traveling far to write close (in the abrams and chronicle blog)

Over the course of the past several days, my Twitter feed has bloomed with posts from the good people of Abrams & Chronicle. Chosen lines from One Thing Stolen, posterized. Words of encouragement and hope. It's been a quiet, miraculous thing. This sense this UK publishing arm has provided of a story fully seen.

And so, when Abrams & Chronicle (through Lara Starr) asked me to write about how my travels have influenced my stories, I was more than happy to comply, writing the story that appears today, here. Please take some time to review the many lovely posts on A&C blog. I promise you good reads and eats.

But while I'm at this, I'd like to thank my dear friend Ed Goldberg, who has been such an exquisite companion through my many seasons as a writer of books for young adult readers. I was standing in the lobby of an Atlantic City hotel years and books ago when I first received an Ed email. I was standing in Books of Wonder when I first (a surprise) met him. And here he is again, reading One Thing Stolen and offering his support in his beautiful blog, Two Heads Together. I am forever grateful.

Read more...

While I was gone: a misbegotten fireplace fire, and kindness

Winter hit hard in these parts—as snow became rain became ice, trees keeled and broke, and hundreds of thousands lost power. The world was dark, dystopian, empty-seeming. We lasted for two days here, until a carefully tended fire in our own fireplace smoked out the house, thanks to an invisible, inoperative damper. Staying close to the burnt hearth was not an option.

And so we slipped away. I read three incredible books over those two days and am eager to share my thoughts with you here. (And will soon.) For now, I want to thank a few people who buoyed me through the storm.

First, Beth Hoffman (of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt and Looking for Me), for so generously sharing her thoughts about my memoir Nest. Flight. Sky. with her legions of fans. This unforeseen generosity was such a huge surprise and so very welcome in the life of this mini-memoir. It was a gift.

Also, all thanks to Serena Agusto-Cox, who reviewed Nest. Flight. Sky. so kindly. Serena bought this $2.99 Shebook at once, read at once, and stopped to share her thoughts. That makes a huge difference, and I'm so appreciative. (I'm also so appreciative to Susan Tekulve, who was the very first to read and to write to me of this.)

Deep thanks as well to Ed Goldberg, who received an early copy of Going Over and wrote so beautifully about it in a review that touches on my work over time—all those themes that have held me in their grip. Ed, your shared faith in the intelligence of readers and their willingness to go deep means so much to me. You posted your review at just the right time.

Finally, Jessica Keener and Jamie Krug, big thanks to you—for sharing word of Handling the Truth with those you feel might learn something about confession and language, search and story in those pages. Books like mine survive through word of mouth. You keep giving Handling wings.

Read more...

Dr. Radway and Dangerous Neighbors: a side-by-side review

Readers of this blog know that Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent is a story featuring a boy named William—a child of Bush Hill and Baldwin Locomotive Works, the brother to a young man murdered by a cop. William has lived in my imagination for many years. He was a primary character (but not the primary character) in my Centennial Philadelphia novel, Dangerous Neighbors. He rescues lost animals for a living. He matters to me.

Earlier today, I discovered that my friend Ed Goldberg, a librarian in the New York system, put Dr. Radway and Dangerous Neighbors side by side in a review. I love that he did this. I learned from his study. I'm deeply appreciative.

Ed's entire report can be found here, on his lovely blog, 2HeadsTogether. He ends his musings like this:

What both books do so well is describe one city, Philadelphia of the 1870s, although two different worlds. Both books delve into their main characters, William and Katherine, making them come alive. And both books use language as only Beth Kephart uses language.

It was a luxury reading the books one after the other, because it highlights the contrasts that otherwise would have been hidden. So, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent and then Dangerous Neighbors. The one-two punch in books.

Thank you, Mr. Ed. And thank you, Elizabeth Mosier, for the extraordinary note you wrote to me after you read the book through. No one can ever know just how much words like these matter to an author—especially in the case of this particular book.

I'll be talking about the research that fueled both books tomorrow, during the Week of Writing at Drexel University. If you're in the city I hope you'll join us, especially so that you can meet my most esteemed co-panelists, Rita Williams-Garcia and Eliot Schrefer.

Read more...

