dim the noise of the world; spend an afternoon at an indie

At the Big Blue Marble Bookstore on a warm Saturday afternoon, I sat with Elliott batTzedek and Sarah Sawyers-Lovett (of Book Jawn Podcast) and talked.

Oh boy, did we talk.

About what happens when authors become brands. (It isn't pretty.)

About what happens when an author remains true. (Or, put another way, when an author, despite her success, works as hard and as fierce and as brave as she once did, before the world knew her name.)

About what happens when an author puts more stock in a trend than in her own imagination. (Leveraging a movement to the detriment of the story she might have told, for the making is always more important, ultimately, than the marketing—or shouldn't it be?)

About how picture books work. (Which is to say, how picture books stop time, in the hands of those who want to fully feel.)

About Kent Haruf, Sy Montgomery, Spirographs, Pigeons, A.S. King, Coates, Skippy Jon, living among noise, and the life of a ten-year-old community bookstore that serves an intelligent neighborhood and offers up its wares to those who believe in the capital B Book—and put their money where their faith is.

In and out the patrons came. A fifth-grade boy whose mother had to persuade him (gently) out of the stacks. A young man seeking a book for a friend. (David Levithan! Sarah and I said, nearly in unison.) An older man seeking lyrical nonfiction. (H is for Hawk! I shouted out. The Soul of an Octopus! Bettyville! M Train!) Such a seduction, sitting there, listening to what readers want, pointing the way, sharing the life and love of books with two intelligent readers who let me pretend, for part of an afternoon, that I was a book trader, too.

We are living in harsh times. We are trying to rise above the vitriol. We are hoping that the world will see beyond our wearying headlines, our damning theatrics, our brazen banners to the people so many of us actually are.

Look for the compassion, look for the hope, look for the conversation in your local indie. Go home with a book beneath your arm. Allow the wider world to seep in through you.

PS: Sarah. I finished the Colum McCann. I'm now onto Lucia Berlin. You?

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"All they want is someone to listen." The lessons of LOVE.

On Thursday, while down at the Barnes and Noble off Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, I struck up a conversation with the woman who greets those both entering and leaving the store. It was a warm day, a sunny one, and a breeze was blowing in.

"Tell me about your job," I'd said and soon she was telling me stories. About those who come to the store not for books, but for community. About those who come for shelter. About those who, upon hearing her simple greeting, break down and cry.

A man concerned about a child in a foreign place.

A man concerned about a daughter.

Others.

"People think my job is about saying hello, but really my job is about listening," she said. "I'm here to offer simple hope. I'm reminding people to trust in doctors or to trust in others. I'm just letting others know that they've been heard, and that's all that many of us want or need, most of the time."

She was beautiful, this woman, with long ropes of braided hair and very liquid eyes. She had a soul about her, seemed to know just what to say to the repeat customers and the new ones. Hardly a simple job, making others feel welcome. There is a talent to it.

I'm headed to my final signing for LOVE this afternoon—the lovely indie with the fabulous name: the Big Blue Marble. What I've realized, during this LOVE journey, is that this book of mine is the least of it. This book of mine has been an excuse to get out in the world and to see how people are. To listen and reflect on stories.

I'll be curling back in toward my own life after this afternoon. But I have deeply appreciated the many people I have met through this autumn/winter celebration of our city.

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA

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Faculty Author. Two final LOVE signings.

For introducing me to students who change my life and for sharing my books in your store in such a gorgeous, prominent way, thank you, University of Pennsylvania and the Penn Bookstore. For snapping this photograph and sending it my way, thank you, Gary Kramer.

There are just two more LOVE signings on the radar. You are, of course, invited:

December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes and Noble LOVE signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA

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oh, those creative, hospitable, restorative indies: thank you

Lately I've had cause (again) to celebrate the independent bookstores. That they exist. That their owners and their colleagues work so very hard. That they know books. That they believe in culture, literature, and ideas.

That they are endlessly innovative, funky, fun.

In and out of the shops I've gone. Toward the events they have supported. No single event has been like any other event. Every single store is its own vibrant cluster of possibility.

And so today, a photo thank you to the stores that stand at the heart of our communities. To Ann of The Spiral Bookcase, who lugged all those books out to those very special events at the Ambler Theater and Laurel Hill. To Heather of Children's Book World, who sent One Thing Stolen to our Philadelphia/Florence party at Radnor Memorial Library (where I learned that the book was in its second, newly colorized printing). To Cathy and Anmiryam of Main Point Books, where we had the nicest Sunday afternoon. To Ashley at Penn Book Center, who placed LOVE in the window and talked to me for a long time one afternoon. To Michael at Joseph Fox Books, who supported the Free Library launch. To the glorious Bank Street Bookstore, which sold Small Damages to this beautiful reader during that be-all-end-all conference. To Caroline of Frenchtown's Book Garden, who organized our memoir retreat at the Rat (where James Agee once wrote) as well as my morning at the art-filled Delaware Valley Regional High School. And to Stephanie of Harleysville Books, who brought out a crowd on a rainy night and who invited the great baker Ann to share her special treats (pretzel brittle, in honor of Philadelphia!).

