Dignity, Our Fellow Americans, and The Fifth of July, by Kelly Simmons

I knew that driving nearly 5,000 miles across this country would change the way I see and feel; I wanted it to. I wanted to attach my empathy for other Americans to a more complete sense of the lives those other Americans live. The lonesome and the lovely landscapes. The shuttered stores and the Big Brands and the possibilities that a single restaurant proprietor stirs in Hope, AK. The music in truck cabs and the music on Beale Street and the fullness and yearning of it all.

This country that we love in our own ways is worth loving. It is worth protecting—not just its resources and its people, but its dignity. Dignity is a gigantic word, measured one act and one word at a time. It can be modeled. We can model it for one another.

And, right now, we must.

While I was away I had in hand a copy of Kelly Simmons' The Fifth of July, a book due out in a month or so, a book Kelly had slipped into my mailbox, at my request. I read this novel, which takes place in Kelly's own beloved Nantucket, while in hotel rooms in Columbus, OH, St. Louis, MO, Oklahama City, and Santa Fe. The smells and symbols of the beach were therefore there with me no matter how far my husband and I traveled from the sea. Kelly renders this landscape with the full, personal knowledge of someone who has lived it.

This, below, is the voice of Caroline, a wife, mother, daughter, and former girlfriend of the local handyman, who will soon become embroiled in a family death and mystery:

We turned the corner at Brant Point Lighthouse and waved back only to strangers—beachcombers, fishermen in waders casting into the surf—who greeted the ferry, hour after hour, day after day. Year after year. Here we come again. The salt air woke everyone up; the lighthouse made everyone smile. The town dock came into view, the boats gleaming, the lines of families waiting for the arrivals like a parade.

There are all kinds of mysteries in The Fifth of July. Who, for example, is mongering hate with posters and swastikas? What has led to the death of an unwell man? Who perpetuated a crime against Caroline years ago, and who is now marauding around town, threatening teenage girls, and who is genuinely in love with who? Who has another's back? To tell the story, Kelly employs multiple voices and points of view. The frame remains that seaside place, which Kelly yields with consistent authority.

This is the voice of Tom, Caroline's brother, who will not escape the doubt or suspicion that settles across the mysterious death and separate hate mongering. He, too, is gloriously attuned to the reliable routines of this ebb-and-flow place:

The rooms that faced east, like mine, fairly glowed from five a.m. on a clear day. Then there were the birds, with their array of voices. If the songbirds signaling each other didn't wake you up, the seagulls cracking oyster shells would finish the job. Arriving next, around seven a.m., were the gardeners, with the whine of their weed whackers and hedge clippers. And then, a little before eight, the construction workers with their nail guns and saws.

Sometimes darkness enfolds us. Anger, misunderstanding, lost or too-residual love. In Kelly's Fifth of July, a family, its neighbors, and its help negotiate the darkness of personal histories and legacies. The book takes us into those scary places where the wrong things perpetuate wrong things, and where the land and those who intimately know the land stand strong, and most true.

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Finding books with friends, and Adam Haslett on fear (IMAGINE ME GONE)

It was meant to be. There Cyndi Reeves and I were, in the lobby of the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, catching up with each other ahead of a Bryn Mawr College sponsored dinner with Phillip Lopate. That was all wonderful enough, but then there came Anmiryam Budner, of Main Point Books, with a box of Better Living Through Criticism, written by A.O. Scott, who was slated to speak at the theater later that night.

A. O. Scott, I said? Really? For I had, not long before, reviewed Better Living for the Chicago Tribune, and, before, that, simply loved reading Scott's movie reviews for the New York Times. A.O. Scott. A literary celebrity.

Two friends, a literary celebrity, dinner plans with the nation's great essayist, and then a conversation with Anmiryam in which she pronounced that the book Cyndi and I must read next (we always ask and she always tells) was Adam Haslett's Imagine Me Gone. Anmiryam is an impassioned book reader, which is what makes her such a stunning book seller. From her lips to our hearts, these books.

