returning to Florence, Italy, with April Lindner's LOVE, LUCY

Today, with her vivid reimagining of EM Forster's A Room With a View in a YA novel she titled Love, Lucy, April Lindner has returned me to that city of art—Florence, Italy. She has given me Lucy, torn between two cities and two boys, a father's demands and her own instincts. She has taken me to Fiesole, a village outside Florence where I traveled many years ago—a town that, in fact, became the setting of my favorite published short story.

It's all so clear, in April's book. I see the streets as if I am walking them, the red-tiled roofs as if I am up above them, that Arno as if I am Vespa-ing by.

And that first photo in this post, right down to the red bike, is a picture I took in back in September 2012, when I was researching my own Florence novel, One Thing Stolen. That precise scene and angle, right down to the the red bike, is pictured on the back of April's novel.

We wrote our Italy novels at the same time. Worried them through together. Gave each other the support novelists need. Indulged in all flavors of gelato.

And so, April, it was a pleasure this afternoon to read your story, to find your gelato, your streets, your romance, and, of course, your music, in the pages of Love, Lucy. Congratulations on another wonderful reimagining.

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Raw to the Bone: On Springsteen, Rivers, and the Arc of Creativity in Poets' Quarterly

April Lindner had the idea to gather us (Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, Ann Michael, me—her Springsteen loving friends) at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University more than a year ago. We each gave papers, each talked about the influence that Bruce Springsteen has had on us.

I spoke about the arc of creativity under the influence of Bruce Springsteen's river songs, and I'm so happy to be able to share a link to that full essay here today, for the piece now stands among works by Donald Hall, Daisy Fried, Barbara Crooker, and Caroline Maun (among others) in the current issue of Poets' Quarterly.

It begins like this, below, and carries forward here:

Might as well start with “Shenandoah,” the old pioneer song that Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band transformed into sweet bitters in the living room of Springsteen’s fabled New Jersey farmhouse.  “Shenandoah,” the tenth song on the We Shall Overcome/Seeger Sessions album, is music being made, as Springsteen himself has said. Music created in the moment, held between teeth, conducted with the frayed bracelet strings of an uplifted hand. It’s music hummed, hymned, and high in the shoulder blades, deep in the blue pulse of a straining vein. Patti’s lighting candles in the darkening farmhouse, as the band tunes in. The antique clock ticks. The thickly framed mirror doubles the volumes of sound and space. And now the Sessions Band is elaborating, confabulating, and the Shenandoah roves.

 Many thanks to Leslie Nielsen, and Ann Michael.

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Bruce Springsteen, Asbury Park, Monmouth University

As readers of this blog know, it has been a tumultuous time here—a sinking realization that not all the people you trust to get something right (or to do right) do.  A sense of helplessness about a false newspaper claim.  And so many friends stepping in to cry out against the injustice.

And while I will never be able to leave this cruelty behind—for it is not about me (about that I would not care) but about someone I deeply love—I did physically leave home very early yesterday morning to join friends at the Glory Days Symposium, an intelligent gathering of people who recognize that Springsteen does so much more than entertain. (One of my own—many—appreciations of Springsteen is here.)  I was proud to join April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ann E. Michael, and Ned Balbo on a storytelling panel, and deeply inspired by the conversations I heard along the way.  I was happy to at last meet Mark Bernhard, an associate provost at University of Southern Indiana, who puts so much of himself into this event.

Mid-afternoon I slipped away to Asbury Park and walked the boardwalk alone.  Sea and salt and time to be.  A quick but essential exchange with my editor, Tamra Tuller.  A funny, I-am-the-luckiest-mother-on-earth text carnival with my son.

Monmouth University, where the Glory Days Symposium was held, is a green campus, architecturally cohering and whole.  At its center stands Wilson Hall, a Horace Trumbauer designed mansion originally built, in 1929, as the private residence of F.W. Woolworth Co. president Hubert Templeton Parson.  In the summer of 1916, in a building lost to fire on this same site, Woodrow Wilson worked through his presidential campaign.  If this Trumbauer building looks familiar to you, that's because it served as the set for the movie, Annie.

I share above some images from the day.

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a caution, and—opening words about Springsteen's river songs

My friends, the time has come.  Tomorrow I will join April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, and Ann Michael for "Springsteen and Storytelling," our panel discussion.  We're one of many Bruce conversations that will be going on this weekend at Monmouth University as part of the Glory Days Symposium.  And I'm so grateful to be given a chance to break away from my world for a moment, and to delve into this one.