Remembering Ghosts in the Garden (with a huge thank you to Ed Goldberg) and Small Damages

I had only just returned from Florence and was still adjusting to the hours and the lack of pasta when Ed Goldberg, now a long-time friend, read my fifth book, Ghosts in the Garden, and shared his thoughts on his blog, Two Heads Together.  Ed is the kind of guy who never shouts and will not boast and does not stomp his feet or pop his bubble gum to get attention.  Only yesterday did he whisper in my ear:  Beth, I read that book.

And so he did, reinvigorating for me, in his thoughtful, surprising way, a book I wrote when I fully believed I was writing my last.  Writing is hard on the psyche—not making the books (I am dangerously addicted to the making of books), but living with them when they are out in the world.  They're not going to please everyone, nor should they.  Some will say that kindly, some will say it cruelly, some may veer from the truth, some may hurt people you love. You have to live with that, when you write books, and in writing Ghosts, I felt myself fading, vanishing toward another life, searching for another art to believe in. 

That was too many books ago, but it was a time I remember well and a feeling to which I often return. Ghosts in the Garden is a wandering, wondering book. I remain a wanderer and a wonderer, never precisely sure.

Just as Ed whispered in my ear yesterday, Jessica Shoffel, my beloved Philomel publicist, wrote to share the news that The Repository, a newspaper out of Canton, OH, had celebrated Small Damages as a novel "Worth Your Time."  Michael Green, Philomel's head honcho, wrote something Michael-ishly funny, after that.  But we're not telling.  Not a chance.   

Read more...

my cup overflows—reviews of Flow and Small Damages; kindness from Gotham

My cup is overflowing.

On this rainy afternoon, I would like to thank the one and only Ed Goldberg for reading Flow, my Philadelphia river book, and having so much good to say on his spectacular, shared blog, Two Heads Together.  Ed, you are so integral to my writing life.  I am blessed by your kindness in so many ways.

Through Twitter, a tool I have yet to master, but a tool through which I have made new friends, I learned of two spectacular new reviews of Small Damages.  One, by the bloggess, Love Is Not a Triangle, made me smile in so many ways, and had me sharing, with the bloggess, my thoughts about the Small Damages sequel I hope to someday write.  The whole is here.

The second is by the good people of teenreads—or, I should say, by the super duper Terry Miller Shannon of teenreads—who wrote, among other things, "Characters are so fully realized, they could walk off the page.... Small Damages is on the short side but is nothing short of a glorious triumph for Kephart."  Those words will put sun into anybody's rainy day.

Finally, today, I want to thank Susan Barnes, Lauren Marino, and a certain publicist named Beth—all on the Gotham team.  I had called Susan with a concern not at all of Gotham's making.  She listened and took action at once.  With tremendous compassion and care, the team relieved me of a percolating anxiety.  They didn't have to do this.  Some publishing teams might not have.  But Gotham did, and I will always be grateful. 

Read more...

Small Damages: the Two Heads Together review

I had a weekend of goodness—friendship, books, and sun, a crowd of azaleas on a woodsy path, the film "Kolya," (oh!), the book Inside Out & Back Again (breathtaking), simple meals that turned out just fine, the weeds gone from (most) of the front garden.

Enough for anyone.  Enough for me.  But this morning the overwhelming goodness continues, as I discover the ineffable generosity of Ed Goldberg, who read Small Damages one day after he received it, and wrote these stunning words the following day on Two Heads Together, the blog that he writes with his Susan.

Ed, you have buoyed me from the very start of my young adult writing career.  I am and will always be so grateful.

Read more...

A little of Berlin. A lot of YAMO thanks. And the beauty of writing slow.

When I went to Berlin this past summer I had no idea that I would someday soon be writing about this storied, divided, chaotic, rich, surprising city.  I had gone for no other purpose but this:  I had not been gone, in a real way, from my office/home for three years.  I took photographs of what appealed to me, what intrigued me.  I read a little, but not a lot, wandered, consulted maps, got lost, and managed to hike all the way to Little Istanbul on the wrong day, when the outdoor marketplace was closed, a not-so-pleased husband beside me.

These days, between client calls, I reconstruct that journey, ask myself what I really saw, look for spires in the background of photographs.  There, I think.  That is the church.  Here, I think:  The canal that leads to the bridge that overlooks a view that once was barbed and different. 