Cyndi and I were in. Soon our friend Kelly Simmons was in as well. We'd all buy Haslett's newest, and then we would discuss.

Books and friendship. Like coffee and cream.

Maybe you'll be in, too. Maybe we could all discuss? Because Haslett bears discussion. For now I would like to share with you the most exquisite passage in a book built of exquisite passages—a story about the long-lingering affects of a father's mental unwellness. Here is Michael, the oldest son, who has some of his father's imbalance. He's talking about fear. It's devastating because it's so true.

What do you fear when you fear everything? Time passing and not passing. Death and life. I could say my lungs never filled with enough air, no matter how many puffs of my inhaler I took. Or that my thoughts moved too quickly to complete, severed by a perpetual vigilance. But even to say this would abet the lie that terror can be described, when anyone who's ever known it knows that it has no components but is instead everywhere inside you all the time, until you can recognize yourself only by the tensions that string one minute to the next And yet I keep lying, by describing, because how else can I avoid this second, and the one after it? This being the condition itself: the relentless need to escape a moment that never ends.

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Ruta and Kelly are launching their books today

Perhaps the biggest perk of being in the book business, and of having lovely author friends, is that I sometimes get to read highly anticipated books early.

But today is the actual launch day for both Ruta Sepetys and Kelly Simmons, and so we need a little right-now hoopla.

My thoughts about Ruta and her book, Salt to the Sea, are here, in this vlog.

My thoughts about Kelly and her book, One More Day, are here, in this blog.

My love and congratulations and best wishes to you both!

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On stoppering the storm while reading One More Day (Kelly Simmons)

For months it has been raining in my kitchen. Whenever the clouds break, the water comes—through the roof, through the new ceiling, down the columns of new paint. The roofers say they're coming. I wait. I wait. And while I wait, storm by storm, I stand on a stool holding towels to the ceiling. 4 AM. 5 AM. Almost dawn.

Last night, while I was still in bed, I dreamed that the Beatles came to help hold back the storm. John and Ringo. (Paul was off getting married again and George was—absent.) Wearing white shirts, they sang their songs while they pressed old towels to the ceiling. When I woke at 3:30 they were no longer singing. It was up to me to stopper the storm.

Lucky for me, then, that I had ONE MORE DAY, the third novel by my friend Kelly Simmons, to keep me company. One toweled hand pressed to the ceiling, one hand cradling the book, my bare feet balanced on the old black stool, I read the last 100 pages of this novel from 4 AM to just right now, thinking, as I read, about all the conversations Kelly and I have had (during walks, over non-tea, in her house, in her yard, turning our turn-it-around bracelets on our arms) while this novel was in its stir. News of the first galvanizing surge of idea that sent Kelly to the page. News of the first electrifying email from Kelly's agent. News of the novel's sale to Sourcebooks. News of the story unfolding and again unfolding as Kelly worked through edits and revisions. News of our shared excerpt moment in Main Line Today. Kelly was writing something new to her, taking risks, exploring the idea of the supernatural set against the backdrop of a mother's loss. She was onto something.

When, a few days ago, ONE MORE DAY arrived, courtesy of Lathea Williams, I began reading at once. I am a fan of Kelly's work—her lovely sentences, her twists of humor, her insights into shame and longing. (Read my reviews of STANDING STILL and THE BIRD HOUSE.) ONE MORE DAY, with its limning of relationships and its multiplying secrets, is vintage Kelly with more than a soupcon of the otherworldly strange. A mother's kidnapped child returns for a single day. Ghosts appear—a grandmother, an old boyfriend, a childhood pet. The losses are real, the hurt is real, the secrets are real—but what is poor Carrie, the bereft mother, to think about these visitations? And what is her husband to think? Her mother? The police? The intruding newswoman? The neighbors? Libby, her friend from church? What are any of them supposed to believe, and what are we, the readers, to make of it all?