Bruce and my bruised heart today have nothing to do with each other, but I feel the need to say this just now, while I have your attention (and I suspect that The Boss himself would agree with me on this one).  For any one who might be checking in on this blog, for whatever reason you may be checking, please trust me on this:  Not everything journalists write—however well meaning those journalists may be—is true.  And sometimes, even if we try very hard to get the record corrected, even if we cry, stomp, and offer to drain our bank accounts in the endeavor, we fail.  We cannot achieve the only right result, which is the truth.

For now, I am sharing this—the opening words of "Raw to the Bone:  Transported Toward Truth and Memory by Springsteen's River Songs," the paper I'll deliver tomorrow.

Might as well start with “Shenandoah,” the old pioneer song that Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band transformed into sweet bitters in the living room of Springsteen’s fabled New Jersey farmhouse.   “Shenandoah,” the tenth song on the We Shall Overcome/Seeger Sessions album, is music being made, as Springsteen himself has said.  Music created in the moment, held between teeth, conducted with the frayed bracelet strings of an uplifted hand.  It’s music hummed, hymned, and high in the shoulder blades, deep in the blue pulse of a straining vein.  Patti’s lighting candles in the darkening farmhouse, as the band tunes in.  The antique clock ticks.  The thickly framed mirror doubles the volumes of sound and space.  And now the Sessions band is elaborating, confabulating, and the Shenandoah roves. 

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to see you,

Away you rolling river.

Oh Shenandoah,

I long to see you,

Away, I'm bound away,

'cross the wide Missouri.

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Bruce Springsteen: Gallant

What hasn't been said about Bruce Springsteen live?  He sweats through to the bottom of his boots for you.  He yields the microphone to little girls in pink cowboy hats who have the nerve to sing a sunny day.  He talks about ghosts, and he pounds his heart for redheads.  He plays "The River" for a soldier in Afghanistan and an obscure tune for a guy with a sign.  He's already laughing with the Phillies crowd before he mentions the opposing team—stars in his eyes kind of smile, though, man, he's been going like this with his Wrecking Ball Tour for so long that you don't know how he's even standing, how he gets those guitars, one after another, strapped on, how the mike doesn't fly out of his grip.  He bows his head beside Clarence Clemons's nephew, Jake, and you know he feels the uncle's presence like a prayer, and he is ageless, a stuck Catholic, a confessing romantic, a professor of truth, a scorcher and a crooner, still running, still dancing, still ad libbing, still performing.  He's not out of breath, but you are, and he has the power (I'm telling you) to stop the rain. 

I was there.

That is what has not, until this moment, been written about Springsteen.  I was there.  Having waited since I was eighteen years old.  Having worked all those years to convince my husband.  Having finally bought the tickets and made the announcement, We're going, because I had an excuse, this little talk I plan to give (thanks to April Lindner) at the Glory Days Symposium a few short weeks from now.  I had to go.  It was business this time.  And besides, this girl is getting old.

Good Lord, it was better, it was richer, it was deeper, it was more hallowed than even I thought it could be.  And I never sat down, though I had seats.  And I danced—by myself and with the crowd.  And I sang—hard and out loud.  And late, late at night, walking back through the city with my husband and a couple of kids just out of school, I talked Old Springsteen Love with Young Springsteen Love, and let me tell you this:  We spoke the same language.

The shard below, blogged in early August, is snapped from what I'd written in theory for my Springsteen paper, "Raw to the Bone."  Every once in a while, in this life, I get it right.  I was right when I danced Springsteen alone in my house, and I was right last night, dancing with Philly:

The music will rise through the soles of my feet.  It will scour, channel, silt, and further rise.   In the dark cavern of my hips it will catch and swish.  Outside, perhaps, the stars have come up, and probably the deer have vanished, and maybe the cicadas are rumbling around in their own mangled souls.  But inside, a river churns, widens, roars, and steeps, and I am dancing Springsteen.   

Bruce Springsteen.  Wrecking Ball Tour.  Citizens Bank Park.  Philadelphia.  September 3, 2012.

I was there.

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Phliadelphia Stories: Push to Publish Conference 2012/be there?