It all comes back, new and different.  It comes back, not just as form and color, but as a rich and meaningful history, slowly understood.  There are great pleasures in writing a book at a quiet pace, in writing toward the not easily known.  You steep until the material owns you.  You steep, you read, you keep consulting those maps, you watch those films, you listen to those people speaking their foreign tongues until they don't sound so foreign after all.  And then one day you wake up, and you own it.  One day it's not about what you are studying, but what you know.  It takes time.  It is—indisputably—one of my very happiest times.  I have Tamra Tuller of Philomel to thank for the great privilege.  For being there, and for caring, while I work these details through.

To add to my happiness there is this.  Last night I discovered that that pretty spectacular reading/blogging/librarian team—Two Heads Together—cited You Are My Only as the top YA book of the year.  What?  You don't think that made me dance?  Check out all their reads, and the intelligence with which they present their musings, here.

Thank you, Ed and Susan.  (so much)

Read more...

You Are My Only: The Very First Review

I received flowers yesterday (thank you, Trevor, Wendy, Amy, and the Central Writing League), and oh, how they were needed.  I'm going to see Billy Elliot tomorrow (thank you, Jeff) and (an extra bonus) Lawsy—needed, deeply:  true.  And just now, having come in from uprooting the truant weeds in my beleaguered garden, I found this gift right here.  The first review of You Are My Only (five stars!) sent along by YA Books Central's own Ed Goldberg.

I quote from the final paragraph.  The rest will be posted closer to release date (October) on the YA Books Central site. But as an author eager to hear how this book will be received, reading and being able to share this now (right now) means the world:

In some books, it’s the story that captures you and in some, it’s the characters.  In You Are My Only, it is that rare combination of story and character.  Kephart has created two (almost) separate but equal stories, both intriguing and engrossing.  In addition, she has created the perfect characters.  I defy anyone not to fall in love with Sophie, Joey and Aunts Cloris and Helen or Emmy and Autumn and even Harvey, the dog.  I defy anyone not to hate (maybe intensely dislike) Sophie’s mother or Peter.  As always, Kephart chooses her words with care, and while the language is not as ‘ethereal’ as in some of her recent books, her images and descriptions and wording remain essential in understanding the characters and surroundings.  There are secrets that need to be unearthed and things to ponder.  There are relationships that you are jealous you are not a part of and those you are glad you have not experienced.  You can read You Are My Only quickly and enjoy the story or you can read it slowly and savor every word and nuance and description.  Either way, you must read Beth Kephart’s latest addition to Young Adult literature, You Are My Only.  More than likely, after you’ve read it once, you’ll go back and read it again.  I know I will.

Read more...

Leave Your Sleep/Natalie Merchant: Poetry Made True

Back on December 27th, I wrote of Natalie Merchant on this blog, wondering out loud where she had gone.  In the intervening weeks and months, I began to hear rumors.  Ed Goldberg, a librarian, had spotted her, he said at a convention; she'd set poems to music, he reported, and they were lovely.  On April 18th, The New York Times confirmed Ed's promise; Leave Your Sleep, a project that took Ms. Merchant five years, was now available in stores.  My Friend Amy further confirmed the fact; on April 19th, she blogged of her long love for Merchant, as well as of her enthusiasm for Leave Your Sleep, which she'd already procured.  By then my copy was already on the way to me.  Yesterday it arrived.

Earlier today, my husband and I drove to a town called Skippack, where I sat beneath this wisteria tree.  When we arrived home, my husband went out to his studio to make the art he masterfully makes, and I stayed inside to listen to every single one of Natalie Merchant's 26 new songs.  There's never been a voice like hers, I'm sure, nor, perhaps, a musician's heart.  I cannot count the times that I have danced alone to her songs through the years or yearned after the quality of her lyrics—the stunning coherence and wisdom of them.  I have always loved Natalie Merchant; I didn't think I could love her more.

With Leave Your Sleep, Ms. Merchant didn't merely select and arrange often nonsensical poems into songs, yielding them new and delving meaning.  She also set out on an adventure to discover the lives of the poets who'd penned the songs that inspired her.  She fell in love, in the process, with the "doomed and luminous eyes" of Robert Louis Stevenson, restored the child prodigy Nathalia Crane to a place of honor, imagined seeing Ogden Nash at "a cocktail hour in a paneled den with cut-glass bowls of salted nuts on the bar and the air blue with cigar smoke," and refused to imagine the day that Arthur Macy learned that both of his sons had died.

