in the struggle of right now, search for beauty: MOMENTS OF SEEING, Katrina Kenison

In the struggle of right now, as I work to understand what I might do to strengthen fractured communities and identify (and work toward) hope, I make room, as well, for beauty.

I sit with a neighbor I love and talk.

I listen to the students who inspire.

I look for the sun when it rises and the sun when it falls.

I prepare my home for the return of my son.

I celebrate the news, and the dreams, of friends.

Here beside me as I type sits Moments of Being: Reflections from an Ordinary Life, a collection of essays from Katrina Kenison. You know Katrina because you read her hugely popular blog, or because you have read her three books (Mitten Strings for God, The Gift on an Ordinary Day, Magical Journey), or because you have met her in your travels as a student or a friend.

You know Katrina.

When Katrina decided to assemble these—shall we call them letters? yes, letters—first written to readers on her blog, she chose to build a book that is as physically beautiful as it is soul leavening. Gorgeous paper. Beautiful spine. Careful typesetting. It's all Katrina, through and through, in a book that asks us to stop, to see, and to appreciate. Here, for example, is Katrina reflecting on a party she threw in her peaceful home:

There was a moment, a kind of Mrs. Dalloway moment, when I just stopped, stood stock-still, and looked around at the loveliness of the scene. The men were in the kitchen drinking beer. The women were outside, chatting. The boys were juggling—a skill they all learned together in sixth and seventh grade and suddenly, spontaneously, decided to revive at ages seventeen and eighteen. Clubs flew through the air. A fiercely competitive badminton game was in progress. A group of girls sat at the picnic table, deep in conversation....

Today, I promised myself this: More time for fun. More spur of the moment parties, before it's too late and the younger generation is up and out and gone for good. More fires outside, more s'mores, more reasons to celebrate the joy of being alive, of raising children to young adulthood, of spending time with those young adults—who, after all, are still learning from us, each and every day, what it means to live a good life.

We have a responsibility, this Thanksgiving, to love out loud, to yield the floor, to listen. We have a responsibility to look for and find beauty, because that will strengthen us, that will enliven us, that will help us find not just hope but a right path forward.

There is beauty in Katrina's way of seeing, her way of being. You can order her book directly here.

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Dept. of Speculation: Jenny Offill/Reflections

Among the writer friends whose recommendations I instantly trust is Katrina Kenison, whose memoirs have inspired countless readers and whose many years as both an editor of books and the series editor of Best American Short Stories refined, or perhaps announced, her exquisite readerly sensitivities.

One day before I left for Alaska, Katrina wrote me a note including this line:  Have you read Dept. of Speculation?  That's my latest favorite.  Also very short, but oh, piercing.  

So of course I ordered Jenny Offill's newest novel at once. I read it before the plane left the ground.

Forty-six chapters in 175 pages. A Carole Maso, Kathryn Harrison, or Cynthia Reeves like intensity. A woman broken and her story broken and each brief paragraph like a scream from the deep dark of a well. Help me. A late-in-the-game inversion of point of view that knocks the reader around and carries the story to an even higher plane.

Our narrator is a woman who half loved, then loved, then married, then had a baby with swirls of hair on the back of her head, then watched that marriage fall apart. Our narrator is a woman who is trying, before our very eyes, to regain her footing, to know who she is, to find a rope in the well. Our woman is so stunned by the cruel possibilities of life that she can barely speak more than a few sentences at once.

Example of a single paragraph, cordoned off by white space:

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

Example of another single paragraph:

Sometimes she will come in complaining about seeing things when she closes her eyes at night. Streaks of light, she says. Stars.

It's like this, in Dept. of Speculation. It's harrowing and brave and (to my way of seeing) deliciously odd. It feels uncalculated (though of course it isn't) and raw (though a book like this takes extraordinary refinement and planning). It feels alive and desperate and worried through, and don't we all have times like these, and doesn't that make this fiction true?

Yesterday I wrote of a long book of many chapters—the fantastic Anthony Doerr. Today I wrote of a short book of many chapters—the brave and talented Jenny Offill. Tomorrow, here, I will write of a more ordinary book, one that I didn't read breathlessly during my time away. 

What do we have as readers? We have choices. Is there anything sweeter than that?




 

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talking about friends, talking about writing, talking and blogging, here we go

Writer, editor, mother, yoga-ist, friend—Katrina Kenison has been there, over and again, in my writing life. One of the first to read and write of my first book about reading and writing: Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World. One of the first to read and write of my second book about reading and writing: Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir (I had arrived, at long last, at the grave of my great-grandfather, Horace Kephart, in Bryson City, NC, when Katrina's note about Handling floated in—perfect timing, for Katrina had once found and sent to me as a gift a rare copy of one of Horace Kephart's books).  