Whose side are we on?

Where do we come down on faith in things that rise up and then vanish?

I needed to know. I was so eager to find out that I didn't even notice that my suspended, book-cradling arm was shaking until I closed the book. Kelly, my copy is mottled with the unstoppered parts of today's storm. I hope you won't mind. I hope you won't mind, either, if I quote back to you my favorite passage in this book. You're so good at seeing this place we both call home. And you're so good at feeling that apartness that I, too, so often feel. And you're so good at writing sentences that sound just like this:

It was the type of neighborhood that was all proximity; you could turn left or right at any point off the boulevard and find a house that would inspire longing, part of your neighborhood technically, but not part of your world, with a quiet, lumbering grace that marked nobility, remove, other. Carrie was separate from all those people, she knew, and always had been. Not more deserving or less, just different from everyone else.

Congratulations, KellyKellyKelly.

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One Thing Stolen beautifully illustrated and excerpted in Main Line Today

Hugely grateful to Hobart Rowland at Main Line Today for including One Thing Stolen in the Big Summer Read edition of his magazine. And happy to be spending time there with my friends Kelly Simmons and Daniel Torday.

A link to the full story is here.

Gratitude is here but also where nobody but me can see it.

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This is my more: on the purpose writing serves, and last day with the Spectaculars

Yesterday Kelly and I walked Longwood Gardens where the tulips were like new crayons in tight boxes and the rose grapes hung from ceilings as if waiting to be pressed toward wine and the trees were actually flowers and the treehouse mirror turned us into a 17th century painting with 21st century iPhones. It was spring, crisp, crowded.

The hours served as punctuation. A period, perhaps a colon marking the end of a long winter of talks and workshops, essays and reviews, teaching and papers, intense client work and client revisions, the quiet launch of a novel and the heart-ish completion of a collection of essays. Tomorrow is my last class with the Spectaculars at Penn. We have worked hard together, grown together, hurt together, soared together, and on this day I sit reading their final work—the profiles they have written about people who matter to them. I believe that writing can serve no greater purpose than to awaken the writer to the world itself—the things that matter—and to, in that way, force love (or call it attention) onto the page. I believe that teaching craft is teaching soul. I believe in the quiet things that happen in the margins. I believe.

It's the kind of belief that won't make a person famous. The kind that simmers just off to the left, that urges with wet eyes, that suggests and does not demand, that says, Maybe. The kind that is noticed by a few but rarely by many. Am I, I am asked often and ever more frequently, okay with that? Don't I, after all these quiet books, all these quiet years, all these words living in the shadows, want more?

There are crayon tulips. There are decorated trees. There are steps leading up to the sky. There are moments. There are students. There are friends; there is family. There is a husband and a son. There are books on my shelves written by authors with far greater talent, wisdom, seeing, stretch—and I see that talent, I am grateful for that talent, I am instructed by it, happy for it, elevated and poem-ed by it.

This is my more. This is my life.

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Marking my boundaries (from Two Buttons)

At Two Buttons, the Frenchtown, NJ, store that Elizabeth Gilbert currently owns with her book-and-movie famous husband (the store is now up for sale), my husband was one determined shopper. The place is several thousand square feet and what feels like millions of on-sale items large, but he was looking for one thing.

Boundary Markers, he called them. I'm not leaving until we have one for you.

My husband had already arranged my exquisite birthday retreat. He'd already taken me to lunch at Lovin' Oven, where they put kale, apple juice, and lemon into a glass and you finally understand the word elixir. He'd already given me a respite from the enormous pressures of this spring and bought me two fine editions of high-gloss Doc Martens.

But a Boundary Marker was a gift absolute, he said. He found the cutest one.