In the preface to the book of poems and poet biographies (all researched and written by Ms. Merchant) that accompanies her two CDs, Ms. Merchant writes this:

This collection of songs represents parts of a long conversation I've had with my daughter during the first six years of her life.  It documents our word-of-mouth tradition in the poems, stories, and songs that I found to delight and teach her.  I pulled these obscure and eccentric poems off their flat, yellowed pages and brought them to life for her. I willed into being this parade of witches and fearless girls, blind men and elephants, giants and sailors and gypsies, floating churches, dancing bears, circus ponies, a Chinese princess and a jaintor's boy, and so many others.

Art born of a mother's love.  I like that.  I like that a whole lot.

Read more...

Anxious?

Whether I'm writing about a river or a young woman confounded by corporate America, about a marginal high school poet or a girl trying to survive the loss of her mother, I am, with my books, writing what I know, what I have felt. The Heart is Not a Size is no exception. Georgia, the narrator that Ed Goldberg describes so well in his review, is very much like I was and am—plain and responsible, known for taking care, and, at times, debilitated by anxiety and panic attacks. Georgia worries about most everything. She lives her life on high alert.

It was with tremendous interest, then, that I read "Understanding the Anxious Mind," this week's New York Times Magazine cover story by Robin Marantz Henig. It's a story that looks at the hard-wiring of prone-to-anxiety folks like me and at the longitudinal studies now under way to detangle questions about the actual physiological brain state, the words subjects use to describe their anxiety, and the behavioral aftermath.

There's much to recommend the story. There is also, on its final page, some hope, or, perhaps, a reason for those afflicted with this condition to come down a little less hard on themselves. I quote from the piece:

"People with a high-reactive temperament—as long as it doesn't show itself as a clinical disorder—are generally conscientious and almost obsessively well-prepared. Worriers are likely to be the most thorough workers and the most attentive friends. Someone who worries about being late will plan to get to places early. Someone anxious about giving a public lecture will work harder to prepare for it. Test-taking anxiety can lead to better studying; fear of traveling can lead to careful mapping of transit routes."

That's not all bad, from where I sit. Or at least, I'm going to try not to worry that it is.

Read more...

The Heart is Not a Size Unveiled by Way of an Ed Goldberg Review

How do we meet people? How do we continue to know them? Years ago, it seems, Ed Goldberg, a Syosset, NY-based librarian and an avid reader/reviewer, asked if he might have a copy of one of my books. It was sent. He wrote a gorgeous review; it was posted. There was, after that, another book. Ed asked. It was sent. He read carefully and dearly once again, sharing his thoughts with me, then with the world, and in the meantime advocating my work to others. He became—over Facebook, on the blog—a constant presence and friend.

A few weeks ago, Ed asked if he might read Heart. It's a different book for me, purposefully so. I held my breath. I knew Ed was going to speak his mind, say whatever it was that he truly felt; he's that kind of ethical reader. Here, now, just as my dinner guests arrive, is Ed's review of Heart.

Kephart, Beth. The Heart is Not a Size. HarperTeen. 978-0-06-147048-6. 2010. $16.99. 256

Georgia, a high school junior, needs a life altering event, something that might end her frequent panic attacks. Described as plain and responsible, she is an avid reader of fliers tacked to shop bulletin boards. The flier from Goodworks about spending two unforgettable weeks in Mexico, “planting a seed” so that some small, impoverished community can begin to improve, intrigues her. She convinces her artsy best friend Riley, who overheard her own fashion-plate mother once describe her as average, to join her.

Anapra, Mexico, is an arid colonia on the outskirts of Juarez containing one-room huts pieced together from scraps of tin and cardboard. It is a land of dust storms and las muertas de Juarez, girls who mysteriously disappear, never to return. Georgia and Riley join nine other teens, whose goal is to construct a community bathroom for the Anapra people. A small seed, indeed.

In The Heart is Not a Size, Beth Kephart has written an engrossing novel contrasting the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, both groups surprisingly in need. The Anapra people need life’s most basic elements. A people with nothing, their hopefulness is evidenced in the way they dress their children in bright colors and the care they take in digging out after dust storms. Georgia and Riley, two girls with bright futures, are equally in need. Georgia’s panic attacks are debilitating. Riley’s reaction to her mother’s indifference is to stop eating. As Georgia watches Riley waste away, as Riley’s health is seriously endangered, Georgia can no longer remain the silent friend.

Kephart has veered slightly away from her usual poetic prose, although the care she takes with her wording is still quite evident. Heart is a faster paced novel of self exploration. Hearts know no size limit. They can encompass five year old Socorro searching for her missing sister’s spirit or the entire Anapra community. They can enfold Riley, an extraordinary person whose mother is blind to her wonders, or Georgia who must realize how smart and capable she really is.