Katrina has understood what few others haven't. She has written memoirs that I have loved and celebrated—Mitten Strings for God, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Magical Journey. She edited, for many years, Best American Short Stories, and so she knows a thing or two about fiction, too. And her blog? Beloved.

When Katrina asked if I might participate in the latest blog-a-thon (is that a word? I don't know), I said yes. Because another very dear friend, Patty Chang Anker (Some Nerve, a memoir about facing the things we fear), had asked me the same question a few weeks earlier, when I was deluged, I'm tagging her back here. Patty and I recently shared the most spectacular night in New York City, when both of our books were nominated for a Books for a Better Life Award. Check out her popular blog and find out what this former non-cyclist spent her weekend.

I have two other friends/writers/editors I'm eager to introduce in this very blog post. So I'll quickly move through the a-thon questions. Here we go:

What am I working on?

On April 1, Going Over, my Berlin 1983 novel, was released. I am working on — well, I'm working on surviving the angst/suspense/fear/release that goes along with the publication of each book. I'm getting better at this. I'm trusting fate more. I'm living with who I am, which is this sort of idiosyncratic YA writer whose YA books don't fall into easy categories, which is to say they aren't easily marketed, which is to say, I'm still just Beth Kephart, A Moonlight Writer if Ever There Was One. Real life, for me, is the boutique marketing communications business I run, the stories I write for the Philadelphia Inquirer, the reviews I write for Chicago Tribune, and, in the spring, the creative nonfiction class I teach at Penn. That class recently ended. I'm still sobbing. But I digress.

A few days ago, Publishers Weekly kindly announced my next two books. And so, cheatingly, I share that announcement here:

As reported in PW Children's Bookshelf, April 28, 2014:

Tamra Tuller at Chronicle has acquired two books by NBA-nominated author Beth Kephart. Set in Florence, Italy, One Thing Stolen follows Nadia Cara as she mysteriously begins to change. She's become a thief, she has secrets she can't tell, and when she tries to speak, the words seem far away.This Is the Story of You takes place in an island beach town in the aftermath of a super storm; Mira, a year-rounder stranded for weeks without power, hopes to return storm-tossed treasures to their rightful owners, and restore some sense of order to an unrecognizable world. Publication is scheduled for spring 2015 and spring 2016; Amy Rennert of the Amy Rennert Agency did the deal for world rights.

How does my work/writing differ from others in its genre?

So many ways to answer this question. But I'll be brief. What I write is Kephartian. Linguistically intense. Erupted from the heart. Framed by big questions of history and humanity. That works for some people. It doesn't work for others. And this is not to say (because that would be a lie) that others in my genre don't pursue the same humanity, history, and heart. Others do. In a minute you'll meet A.S. King. You'll see what I mean.

Why do I write what I do?

Because I can't help it. I know that sounds flippant, or something (would flippant be the right word?). But it's as honest as I can be. I write what I must write, what draws me to it urgently, what can't be suppressed, what wakes me up. It all comes from the gut, and then from a heck of a lot of research. I wish I had a plan. I just have instincts.

How does my writing process work?

I could write on and on and on (blog pages!) about all the times the process doesn't work. When it does work, I kiss the wing tips of some theoretical muse (or the nose of my tall wooden giraffe, which is my actual muse) and ask no questions. Thank you thank you thank you thank you. That's what I say. Then pray I'll get the ineffable good-luck process back some other day.

All righty, all righty, enough on me. Now I get to get back to my friends, A.S. King and Karen Rile, who are going to answer their own questions on their own blogs next week.

So let's start with A.S., who is also Amy, who is also (to me) King, who is also Dude. Or. Wait. Dude is what Amy calls me. What Amy calls us. Dude is the name of our extended family. Whatever it is, you know her. She is, perhaps, the most starred YA author working today. She has awards falling out of her overall pockets. John Green has called her a goddess, but Beth Kephart called her a goddess first, and in this case, Beth Kephart Rules. The Dust of 100 Dogs, Please Ignore Vera Dietz, Everyone Sees the Ants, Ask the Passengers, Reality Boy, the forthcoming Glory O'Brien's History of the Future. These are King books. This is the King legacy. You can read all about them here.

And you can read what I wrote about King on her most recent birthday here.