So that's my new Boundary de-limiter, please don't keep treating me like a second class citizen buffer, please don't think I didn't notice what you just said (or didn't say) rebut-er, please be apprised that I'm fully aware that life is too short guy sitting there, right at the edge of my computer, where I need him most. Here is the official store description. I have a feeling that it was penned by Elizabeth Gilbert herself:

Boundaries and Boundary-Markers are very important in the Indonesian life and culture. Often used to literally mark land boundaries, these statues are also used to protect one's emotional boundaries as well. Carved out of lava rock from the island of Sulawasi, these wonderful individually unique statues help to support and protect your boundaries. Haven't we all had times when our boundaries needed a little help?

(Typing, I think again: Elizabeth Gilbert must be the voice behind this merchandise.)

This is the year, my friend Kelly and I keep saying, that we turn it all around. This is the year. I'm starting by respecting myself a little bit more. And hoping that such a bold new stance will be noticed.

(and adopted by my many friends who are in need of their own boundary markers)

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I splurged (time in the afternoon, and two new cookbooks)

By 1 p.m. yesterday afternoon, I'd been sitting at my desk for nine hours, more or less—a long stretch of work following a long week of work, following a long month of — well, you get it. I'd not exercised. I'd not dressed for the world.

I pushed back.

My husband was at the pottery studio. The house was still. I had a few hours before I was to meet my friend, the great Kelly Simmons, to celebrate her completion of a novel she has bravely tangled with. There was time, I realized, to do the things that I take comfort doing—laundry, sweeping, food shopping, wine buying, maybe I'd even procure for the house (so stark with winter) a little calla lily color.

I dressed, went out, explored, harvested in small quantities, carried everything home, then went out again and arrived at the designated meeting place—the Valley Forge Flowers barn. I was a few minutes early. That gorgeous, open, airy space was full of light, but hardly any people.

And so I found myself with time. And so I sat with two of the Barn's gorgeous cookbooks on my lap. And so I turned the pages. Mused.

I tend to be an instinctive cook—remembering my mother's ways, guessing at the proportions, settling in with perhaps two dozen known dishes. I do own cookbooks. I consult them sometimes. But mostly, and especially lately, I have locked myself into familiar grooves.

One of these cookbooks — Sunday Suppers: Recipes and Gatherings by Karen Mordechai — was so magically presented that I felt as if, in looking at the photos and the dishes, in touching the soft pages and the quiet typography, I had entered an undamaged world, a place where intelligent conversation and sweet, small touches contained the whole of life. The second — The Newlywed Cookbook by Sarah Copeland — had absolutely the wrong title for a woman soon to celebrate her 30th wedding anniversary, but absolutely the right content: "fresh ideas and modern recipes for cooking with and for each other."

In both books I found recipes I not only believed in, but believed myself capable of. In both books I found the promise of allure. Of moments yet to be made and remembered.

Buying both would have been a major extravagance for one who lives (and increasingly so lives) with measured care. Buying neither would have been a lost opportunity—a vote against magic.

I voted for magic.

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Neverhome/Laird Hunt: Reflections

 

"Also: it's not a Federal crime to put something in someone's mailbox, if you tell them, right? OK bye."

Wrote Kelly Simmons. In a text message. After she told me to be sure to look for the setting sun. While I trained back to Philadelphia from DC.

Not a crime, I thought. Not when it's Kelly Simmons.

It was dark when I outted Kelly's secret: a copy of the Civil War novel, Neverhome, by Laird Hunt. She'd read it not long ago and raved. She has exquisite taste. She knows what I love. She knows we often love the same thing (see Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See). There it was.

First sentence: "I was strong and he was not, so it was me went to war to defend the Republic."

