After the Storm: the documentary you must see

I have written many times here about my dear friend James Lecesne.  I have written about his talents, his kindness, his soul.  James stands behind the renowned and supremely humane Trevor Project—"determined to end suicide among LGBTQ youth by providing life saving and life-affirming resources."  (Click here to watch Harry Potter's own Daniel Radcliffe talk, with James, about Trevor.)  James also, as you know if you read this blog, was a pivotal force behind "After the Storm"—an arts-based initiative, a documentary film, and an ongoing effort to support the young people of Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.  "After the Storm," not incidentally, is also full-on proof that the faith we place in the arts is wise and fertile.

I have watched the "After the Storm" trailers for a long time (repeatedly!), read the reviews, talked to James.  But yesterday my own copy of the DVD arrived.  Bill and I ate an early dinner so that we could sit and watch it.

This, my friends, is a movie that can change your life.  This is also an opportunity to make a difference by investing in a DVD you will watch again and again. 

Please do.

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Why do I?

I had one of those days yesterday (they come on me from time to time) when I asked myself some serious questions about the writing life.  Does it matter, this thing that I do?  Would life be simpler, less angst-producing, less panic stricken, altogether more orderly and calm, if I stopped writing stories down in favor of living more fully?  Have I, in the end, achieved what I set out to achieve—or did I ever actually have a plan?  What should I have done that I didn't do?  What is still possible?  Why, after all these years, is writing so hard?  I write young adult novels (among other things), but I don't write typical young adult novels, as the gorgeous (inside and out) Booking Mama so poignantly points out on her blog today.  I care a lot about the sort of things that many readers pass right by.  I once tried to write a book that shimmered with big-time commercial possibility.  I failed.  Miserably.  For the life of me I do not know how such a thing gets done.

For a long time I sat in a quiet place thinking about these things.  I'd hear the ping of email coming in from across the way, but I didn't rise to find the news.  Finally, feeling no less good or smart for all my mental meanderings, I returned to my desk, opened my email, and was forcefully reminded of why I am still, after all these years, a writer.  Because I cannot help myself, for one thing.  And because my life would be bereft without the many kind and intelligent souls that writing ushers in.

Yesterday my email was full of saving graces.  You, you graces, know who you are (Julie P., you are pure grace, too), and how grateful I am.  Among the emailers was one James Lecesne—author, actor, activist, man of great heart—who wrote to say that he would be coming into town today to share his remarkable documentary film "After the Storm" at the offices of one forward-leaning law firm. Maybe we could get together beforehand, James said.  Absolutely, I thought.  Absolutely.  And so today, that's where I'll be—downtown breaking bread with James, a man I'd have never had the privilege of meeting had it not been for books and book festivals and a shared interest in writing stories that are invested in language and spring from the heart.

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On writing (and improving) a novel for adults. For real this time.

If there is anything that I've learned from writing the books that I have written, it is this:  Take your time. Get it right. Don't send your book out for editorial review until you can't write it any better, or any more.

I have written three novels for adults in the past.  One became, after fifteen years of radical reworking, the El Salvador memoir, Still Love in Strange Places.  One, following equally radical shifts and reimaginings, became the young adult novel due out this October, You Are My Only.  The third former adult novel is at the tail-end of a redrafting process; you'll be reading more about that no-longer-an-adult novel soon.

Last year, I sat down to write my fourth novel for adults.  This time, I would not tolerate the ersatz in me.  This time, I would work the novel and set it aside, work it and set it aside, until finally I asked my agent, Amy Rennert, and my friend, James Lecesne, to read.  They had wise things to say, loving things, hopeful things, and I listened to them—reworking the structure of the book at Amy's brilliant suggestion and intensifying the heart of the story, at James's.  I worked the book, set it aside, worked the book, and made a decision:  Before sending this book to any editor in the land, I would mail the whole to my friend Marjorie Braman, who recently stepped down from her role as editor-in-chief of Henry Holt to launch a literary consultancy.  I value what Marjorie has to say; I have learned from her counsel in the past.  I wanted to know what she would make of a story that means so much to me.

This is to say that I made the right choice, for Marjorie's notes, like Amy's notes, proved to be invaluable.  It's not just that she was so enthusiastic about this project.  It's that she read with care, wrote notes with precision, pointed me to places that needed rounding out and places that needed trimming.  She was honest and she was galvanizing.  I could not sleep (and I have not slept) for I had been given a new key to my own strange land.  I have rounded passages and abbreviated others.  I have softened and also clarified.

This blog post, then, is a thank you—to Amy Rennert, for sharing my hope, for believing in this dream, and for so conscientiously delineating ways that I could make this novel better; to James for being the love and light that he is; and to Marjorie for demonstrating her continuing commitment to the clarified page.