Then there's Karen Rile, aka editor of Cleaver Magazine, aka my dear friend at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches fiction and other things to loving students, while teaching how to be a teacher to moi. Cleaver has rocked the lit world, since it was founded not long ago. Below are the facts as Karen provides them. Here is what I had to say when Cleaver launched.

Cleaver Magazine shares “cutting-edge” artwork and literary work from a mix of established and emerging voices. We were founded in January 2013 and are currently preparing our 6th full-length issue, which will launch on June 11, 2014.

We are a web-based magazine. In our first year we received 60,000 unique visits and over 100,000 hits. To give an idea of our readership: over the past three months, we had visits from 119 countries, although about 80% of our readership is American. Our editors have deep ties to the Philadelphia community. We are an international magazine, but maintain a commitment to publish about 25-30% Philadelphia-based writers in each issue.

We publish poetry, short stories, essays, flash prose, visual art, and reviews of poetry books and other small press publications. We publish quarterly, in March, June, September, and December. In each issue we present several emerging writers and at least one emerging visual artist alongside established writers and artists. We see ourselves as facilitators and stewards of the literary and artistic work that we publish.

We are independent and self-funded and are grateful for support, in part, from the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and Kelly Writers House.



I cede the stage....

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Introducing Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing

When writer/teacher/friend Jennie Nash invited me to share an excerpt from Handling the Truth in the journal Compose, I had no idea just how beautiful this magazine was. I trusted Jennie; that was enough. I said yes before digging further.

Yesterday, Compose released its second issue. This biannual, digital magazine has Suzannah Windsor, Jennie Nash, Lisa Romeo, Andrew Rojas, Reem Al-Omari, Tamara Pratt, Christi Craig, and Tiffany Turpin Johnson on its mastthead. It features both new and emerging writers of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction—and interviews with such powerhouses as Eva Langston and Rebecca Hazleton.

The Fall 2013 issue is dear to my heart, not just because it includes a beautifully designed excerpt from Handling the Truth (I'm in love with the chosen image; it's so perfect for memoir), but because it has an essay called "Mean Mail" by my friend Katrina Kenison (we had talked about this incident in her life; it is amazing to read of it here and now) and an interview with the ever-kind and ever-smart Marion Roach Smith.

And plenty more.

Please take a look at what some very smart and generous literary people can do when they put their minds and talents together.

This is Compose.

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when you find your name in The New Yorker

Katrina Kenison is the one who told me. My name, she said, on the back of The New Yorker.

Are you sure? I said.

Because everybody who reads this blog knows how much I love The New Yorker. How much respect I have for its pages. How I have dreamed (but it is only a dream) of being New Yorker worthy.

Just as everybody who reads this blog knows how much I love Alice McDermott, with whom I sat, long ago, at the 1998 National Book Awards. She won that evening, for Charming Billy, and I joined the roaring crowds. I have been a huge admirer ever since—of her storytelling, her language, and her humanity.

My words in this ad on the back of The New Yorker? Needless to say, it is an honor.

For those who might have missed them, my thoughts about Someone are here. Yes. I loved it.

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Embarrassment of riches: A conversation with Priscilla Gilman, and thank you to Becca, Katrina, and Kelly

Yesterday, dawn. Stone Harbor, New Jersey. We stood on the beach and watched the tangerine-pink sun rise.

Back in Beth Land, extraordinary things were happening. Becca Rowan and Katrina Kenison were finalizing Handling the Truth contests—and engaging in conversations with their many readers about loved books. I am so grateful to both—surprised by Becca's stealth move and overwhelmed by her beautiful thoughts about Handling, and amazed by the choral voices on Katrina's blog—and Katrina's own thoughts on the book. Kelly Simmons, that devilishly fine friend of mine, was also launching her own Handling contest. She's a special lady, that Kelly, and her contest is on, and if you haven't been to her blog lately, then I insist. Go. Cherish.

And then there was Priscilla Gilman, the award-winning author of The Anti-Romantic Child and well-loved teacher, who posted a conversation we had a little while ago about favorite memoirs and the memoir form. We also talked about poetry, a form that Priscilla knows deeply. What is my favorite poem, she wanted to know, and so I said....

Well, you'll have to go here to find out more—and to have a chance at winning Handling.

Huge thanks, then, on this day when the sun rises again, some two hours east, over the shore. May the day bring you goodness. May you feel the burst of tangerine-pink.