Last March I had the great fun of organizing Young Writers Take the Park with The Spiral Bookcase—an event that provided young area writers with the chance to be celebrated, to be heard, to be published, and to participate in a workshop that Elizabeth Mosier and I conducted.  These young writers also spent time talking with my writer friends A.S. King, April Lindner, and Susan Campbell Bartoletti (as well as Elizabeth, of course).  It was a great day made even greater by the presence of Christine Weiser, who stands, slim but steadfast, at the whirligig center of Philadelphia's writing world.  It was Christine who offered these young writers a chance to be published in her beautiful magazine, Philadelphia Stories, Jr.  It was Christine who produced this video of the day.

Among the many other things that Miss Christine does is produce the annual Push to Publish Conference, which is held at Rosemont College each fall.  One year I was honored by an invitation to serve as the keynote speaker (and accepted, of course).  This year—October 13, 9 AM to 5 PM—I'll be joining the YA panel.  Literally dozens of remarkable agents, editors, and writers will be offering advice and telling war stories, even looking over manuscripts, and I never hear anything but extremely good things from the many who attend this conference each year.  Who doesn't want a chance to meet with editors and agents?  Who isn't beguiled by my friends Kelly Simmons and Kathye Fetsko Petrie?  Who doesn't want to hear what the keynoter, Kevin McIlvoy, has to say?  Who isn't keen on collecting some shiny wisdom pearls from Gregory Frost, Lise Funderburg, Don Lafferty, Jon McGoran, Catherine Stine, Dennis Tafoya, and Nancy Viau?

I see your eyes lighting up.  I can feel you thinking.  I hope to see you there.

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Raw to the Bone: Putting the Springsteen Paper to Rest

Yes, it has obsessed me, but it is done.  "Raw to the Bone:  Transported to Truth and Memory by Springsteen's River Songs" is written at last, and it will slumber now, until September, when I will have the great pleasure of joining April Lindner, Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, and Ann Michael at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University.  This blog will now return to its regularly scheduled (ha, I never schedule anything) program.

From the paper:

The music will rise through the soles of my feet.  It will scour, channel, silt, and further rise.   In the dark cavern of my hips it will catch and swish.  Outside, perhaps, the stars have come up, and probably the deer have vanished, and maybe the cicadas are rumbling around in their own mangled souls.  But inside, a river churns, widens, roars, and steeps, and I am dancing Springsteen.    

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Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days Symposium, and Thanks

Could there be anything more thrilling (for a reader-rocker) than reading the beautifully researched, impeccably written David Remnick profile of Bruce Springsteen in the July 30 issue of The New Yorker?  The story is called "We Are Alive," and most everyone read it before I did, because my issue didn't arrive until late yesterday afternoon.  I'd read pieces online.  I'd read the raves.  But yesterday, after a very long day of corporate work and minor agitations, I found a breeze and read the profile through.  I didn't have to fall in love again with Bruce Springsteen; I've been in love since I was a kid.  But I loved, loved, loved every word of this story.  I would like to frame it.

(For those who haven't seen my Devon Horse Show photos and video of Jessica Springsteen, who is as sensational in her way as Bruce is, I share them here.)

Perhaps my favorite part of Remnick's article was discovering the way that Springsteen reads, how he thinks about books.  You don't get to be sixty-two and still magnetic, necessary, pulsingly, yes, alive if you don't know something, and if you don't commit yourself to endless learning.  Reading is one of the many ways Springsteen stays so connected to us, and so relevant.  From The New Yorker:

Lately, he has been consumed with Russian fiction.  "It's compensatory—what you missed the first time around," he said.  "I'm sixty-some, and I think, There are a lot of these Russian guys!  What's all the fuss about?  So I was just curious.  That was an incredible book: 'The Brothers Karamazov.' Then I read 'The Gambler.'  The social play in the first half was less interesting to me, but the second half, about obsession, was fun.  That could speak to me. I was a big John Cheever fan, and so when I got into Chekhov I could see where Cheever was coming from.  And I was a big Philip Roth fan, so I got into Saul Bellow, 'Augie March.' These are all new connections for me.  It'd be like finding out now that the Stones covered Chuck Berry."

Next week, I'll begin to write my paper for Glory Days: The Bruce Springsteen Symposium, which is being held in mid-September at Monmouth University, and where I'll be joining April Lindner, Ann Michael, Jane Satterfield, and Ned Balbo on a panel called "Sitting Round Here Trying to Write This Book: Bruce Springsteen and Literary Inspiration." I don't know if I've ever been so intimidated, or (at the same time) excited.  I don't know what I have in me, if I can write smart and well enough.

