt the begonias are where I left them.  I imagine the deer came in, or the wind rushed through, or some rabbit had a field day.  But I took the flowers to my mother's grave for my own sake, and because buying for a mother is still a daughter's privilege.

Read more...

Second Chances

I posted earlier this week about the gifts of friendship yielded by the mostly private writing life; I wrote, particularly, about Jayne Anne Phillips.

My story was about the time I'd spent with Jayne Anne in Prague; Jay Kirk, that enormously gifted writer whom I've praised in other blog entries (most recently that gorgeous Rwanda piece in GQ) and whom I've benefited so hugely from knowing since 2005, wrote to tell me about the quality of a critique Jayne Anne had given him at Bread Loaf. The email dialogue went (paraphrasically) thusly:

Me: Wait. What year were you at Bread Loaf?

Jay: I was there in '96.

Me: As was I. Grace Paley. Anne Lamott. The gorgeous Olena Kaltyiak Davis. Jane Satterfield. Brooks Hansen.

Jay: Wait. You were in our class? Or were you teaching...

Well, indeed. You get that point. Apparently, I've known Jay since 1996. Apparently, we sat in the same small classroom. Surely, I read pages from his then novel-in-progress; I remember the beating pulse of the guy's talent. And beyond this being one of those ain't-life-strange conjunctions, it raises for me this question:

How do I keep managing to trip up against blazing talents who are also (don't ever take this for granted) hugely good souls? The sort of people I need to know, because without them I wouldn't think nearly as hard. I had the chance to know Jay a long time ago, it seems. I was given (fluke that it was) a second chance. Thank goodness I was finally paying attention in '05. It would have been lousy if I hadn't.

Read more...