I leave you with these words from Becca:

But what I love most about Handling the Truth is that it reveals a side of Beth Kephart I’ve not seen before. She is fierce in this book, like a mama bear protecting her cub. Kephart has written five memoirs of her own, each one astoundingly good, each one proving anew her passion for this genre. And throughout handling the truth she exhorts all of us – we fledgling, aspiring memoir writers – not to take this work she loves and mess it up. In the opening pages, she gives us a forthright and adamant list of what memoir is NOT – not “a lecture, a lesson, a stew of information and facts.” NOT “a self-administered therapy session.” NOT “an exercise in self-glorification.” NOT a “trumped-up, fantastical idea of what an interesting life might have been, if only.”

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The Faraway Nearby/Rebecca Solnit (Reflections)/and thank you, Katrina Kenison

Several years ago, my father, a talented gardener, asked me what I wanted most, and I said hummingbirds. A few weeks later, there he was—digging a hole near my front door and planting a trumpet vine.

It's become a monstrosity, since—making the overtaken house look like something straight out of a Grimm's fairy tale. My husband threatens to do away with the vine. I trim it back, faithfully. I say, "But the hummingbirds will come." And this summer they've come in force.

Earlier today I was sitting outside, reading Rebecca Solnit's The Faraway Nearby, when one particularly curious hummer came near and stayed long enough for me to take its portrait. It was as if Solnit herself had engineered the scene, or given it to me. I own every single Solnit book. I take great pleasure in them. And I'm pretty sure that she'd find a story here—in the monstrous vine and the sweet visitation, the madly fluttering wings and the stopped heart of the reader who looked up in time.

The Faraway Nearby is Solnit at her most fierce and, often, her most fine. This is memoir intellectualized. It's Solnit reflecting on the gift of apricots—countless apricots—that came her way just as she was entering her final chapters as a daughter. Held within this frame are other stories—of the man who left Solnit at a terrible time, of Solnit's own experience with illness, of a trip taken to Iceland, of a river ride. In-depth investigations of fairy tales and Frankenstein, hot and cold, forgiveness and understanding, surviving and dying bind. You cannot anticipate Solnit's mind. You cannot think, even if you feel as if you are on solid, shared ground (the story of Frankenstein, for example, or the biography of Virginia Woolf) that you know where she is headed. But you can trust that, no matter how far away from her seeming purpose Solnit goes, she will remember where she started from, and she will loop back in, put in another stitch or two, even as she warns against pretty seaming.

Solnit's evaluation of her mother often bristles. Her characterization of Alzheimer's alarms. The old boyfriend doesn't get away with much. But there's so much, so much, to Solnit's intellect, her search to understand, her desire to get things right, her ability to transcend herself, and she's brilliant with those apricots—bracing and authentic.

This abundance of unstable apricots seemed to be not only a task set for me, but my birthright, my fairy-tale inheritance from my mother who had given me almost nothing since my childhood. It was a last harvest, a heap of fruit from a family tree, like the enigmatic gifts of fairy tales: a magic seed, a key to an unknown door, a summoning incantation. Bottling, canning, composting, freezing, eating, and distilling them was the least of the tasks they posed. The apricots were a riddle I had to decipher, a tale whose meaning I had to make over the course of the next twelve months as almost everything went wrong.

I am glad to have read this book. Glad that I fought for the time.

And I am glad, too—grateful—for Katrina Kenison, who was one of the very first readers of Handling the Truth, who was the very first person who put words to it, and who has shared my quest, throughout the years, to write and understand memoir. Katrina has more friends in the e-universe than I can summon a quantifier for. And today she blesses me by sharing Handling with her readers on a blog that—newly updated—has something for everyone. She's even offering a give-away.

That's all happening here. Please take a look.

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It's Flourescent! The actual Handling the Truth cover arrives, with blurbs and all

 

Look what just arrived on this very soggy day. 

No one will lose sight of this book. 

Ever.

:) 
For more on the book, go here.

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a Philadelphia photo essay, in the Inquirer

The days are rarely what we imagine they will be. The news comes in. The shock. The losses. Ordinary days, as my friend Katrina Kenison has written, are, often, the greatest gifts of all.

One of the greatest gifts I've been given in recent months is the chance to write an occasional piece for the Inquirer—pieces about the city I unashamedly love. I don't write journalism, don't know how. I just write my heart. And I take my camera out there, too, because sometimes my lens writes the stories better than my handful of words.

This past weekend I was blessed by the publication of a photo essay about that part of Philadelphia once known as Bush Hill. I wrote about my travels through that area years ago and the revival of Eastern State Penitentiary.