I'll be visiting a few more bookstores—both the incredibly hospitable Barnes and Nobles and two more indies, Chester County Books and Big Blue Marble Books—in December, the dates below.

It's restorative, being around people who care about holding the world close and safe.

December 3, 2015, 7 PM
LOVE signing
Chester County Books
West Chester, PA

December 5, 2015, noon
LOVE signing
Barnes and Noble
Devon, PA

December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes & Noble signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA

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Bird Song, Carpenter's Woods, and a Moment with Gerald Stern

I left the Big Blue Marble Bookstore Saturday afternoon seeking a little time alone (it is my habit) and a walk through a day that was slowly gaining shimmer.  If you get the chance, go down into the Wissahickon near the Kitchen's Lane entrance, a friend had written.  It's quite lovely, if you've never been.

I wasn't at all sure where I was, but I did begin to walk and soon was up on Ellet Street, across Sherman, and into Carpenter's Woods.  It was quiet there; the blue tips of brown butterflies were rising and falling like leaves in a wind.  I had a big bag with me and the wrong shoes.  I was wearing a white-as-winter jacket.  Nevertheless, I walked across the stony paths and the still-deciding trees until I came upon a woman with a hat, a serious walking stick, and an appropriate dark coat.  Which way to the stream or the springs? I asked, and soon she was telling me all about these woods—their woodpeckers, warblers, thrushes, owls; the fat toads that sing; the migratory habits of its birds.  She had, in fact, some literature with her—a map, a brochure with pictures she had taken—and she took her time explaining.  Come back in a month, she invited, and you will hear this place sing.

I may just do that. For it is peaceful there, in this tip of Fairmount Park, this century-old bird sanctuary.  And besides, as I later read in the literature, Carpenter's Woods is rich with legacy.  In the early 19th century, for example, the land belonged to the gentleman-collector George Carpenter, who built his own natural history museum, not to mention greenhouses, among the springs and trees.  A century later, in the wake of grotesque plume hunters and, at last, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the land was fiercely loved by a certain school principal named Caroline Moffett.  The Carpenter's Woods brochure tells us this:

Every spring from 1921 to 1936, as part of her mission to educate the public in the protection of bird-life, Moffett and the teachers and students of Henry School staged Percy Mackaye's Sanctuary:  A Bird Masque, a grand pageant in Carpenter's Woods with many children in bird costume.  In the pantomime the children and birds are saddened when a cardinal is shot by plume hunters, but the Spirit of Education persuades the hunters to throw down their weapons.

Gerald Stern, the genius poet, has written a poem, "In Carpenter's Woods."  I share its final lines with you here, in honor of this month of poetry and of the Woods themselves:

... I tell you that world is as large as the one you sigh and tremble over;
that it is also invulnerable and intricate and pleasurable;
that it has a serious history;
that it was always there, from the beginning.

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Almost Eponymous

This photograph is imperfect, and I regret that, for this little girl is anything but.  She was among those gathered at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore yesterday; she was, indeed, the star.  For this is Allison, and Allison and Elle (Dale Scannell and Trish Oniskey) is the story this young lady's own grandfather wrote about Allison's neighborhood adventures with her golden retriever, Elle. 

Yesterday afternoon, Allison, who goes to school one block from the bookstore, got a chance to read her story to her crowd.  She dressed impeccably for the part.

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The best audience member ever

 Is he not precious?  And wasn't he sweet to sit so attentively while the delightful Kate Milford (The Boneshaker) and I sat chatting at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore earlier this afternoon.  I learned about steam punk today and all manner of bicycle-powered things.  I grew nostalgic for dirigibles.  I walked Mt. Airy afterward—through the wide streets and down into a tip of Fairmount Park. 

Thank you, Maleka Fruean, for being our most gracious host.  It was a lovely (superbly sunny) afternoon.

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Upcoming: The Mt. Airy Kids' Literary Festival at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore

Spring is here, the blues are bluing at Chanticleer, and this coming weekend I'll be joining a cast of very special writers—Wendy Mass, Audrey Vernick, Stevie French, Jennifer Hubbard, Ellen Jensen Abbot, Nancy Viau, and Amy Holder among them—for the Mt. Airy Kids' Literary Festival at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore.  My event takes place on Saturday, April 9, at 3 PM, and I'll be sharing the mike and hour with the talented Kate Milford (The Boneshaker).  More information can be found here.

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