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Reading as a contact sport: The Bookalicio.us review of Dangerous Neighbors

Ever since I published my first book I dreamed of finding a stranger somewhere—anywhere—curled up with one of my stories.  It has happened only once; I was walking the path by the Schuylkill River and found a woman paging through Flow.  And once, of course, dear James Lecesne could be spotted reading Dangerous Neighbors on an Amtrak train, but that doesn't really count, in the oh-my-gosh-what-a-surprise way of things, for I'd handed him the book hours before at the BEA.

Because, as you all know, I never google my own name or check Amazon ratings, I don't operate with any sense of who might be reading which of my books right now (nor do I ever presume that people are).  And so, when, quite accidentally, I came upon this Bookalicio.us review of Dangerous Neighbors today, I felt that happy thing that happens inside when I know that a reader has been out there in the midst (and mist), and that a reader has read with such generosity and grace. 

I will, however, confess to feeling badly for our reviewer, Pam, from whom I learned, in this paragraph, that reading can be a contact sport:

Beth Kephart is such a fantastic writer that I am always in awe of her prose and story telling ability, so much so that reviewing any piece of literature from Kepharts small but growing canon is always hard for me to accomplish. Kephart is astonishingly capable of making her characters come to life in such a way that putting down the book to do menial tasks such as walking the hound become impossible. Which is why August of 2010 will always be known to me as the month that I learned walking the dog while reading results in severe coordination disability, causing walking into a pole, nose bleeds, and incredible embarrassment to all who try. This life lesson is just one of the things Kephart has taught me while reading her books.

 Thank you so much, Pam.

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My ALAN moment

I found myself in Orlando at the ALAN convention; I also found co-Egmont USA authors James Lecesne (Virgin Territory) and Tricia Rayburn (Siren).  Egmont USA's Katie Halata, who coordinated our days so spectacularly, is snapping this photo. I didn't know what to expect of ALAN; this was my first time there.  But what I found were teachers who—mostly on their own dime, taking their own vacation days—had carved out time to learn about new stories and where they come from.  There is a powerful commitment to our young out there; I felt the heat and passion of it through the day and over the course of the dinner that Katie hosted—a dinner that included such guests as Matt Skillen, Susan Groenke, Melanie Hundley, Shannon Collins, Steve Bickmore, and incoming ALAN president, Wendy Glenn.

ALAN is a class act.  I was proud and happy to be there.

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See you in Orlando (?)

This is Thirtieth Street Station, Philadelphia, 'round midnight, snapped with my raspberry-colored SONY digital that is a lot happier taking wide angles than it will ever be deployed in an up-close shot.  I'll be taking that camera with me on my quick jaunt to the ALAN conference, in Orlando, and I'll also be taking my love of this city as I talk about Dangerous Neighbors on an historical fiction panel also featuring Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Jeanette Ingold.

(And once I see dear fellow Egmont USA author James Lecesne there's no telling what I'll be talking about!)

Maybe I'll find some of you there.  I hope so.

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In which Elizabeth Law snaps a photo

My friend, hipwritermama, just informed me, the un-twitterer (but I might get there, I might still), of this photo floating around, hot off the Elizabeth Law press.  So.  That's Elizabeth Law (queen of all things, but especially of Egmont USA) behind the camera; Laura Geringer, fantastic-fabulous editor to the left of the frame; Virgin Territory author James Lecesne, holding up his number 33 for the YALSA coffee klatch, and me, with my un-matching jewelry, being held up by James (in all ways).

Wherever Elizabeth goes, we interesting people follow.....

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The YALSA Coffee Klatch

On Sunday morning, in a gigantic room at the very beautiful Washington, DC convention center, YALSA conducted its much-anticipated coffee klatch (in which authors are given but a few minutes at each librarian-stoked table to discuss his or her books)—and I, as I have already posted, was a very privileged author participant.

I could say many things—about the kindness of many toward this first time "speed dater," about the dearness of Laura Geringer and Elizabeth Law, who stayed by my side.  But what I want to say right here right now is what a privilege it was to stand among those authors for that hour—to meet the entirely lovely Libba Bray, to share an old reminisce with Laurie Halse Anderson, to see the gracious John Green move among the crowds, to hear a rumor that Rebecca Steadman was among us, to laugh, again, with James Lecesne (note to self:  when in a photography session before many flashing lights, stand next to James; he knows the ropes).

YA authors, YA readers, librarians:  good folk.