You can write all you want, take whatever photos cross your path. It's nothing without an editor and a designer. And so today I thank Kevin Ferris and his team for the layout that they chose for the front page of this past Sunday's Currents section.

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and the winner of Magical Journey is ...

Melodye Shore!

I know that you want to know how this winner was selected for my contest, sponsored a few days ago.  I will share that secret here.  With more than 500 people clicking on this giveaway post and more than 30 entering to win, with my own blog utterly unaccustomed to throwing book giveaways, I called in my arsenal, which is to say my husband, and asked him a question.

Choose a number, I said.

Why? he asked

You will be selecting a winner, I said.

A winner!  Well.  He gave it great thought.  He closed his eyes.  He chose his quantifier.

Melodye won, I said.

I want some credit for that, he said.

Credit is given.  A challenge is won.

All of you who so kindly took interest here, thank you for your responses and contentment.  I know you will love Katrina's book, however it enters your life.

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the first gift of your new year: a chance to win Katrina Kenison's Magical Journey

I have spent much of this snowy, white weekend with my dear friend Katrina Kenison, who may live among mountains and wild flowers north of here, but who has a way of writing that extends her voice and touch straight out of terrestrial geography.  She is gentle with you.  She is fierce with herself.  She wants to live a full, complete life—not losing all she's loved, not forfeiting the present hour.  Introverted, she thinks.  Gracious, she extends. 

Katrina has a new book now, a memoir, called Magical Journey:  An Apprenticeship in Contentment.  On this last day of 2012, and for a few days tripping into 2013, you have a chance to win a copy.

You know how much I love Katrina, for just a few days ago I wrote about her here.  I shared, as well, the film she's made that suggests the themes in her new book.  But let me do something more to entice you.  Let me quote from this book about needing, wanting, failing, righting, this book so tender, forthright, and honest that, even if you cannot find a silent place to read, all the voices that tangle in your head will, in Katrina's company, be silenced.  Katrina is writing about herself, but she is, as all memoirists must, also writing about women like her, women who have raised children and who are asking, quietly or chorally, What next?  What is my purpose here?  "Now I'm coming to believe," Katrina writes:

that there is room in the world for all our stories, not only the heroic narratives of extraordinary people who inspire us with their accomplishments, but also simple stories of ordinary struggles.  I suspect that every mother, no matter what her circumstances, muddles her way through the intricate dance of holding on and letting go; that no parent ever feels they get it exactly right; and that though our stories may look different on the surface, they are in many ways the same—about lives that feel as confusing and exhilarating, as mundane and precious, as imperfect and blessed as my own.  

What do you believe?  And how might Katrina's journey mirror or magnify your own?  If you want a chance to win a copy of this book, all you have to do is put a comment here, naming one single thing in which you find quiet contentment.   You have until January 4th.  And then we'll pull a name from the virtual hat.

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Christmas weather, holiday kindness, and thank you, A. A. Omer

I made my way to Body Combat early this morning.  The snow began to fall just as I left.  I allow myself to be lazy after workouts like that.  To lie on a couch and dream a novel forward. 

I write so slowly now.  But I never mind the time I make to dream a novel forward.

In between I read the astonishing work being sent to me by the YoungArts writers; our literary future, ladies and gentlemen, is in excellent hands.  I read, as well, Katrina Kenison's glorious new book, Magical Journey, of which I wrote not long ago.  Look for a chance to win your own copy here, on New Year's Day.  All you'll need to do is tell me what makes you quietly glad, and your name will be put into the hat.

Finally, I discovered, thanks to a little white-winged bird, that A.A. Omer, a reader of discerning tastes (in my humble opinion), placed Small Damages number one in her five-book list of the year's best writing.  It joins the work of David Levithan, Moira Young, Ilsa Bick, and Wynne Channing.  It is an act of greatest kindness.  Thank you.

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Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment/Katrina Kenison: the video you must watch now

Katrina Kenison's name is, I'm sure, well known to you all.  As an editor she brought important books into the world and spent many years binding together each year's most essential works of short fiction in Best American Short Stories.  As a writer she has been inspired by her children, her neighbors, her urgent dreams of peaceful, meaningful living to craft books that have found countless readers—immediately upon publication and consistently throughout the years.  As a blogger she inspires and makes whole legions of seekers.  As a force for good she has been interviewed in the New York Times or written for the Huffington Post and other major news outlets.  As my long-time friend, she has listened, coaxed, assured, read, remembered, and, even while under all manner of personal pressure, written words that help me understand my own books better.  She is a letter writer and a prose poemer.  A practitioner of yoga and a cook.  She has a really adorable dog. And when the world shatters, as the world has lately shattered, Katrina is the companion and friend you turn to for binding wisdom.