But this morning I take my energy, my inspiration, from the friends and good souls who have written over the past few days to tell me about their experience with Small Damages.  We writers write a long time, and sometimes our work resonates, and when it does, we are so grateful.  When others reach out to us, we don't know what to say.  We hope that thank you is enough.  And so, this morning, thank you, Jennifer Brown.  Thank you, Alyson Hagy and Robb Forman Dew.  Thank you, Tamara Smith.  Thank you, Elizabeth Ator and Katherine Wilson.  Thank you, Jessica Ferro.  Thank you, Hilary Hanes.  And thank you, Miss Rosella Eleanor LaFevre, who interviewed me a few years ago about Dangerous Neighbors, and who has stayed in touch ever since.  I don't even know how to say thank you for her blog magazine thoughts on Small Damages today.  I can only suggest that if you read it through, you'll know something important about her heart.

To being inspired.  To writing forward.  To keeping on with keeping on, with the hope of better work.  Always.

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For the record

my camera was found. 

This, then, is how it looked on Saturday inside the very cool indie, The Spiral Bookcase.

This is also how it looked as teen writers leaned forward, toward their stories.

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We Took the Park

This is not a photograph of our young writers; I lost my camera in the great activity of this Young Writers Take the Park Day.  But it is a photograph of my hometown, Wayne, and it is an image of kids hurrying toward their future.

Elizabeth Mosier, April Lindner, A.S. King, and Susan Campbell Bartoletti—I am so grateful to you for the time you spent today, for the hugeness of your hearts, for being there.  The rain threatened, but it did not fall.  The workshop writers came, and oh, did they write.  And when it came time for the teen winners to read their work aloud, not one of them faltered.  Clear voiced and big hearted, they announced their talent to the world.

A huge thank you to Ann of The Spiral Bookcase who made the event happen, to the renowned authors who took this afternoon out of their lives for kids, to Jamie-Lee Josselyn of Penn who brought her great spirit and news of the future, to Christine Weiser of Philadelphia Stories (and Philadelphia Stories Jr.), and to the teachers and parents who opened the door (and provided transportation).

Finally, Elizabeth Mosier:  I have taught a lot of workshops in my day.  Today, working in unison with you, will always be remembered fondly.  Thank you for everything.

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Young Writers Take the Park: celebrating our winners, and an open invitation

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-finalist entries 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

"Let the record show that I, Ivy Lee Miller, loved being an only child...."

Davis O’Leary, “Reflection,” T/E Middle School

"Eyes crusted with the dust of restless sleep...."

These winning entries will appear in a forthcoming issue of Philadelphia Stories Jr., thanks to the generosity of Christine Weiser and her team.

Our semi-finalists will be joining us for the workshop that Elizabeth Mosier and I will be teaching near The Spiral Bookcase premises, starting at 1:30 tomorrow. At 3 o'clock, the teen winners will read from their work at Pretzel Park (or inside, if rain tries to thwart us).

Please join us, starting at 3 PM in Pretzel Park to hear from the teens and to meet the truly great writers Susan Campbell Bartoletti, A.S. King, April Linder, and Elizabeth Mosier, who will be there to talk informally about the writing life and to autograph their books for you.

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a wonderful night at Musehouse

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. 

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Musehouse Tomorrow Night, and an answer for those who have questioned Emmy's voice in YAMO

If I find green in my closet, I will wear green. And for those of you who are wondering, I will be reading a section from the book that I've never read aloud from before.  I'm going to be addressing—overtly—those who wonder why I chose to do something different with language after Emmy's breakdown.

(The answer:  Language was broken for her.  I was mapping, in those sections, the reconstitution of ideas and words.  I could not write the ordinary and the obvious because, well, mental breakdowns are neither ordinary nor obvious.)

(And besides, well:  gosh.  I think we have to take risks.)

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Young Writers Take the Park: Teen Day in Manayunk

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.

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the week(s) ahead (please join me at .... )

I have a big week on tap, and if I am less the blogger than usual, I ask for your forgiveness in advance. 

First, my students are back from their spring break, and I'll be in my city reviewing their first three memoirs tomorrow.  They have written spectacularly.  They have gone deep. I need to give them everything I've got.