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Egmont USA Rocks (and so does the ALA conference)

Just look, to begin with, at that gorgeous green-but-mostly-blue from which Egmont USA emerges.  My favorite color when I was a kid, and my favorite color, still.  Look at the books lined up on the ledge.  Look at what Egmont does, and look at its fearless leaders.

Consider this:  In Washington, DC, at the ALA Annual Conference, I was an Egmont guest—signing books at the booth, talking about librarians (anyone who has read Nothing But Ghosts, which stars a sexy librarian, knows I love them) on an ALA flipbook, and greeting the first in the Dangerous Neighbors line with a photograph that (I am so sorry) did not turn out!  Consider that my editor, Laura Geringer met me there, at the booth, despite so much else she had to do, and consider that today, Sunday, I was among the 35 or so authors included in the remarkable YALSA "speed dating" event.  Laura joined me at times at those wide, brimming-with-interesting-people tables. Egmont USA's own Elizabeth Law joined me at others.  The fabulous James Lecesne was also, reliably, one table ahead, charming the pants off of anyone who crossed his path.

Good company?  Of course it's good company.  It feels like family.

Thank you, box-carrying, cheer-bearing Rob Guzman for all that you did to make the weekend perfect.  Thank you so much, Katie and Jeanne.  And thanks to all of you who stopped by or listened. Twelve books in, this was a first for me.  It will remain a cherished memory.

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James Lecesne and Virgin Territory

"I have been told," a friend wrote, "that the BEA is a non-event."

For so many reasons, it wasn't that for me.

Consider (among so much else), this:  I spent an Egmont-sponsored lunch rotating through tables with actor/Laura Geringer author/activist James Lecesne (I struggled with the listing of those attributes; James is all three, equally, and more).  We interviewed each other.  We discovered intersections.  We looked across the table and saw, in each other, an author who cares, first and foremost, about kids.

He went off to his thing after that, and I went off to mine, and by fluke and accident and perhaps fate, we ended up on the same train going home.  I had his book, Virgin Territory, in hand.  He had Dangerous Neighbors.  I have long nurtured a dream of seeing someone read one of my books on a train.  James was my first sighting.  I doubt it gets better than that.

When you adore someone, you want, you ache, to adore their book.  James makes that easy with Virgin Territory.  It's a book about a boy who has lost his mother and has a trembling relationship to faith.  A book about a town, Jupiter, Florida, that is rearranged by a possible sighting of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the face of a golf-course tree.  Faith seekers flock to the tree. A carnivalesque atmosphere ensues. Dylan, our hero, finds himself among new friends who believe that miracles erupt amidst the stirring of two things:  great desire and surrender to risk.

Supremely fluid, generous, and original, Virgin Territory is well made; it is seamless.  It takes the time to unfold characters that are new, complex, easily liked.  It paces perfectly—speeds up, slows down.  Its pieces fit its pieces, if you know what I mean.

You don't find many books like this—YA or otherwise.  And you don't find many people like James.  Buy the book and read it.  And after you do that (or before, if you insist), check out this trailer from the extraordinary documentary, After the Storm, which features James in a glorious Mad Hot Ballroom kind of tale about a musical that helps restore the kids of New Orleans.

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Scenes from the BEA

I was out of the house by 4:30 AM, and the day unfurled at lightening speed (save for the trains, which were both on the rather too late and slow side).  In the first photo:  The Egmont lunch for authors, booksellers, and librarians, held on the upper floor of a garment-district art gallery.  In the second:  Egmont Publisher Elizabeth Law, the remarkable James Lecesne (about whom I will soon be writing far more), Laura Geringer (who edits both James and me), and yours truly (in pink, because who else would wear pink on an 18 hour day spent among crowds and on trains?).

A huge thank you to all of you who stood in that line for the end-of-day, end-of-convention signing— I looked up, and there you were, and I won't forget the gift of your patience and enthusiasm.  Thank you to all of those who found me and stopped to say hello.  Thank you to the impeccable and beautiful Mandy King (I will always be grateful for our time together, and for all that led up to it).  Thank you to Amy Rennert and Louise (you know why).  A lasting thank you to the Egmont team—Elizabeth Law, Doug Pocock, Mary Albi, Rub Guzman, Regina Griffin, Greg Ferguson, Nico Medina, and Alison Weiss—who put together such a show, and who have welcomed me to the family in ways that I have never before been welcomed. (Nico, please note that I am thanking you despite your refusal to wear 19th century garb in support of my 19th century book.)  Thank you, Laura, for being there throughout.

I came home to see my boys (a midnight rendezvous) and to attend to corporate work.  I'm back on that train in a few hours, to join book bloggers at a convention and to speak about author/blogger relationships.

The horses are down the street; I'll sneak into their world early Saturday.

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