While the rest of us wish we knew how to make book trailers that were far bigger and better than book trailers, Katrina has gone ahead and blazed a significantly different kind of path by making videos about books that also stand alone as life lessons.  Just look at this trailer for The Gift of an Ordinary Day.  More than 1.6 million other people already have.

This morning I am  proud and happy to share Katrina's newest work of video art, which, among other things, introduces her new book, due out in January, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment.

"Love," Katrina writes in its pages, "is the answer to your most urgent question: What am I really" here to do?"

"You have work to do," she urges.  "Begin it."

Katrina worked intently on her new book.  She thought a lot about how to tell its story with audio and film.  She conceived of and posed for the book's cover.  I'm not the only one who believes Magical Journey will soar.  Here, for example, is Publishers Weekly:

In this intensely moving tribute to the importance of enjoying every moment of life, Kenison (The Gift of An Ordinary Day), former longtime series editor of The Best American Short Stories, tells a tale inspired by loss and confides what can be gained from it. After a dear friend dies from cancer and her two sons head off to boarding school and college, Kenison is forced to question what remains relevant in her life and how such an introspective examination might portend a change in priorities. Identifying a common and paralyzing fear (“I am so used to doubting my worthiness that the minute I decide to do something, I start convincing myself I’m not up to the job”), she turns to intensive yoga studies, where she learns that “the best antidote to anxiety about the future is to be present in the here and now,” and that finding contentment in what one is rather than what one thinks one should be is critical. Her journey will inspire tears and determination, and remind readers that anything, “done from the heart, changes the world in some small way for the better.” Agent: Steven Lewers. (Jan.)

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Handling the Truth: Katrina Kenison's kindness and first words

Tomorrow morning I am going to share a video here that will quiet you, inspire you, make you want to know my friend, Katrina Kenison.

But this afternoon I am privileged to share Katrina's words about Handling the Truth.  She received this book and read it at once.  She sent me notes as I stood near my great-grandfather's grave in Bryson City, North Carolina, and then notes again, through a dark week.  And even in the midst of all she is doing in preparation for the launch of her own book, Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment (look for it!), she took time to craft these words.

They are the first "official" words for this book:

With infectious passion and hard-won wisdom, Beth Kephart eloquently celebrates the rigors and rewards of the creative process and – equally necessary – the art of crafting a meaningful life.  Part memoir and part memoirist’s manifesto, this small, urgent book inspires on many levels.  Read it and learn how to tell your story.  Better yet, read it and begin to understand why your story matters.

Katrina Kenison, author of Magical Journey:  An Apprenticeship in Contentment

For the full press release, go here.

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In which I at long last travel to Bryson City, home of my great grandfather, Horace Kephart

I have written of my great grandfather here on this blog and elsewhere (Tin House magazine) many times. Horace Kephart has been credited with helping to create the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  He was an author and a campcrafter, a brilliant librarian who left academia to live among the Appalachian people, to understand them.  He has been the subject of countless articles, at least one novel, a stunning song cycle, a lengthy segment in the recent Ken Burns series of National Parks, theatrical productions.  He is celebrated yearly during Horace Kephart Days (an event largely organized by my cousin, Libby).  He has been praised by Barack Obama.  He has been lovingly attended to by George Ellison, a biographer of heart and intelligence.  He has been discussed, parsed, debated, and he continues to be the subject of ongoing scholarship and interest.

I had never had the opportunity to visit Bryson City, where Kephart lived for many years and where he is buried.  I hadn't been able to go, in fact, until this past Sunday, a misty day in the Carolinas.  We had been in Asheville for a glorious wedding.  My husband drove the mountain roads.  When we found Bryson City, we stopped and walked.  Seeing the Historic Calhoun Hotel and Country Inn, I made the decision to be bold.  To knock on the door and see what might happen, for I had heard that this innkeeper had a Horace Kephart library and a respect for Kephart's work.

We were in the south, and so politeness ruled.  Mr. Luke D. Hyde, the Calhoun innkeeper and a key player in the ongoing sanctuary that is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, didn't just open the door; he invited us in.  He told us his stories, shared images, took us up to his Kephart library (see the portrait of my great grandfather on that wall), even gave me a copy of Kephart's work on the Cherokee Indians.  Then he sent us on our way, and I will always be touched by the time he took and the generosity he showed.