The writing in Heart is so descriptive that after reading about a dust storm, I felt the need to wash the dust off my hands. The characters are wonderful, from the teens performing the community service to the Mexican men who sit on a roof watching them. The poet that Kephart quotes has prompted me to read Jack Gilbert’s poetry. Reading some books can be considered an enjoyable pastime. Reading others is more of a “reading experience”. The Heart is Not a Size falls into the latter category. Beth Kephart has not disappointed her current or future fans.

Read more...

Finches, Ghosts, and Writing about our Mothers

At the close of his review of Nothing but Ghosts, Ed Goldberg P.S.ed: And what/who is that finch that keeps pecking at Katie’s bedroom window? I have my ideas!

The finch of which Mr. Goldberg speaks is ever present, introduced in the book's second sentence:

There are the things that have been and the things that haven't happened yet. There is the squiggle of a line between, which is the color of caution, the color of the bird that comes to my window every morning, rattling me awake with the hammer of its beak. You would think that the glass would break, or else that dumb bird's beak. You would think that I could think myself right on back to sleep, because I am sixteen, a grown up, and I know things. But this is the start of every day: being rattled awake by the world’s most annoying bird.

In Ghosts, Katie is searching for answers in the wake of her mother's dying. Ultimately the world's most annoying bird shows her the way. In real life, the finch arrived shortly after my mother's death—pounded at my office window until I finally began to pay it some attention. There hadn't been finches in these parts before. Certainly I'd never had a bird drill at my window; have you? But my mother was gone, and there was this bird, and suddenly it occurred to me that spirits return in gilded feathers. I hung a feeder by the window, and more finches arrived. I wrote Nothing but Ghosts in a fevered spring and summer, accompanied by the birds.

Today, in the New York Times, Lori Gottlieb writes an important essay about the choices writers make when they are writing about their mothers. The reverberations, the ramifications, the rights, or not, of a writer. With Ghosts I chose to honor my mother by not writing about my mother. I wrote, instead, about the overwhelm of loss, about love in the aftermath of dying. I wrote toward the spirit of my mother without using a single scene from her real life. I wrote fiction, in other words, and left it there, for fiction, I've discovered, after many books and many genres, often takes us closest to the uncompromised, unreprimanded truth.

Read more...

Nothing but Ghosts: The YAbookcentral.com Review

Today it stormed, then it stopped, then it rained while the sun streamed down, and during part of this fury I was dancing. I was freeing my mind of all the worries that crawl in and threaten to stay, save for when there is music.

And now I've come home to sun and to the loveliest note from Ed Goldberg of YAbookscentral, who has given Nothing but Ghosts a most exquisite, thoughtful, meaningful review. I excerpt from just the final paragraphs here, encouraging you to travel over to the site, where so much gets done on behalf of so many fine books.

... There is so much to like about this book. Kephart has penned an engrossing, engaging suspense story. Miss Martine is shrouded in mystery as much by the vision of her literally hiding in her upstairs bedroom peering out her window as by the indescribable way she disappeared 55 years ago. Old Olson’s actions add another layer of intrigue to the story.

But to stop at the storyline, in my opinion, is to miss the point. Kephart, better than anyone I’ve read recently, describes the loving relationship between a husband and wife and between parents and child. Jimmy clearly adored his wife as she did him. Katie has an easygoing relationship with her father. However, Katie idolized her mother and conjures up her image when in need of help or support. But most importantly, Kephart makes the point that living life in the fashion of those we loved is infinitely better than disappearing.

Nothing but Ghosts has great characters, action, romance and splendid writing. You can picture every character and every location. Any of you who has lost a close friend or relative will immediately identify with Katie. If you are lucky enough to not experience a loss, you will be treated to a wonderful story. You can’t lose by reading any Beth Kephart book. She’s a favorite author of mine.

P.S. And what/who is that finch that keeps pecking at Katie’s bedroom window? I have my ideas!

Read more...

Blessings

Dark outside. Chill in the air. My son home. My husband near. My father, brother, and sister just down tomorrow's road. The refrigerator bursting with unusual ingredients, and four new recipes to hope through.

And then this blessing:

Thank you, Mr. Goldberg, for your review at YAbookscentral.com

Read more...