On Wednesday another beautiful thing is going to happen—I'll hop a train and head to New York City, where I'll be meeting Tamra Tuller, my Philomel editor, for the very first time.  Tamra read my Berlin book this weekend (the first two-thirds, all that I've written).  With her kind early thoughts she returned the essence of the book to me, in the way that only the most generous of editors do.

On Thursday I head back to Philadelphia to spend the morning at the Public Library Association conference, to be held at the Civic Center.  Please let me know if you'll be there.  By noon I'll be back on a train and headed to Chesterbrook, where one of my favorite clients is located.  You know who you are, Charlene and Mike.

Late Thursday night we'll pick our son up from the airport (he's in Las Vegas as of this hour).  I hope to spend a lazy Friday with him.

Saturday, I'll be at the Musehouse with April Lindner at a special event hosted by Doug Gordon.  I'm so excited about this and I hope that those of you who live in the Germantown/Philadelphia area will consider joining us.  Find out more by double clicking the poster.

Sunday we'll sadly be saying goodbye to our son as he heads back up to college to finish off his final semester.  I'll cry a little, eat chocolate, no doubt, then start getting ready for the week ahead, which will include, among other things, Teen Day in Manayunk, which is shaping up to be a super event.

I hope your weeks ahead are full and rich.

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Anticipating Teen Day in Manayunk with Four Extraordinary Writer Friends

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 Young Writers Take the Park, 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, teaching adult literacy, and writing novels, King now lives deep in the Pennsylvania woods with her husband and children. Lean more at www.as-king.com <http://www.as-king.com>  <http://www.as-king.com> .

April Lindner is the author of Jane, the acclaimed contemporary retelling of the classic novel Jane Eyre and the author of several poetry collections. She is a professor of English at Saint Joseph’s University.

Elizabeth Mosier's work for young adults includes My Life as a Girl (Random House) and My First Love (Delacorte, under the pseudonym Callie West), as well as numerous short stories in Seventeen and Sassy. She has recently completed a third YA novel, Ghost Signs.

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Join April Lindner, Doug Gordon, and Me for a night at Musehouse

The poster says it all.  I hope you'll be there. 

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Still thinking about sentences (and Pablo Neruda)

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

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A few upcoming events

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.

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What's Next in YA? Tell me what you think. (And come see me live.)

Yesterday, my gorgeous niece Claire called, as she will, from time to time.  She had a school project on the docket, questions for my husband about his life in architecture, but I got to talk to her, too (it was part of the deal).  Claire is the niece who shares her love of books with me.  The sixth grader with a huge vocabulary and a very empathetic heart.  She'd just acquired a handful of new titles from Borders.  I sat on my deck, phone pressed to my ear, as she read the jacket flaps to me.  Together, and quite craftily, we speculated.

Not long ago, at a cocktail hour, someone said, indicating me, "Oh, don't talk to her.  She just writes kids' books for a living."  It was half a joke, but I suspected it wasn't really.  It was a prejudice I thought we'd snuffed, this ghetto-ization of YA writers.  I think of dear Claire whenever I think of those who want to make YA books a lesser category.  I think of the giants of the craft.

I'm going to be thinking out loud about the YA genre—the rise of fantasy, paranormal romance, dystopia, and steampunk, the ever-continuing importance of contemporary realism when handled by those who care about kids and about craft—during a few upcoming appearances.  I'm going to be talking about what I think is next.  In the meantime, I'd love to know what you think is next.  What you think is necessary, what is called for.  What trends are over and done for you?  What stories do you miss?  What books would you give my bright, loving, beautiful niece Claire, if you had the privilege of being her aunt?

Please let me know here.  And please come, too, to one of the following events, where I'll be talking about all this and more, while also reading pages from You Are My Only.  I want to see you.  Live, and in person.  It's about time for that. 

Wednesday, October 26, 4 PM - 6 PM 

Rutgers-Camden Visiting Writers Series
Young Adult Lit: It's Not Just Kids' Stuff Anymore
(details here)

Thursday, October 27, 7:30 PM

You Are My Only/Book Launch Party
Radnor Memorial Library, Radnor, PA
(details to come)

Monday, November 7, 6:30 PM
You Are My Only/Lecture and Reading
Haub Executive Center, St. Joseph's University
(details here)

Wednesday, November 9, 7:00 PM

You Are My Only/Reading and Signing

Chester County Book & Music Company

975 Paoli Pike
West Goshen Center, West Chester, PA

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