Kephart is buried on a hill beside a small church.  He is buried no more than a half mile away from one of my best friends' childhood homes.  I heard from Ann as we were walking the incline.  I saw her home in the near distance.  I felt her spirit beside me.  Ann has visited Kephart's grave for many years; members of her family are buried nearby.  I wish I was with you, Ann wrote.  And how I wished, too.

Finally, as I was making my way through Bryson City, I heard from my dear friend Katrina Kenison.  I have known Katrina since the beginning of my publishing time (truly) and written of her often here.  Once, years ago, Katrina, who so deeply understands and loves the natural world, sent me a copy of Kephart's Camp Cookery, which sits right here on my shelf.  I had written of Katrina's gift when it came.  On Sunday I was the recipient of yet another kind of gift, for Katrina was reading Handling the Truth and there in the hills of Bryson City, I read her thoughts about its early pages for the first time.

Blessed.

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celebrating Patricia Hampl and other fine memoirists in HANDLING THE TRUTH

In returning the proof pages of Handling the Truth to Gotham yesterday, I relinquished all further control over the story.  No more changes.  No allowable regrets.  The book will soon be set in stone and released next August.

One of my greatest joys, in writing Handling the Truth, was the chance it gave me to celebrate the many memoirs—true memoirs, not autobiographies—that have inspired me throughout the years.  Natalie Kusz is there—the author of the first memoir I ever read.  C.K. Williams.  Marie Arana.  Mary Karr.  Anthony Shadid.  bell hooks.  Katrina Kenison.  Darin Strauss.  Dani Shapiro.  Rahna Reiko Rizzuto.  Buzz Bissinger.  Colleen Mondor.  Sy Montgomery.  Chris Offutt.  Elizabeth McCracken.  Lucy Grealy.  So many others. 

But no book about the making of memoir would ever be complete without a celebration of Patricia Hampl, who has done so much to shape the form.  Here, above, is a glimpsed moment.

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slowly extricating myself from The Busy Trap

This beautiful young man is my nephew, a child growing up on the outskirts of London.  He is buoyant, instantly generous, loving, and a fine host at his own party.  I like how he smiles.  I like how he plays, how he relaxes with the hour.  I like how his job, right now, is happiness.

I thought of this happy kid as I read the New York Times Op/Ed piece (penned by Tim Kreider) on busyness, and its many bedevil-ments.  "If you live in American in the 21st century you've probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are," Kreider begins.  "It's become the default response when you ask anyone how they're doing: 'Busy!' 'So busy.' 'Crazy busy.'  It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint.  And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: 'That's a good problem to have,' or 'Better than the opposite.'"

Kreider was, of course, aiming his pen at me.  (Hey, as a memoirist/narcissist it's a conclusion I'm bound to draw.)  Crazy busy was my theme song.  Overwhelmed was my word du every jour.  I'd like to, but I can't.  Yes, folks.  That was me.  A lot of it was circumstance, pressures and responsibilities I had not actively chosen for myself.  But much of it stemmed from choices I had made—to endlessly shore up family finances, to write (again), to volunteer (some more), to chase spider webs at midnight that no one but yours truly can see.

Not long ago, I declared my desire for a lesser life—one less crammed with to-do lists, less amenable to busy boasts.  I wanted to, needed to, sleep more.  I wanted to live more.  I wanted to have more time away from the computer, more time in gardens, more time with books, more time to experiment in the kitchen.  I wanted, frankly, more time for walks with my son, more time to scheme up art projects with my husband, more time alone.  I bought close to three dozen books—recent classics I had missed—and set out to read them.  I made time for walks with long-time friends.  I sat and looked at photographs—not in a hurry, and for no applicable reason.

And when client work arrived, as client work must and will arrive, I didn't promise a next-day delivery.  I did the work, best as I could, same high standards in place.  But I didn't do it in a breathless rush when the rest of my timezone was sleeping.

I'm liking me better this way, but I know how hard it will be to avoid relapsing into BusyNess.  I am keeping Kreider's article close, therefore, for when I'm tempted to fall off the wagon.  I share this Kreider paragraph, with the hope that you'll read the whole:

Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. I once knew a woman who interned at a magazine where she wasn’t allowed to take lunch hours out, lest she be urgently needed for some reason. This was an entertainment magazine whose raison d’être was obviated when “menu” buttons appeared on remotes, so it’s hard to see this pretense of indispensability as anything other than a form of institutional self-delusion. More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.

And then there's just one more thing.... My dear friend Katrina Kenison is featured in this equally important New York Times story (this one written by Alina Tugend), "Redefining Success and Celebrating the Ordinary."  I felt like one very lonesome mother a decade ago, when writing toward these themes in Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World.  It is extraordinarily heartwarming and hope-inducing to see Ordinary elevated to its rightful place of loveliness.  It is equally wonderful to read my friend Becca's words on her ordinary yesterday. Becca, who is the farthest thing imaginable from average.

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By the end of the day ...

things were looking less messy around here in HANDLING THE TRUTH land.  Seriously, though.  How much do we love fancy file folders?  Katrina Kenison sent me my first set of grown-up file folders years ago.  Ever since then, nothing less will do.

But enough, already, on organizing.

Tomorrow I must write. 

Tomorrow.  Tomorrow.

I'm starting to sound like Annie.

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Literary Friendship (on The Huffington Post)

It was Katrina Kenison (The Gift of an Ordinary Day, Mitten Strings for God) who introduced me to Jennie Nash (The Threadbare Heart, The Only True Genius in the Family, The Last Beach Bungalow, The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming, Raising a Reader).  Katrina was sure that Jennie and I were like-minded souls, and Katrina (who knows many things, who can be trusted) was right.  Jennie and I became instant friends and we have remained close, though she is a west coaster and I am an east coaster, and though she has lately been writing novels for adults and I have lately been writing for young adults.  We share motherhood stories, frustration stories, breakthrough stories, and when my mother passed away, Jennie sent a gift—a purse knitted from yarn that, Jennie said, looked like the colors of the sky on the day my mother passed away. (Jennie also sent red lipstick for my first ballroom showcase number.)

When Jennie, then, sent an email today, brief as brief could be (it simply said:  Writing about you today), I clicked on the link.  It took me to The Huffington Post.  It took me to these words, from dear Jennie.

Thank you, Jennie.

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Tonight I'm Honoring Some Mega Flying Writer Friends

and I'm beginning with Katrina Kenison, who took a virtual walk with me this afternoon (we were on the phone; we live many states apart; I walked by this stream; I took a picture. Snap.). Katrina's newest book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, came out this past fall and has been doing what thoughtful books do, over time—which is to say that it has been gaining momentum. Visit Katrina's web site. Watch the video she's made. Let her tell you about the life she has been living. You'll see why her book is touching so many lives, and why it's likely on its way to becoming a word-of-mouth bestseller.

I'm moving next to Rebecca Skloot, whom I met years ago at Goucher College, when she was teaching, and her dad, Floyd, was teaching, and I was teaching—and it just went down like that: teachers teaching. Rebecca was talking even then about a book that she was writing, something, she kept saying, about the immortal cells of a woman named Henrietta Lacks. We talked about structure in the abstract back then, and over the next many years I either heard first-hand or read (on Rebecca's blog) about the journey she was taking with a book she so believed in that no amount of raised eyebrow on the part of ersatz publishers had the power to diminish. Rebecca had a story to tell. She had a story that defined her and defined us and had, she knew, to be told. She was in New York City writing, she was in her beat-up Honda driving, she was at a friend's farmhouse revising: Wherever she was, she was determined to get this story told.

You've heard of that Henrietta Lacks story in the meantime, right? You've heard Rebecca on ABC News, Rebecca on Fresh Air, Rebecca on All Things Considered. You've seen Rebecca in the pages of Oprah and let's not forget Rebecca three times in one week in the New York Times or Rebecca on her four-month book tour. We're talking about that Rebecca Skloot, my friends. The one who never stopped believing in her dream.

Finally, I am shouting out today on behalf of one of my very dearest friends, Alyson Hagy. We won a National Endowment for the Arts grant years ago. We started a correspondence. We're in touch, because I'm lucky, nearly every day, and Alyson has seen me through thick and thin, she has sent me her weather via email, she has cheered me through teaching because she's a teacher herself (the likes of whom Michael Ondaatje, Don DeLillo, Phillip Gourevitch, Joy Williams, and Edward Jones come to visit), and she has sent me early pages of her books to read because I so believe in her. Alyson's Ghosts of Wyoming came out a few days ago. It's already been featured, brilliantly, in the Boston Globe, The Believer, New West, and Denver Post, and do you want to know what Susan Salter Reynolds of the LA Times said about my friend Alyson this weekend? Do you?

Reynolds said this: These eight burnished stories confirm Hagy's importance in American literature; her seamless blending of landscape and lives, her very modern understanding of the vulnerability of kindness.

Yeah, baby. Oh, yeah.

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