Oh, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, I thought. I'm a-gonna love this book. And so I read. Couldn't stop reading. Had soup to make, cranberry sauce, potatoes. Had gifts to (skim through and then) wrap. Had my gorgeous son home with me, but I just sat there reading. The story of a woman who goes to war as a man. Who emerges as a song and a myth. Who starts out with some tenderness in her heart and who hardens over time, temptation, warship. She's known as Ash Thompson. She can shoot a squirrel at many feet. She can crawl herself out from under the heavy load of a fallen tree. She can confuse most but not some. She can help a one-armed man carry the photographic plates from which a greenhouse will be built. (Oh, that image, one of my favorite ever found in a novel.) And she will never, really, get home again. She will tells us her story in her broken-poem way, even though she isn't trying for poetry, not even close. Poetry is just how her words come even when she's talking about the rut of damage on her arm:

The flesh of my arm crept each day closer and closer together. Like two ragged companies didn't know yet they were fighting for the same side.

Or what happens in a ruined asylum when she's trusted with a razor:

I shaved him, then shaved his friend, and every now and then after I got called on to scrape a face. Mostly it was guards but twice or three times there was a prisoner in the mix. These were big-bearded things attached to some flaps of skin, some ruins of shoulders, some piles of bones. When I shaved them up there was anything left to them. You could of just dug at the dirt and kicked them straight into the hole. They were happy, though. Smiled and winked.

Neverhome is a book magnificently well made, but that doesn't mean the story isn't hard to live with. The ending that you see coming isn't easy to take. But you take it because it's smart and vivid and so real that I started reading again at 3 AM last night and finished this morning so I could tell you, on Black Friday, that if you have to go out buying things, buy this book for a friend.

I'd have bought it for Kelly Simmons. But she's already read it.

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on seeing Bill Cunningham in person (!!), silvered friendship, good news for my son, the Caldecott Panel

There was no evidence of a bicycle, but Bill Cunningham, New York Times style photographer and the subject of this amazing documentary (watched here because Melissa Sarno gave me the word), was out among the nearly 200 craftspeople at the 38th Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Contemporary Craft Show.

He just kept passing by—lanky and tipping up on his toes, camera in hand, a coy smile when someone called out, "Are you Bill Cunningham?" Oh, jeepers, his smile said, recognized again. He just kept looking and nodding, his presence electrifying the crowd. Bill Cunningham in Philadelphia. Yes, we Philadelphians felt proud.

Meanwhile, I bought a glorious something from Cathy Rose of New Orleans (worth taking a look at this link, truly her work is remarkable)—an addition to my small but growing doll and mask collection. Meanwhile, my husband and I went off for a Reading Terminal lunch—Salumeri's, of course. Meanwhile, we returned to a lit-up sky and I slipped out for a Kelly Simmons rendezvous—a gir's afternoon, silver and gold. When I returned home, walking a brisk dark, a full moon rising, my son called with deliriously good news. You want to know the definition of perseverance, creativity, optimism, extreme hard work, and lessons in hopefulness? I will tell you the story of these past few months and my son. I will tell you everything he taught me, and I will say, again and for the record, I would be half the person that I am without him.

Today I'm off to the woods to teach memoir at the Schuylkill Center, part of the Musehouse Writing Retreat. I'll slip away afterward to see my friend Karen Rile. And then I'll come home and get ready for tomorrow, when I'll see my dear friend Jennifer Brown moderating the Caldecott panel—Chris Van Allsburg, David Wiesner, and Brian Selznick—at Friends' Central School in Wynnewood. (Two o'clock, and hosted by Children's Book World.)

And then I, like the rest of the world, will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I will just sit and think on it all.

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less than solitary: reconnecting with an old friend for a new project

Years ago, when I was young—wait. Was I ever young? Not that I can remember. I'll start again.

Reboot:

Books ago, I had the pleasure of working on a corporate fairy tale with my friend Matt Emmens, a book we called Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business. Zenobia, an Alice in Wonderland-like adventure through a dying (but then rejuvenated) corporation, ended up selling to a dozen foreign publishers. It broadened my collaboration with my husband, who created the book's fabulous illustrations. And it deepened my friendship with Matt, who had CEO'd many of the companies I've worked for through the years, but who I respect even more for his many passions and pursuits.

This past week, I had an excuse to again spend time talking with Matt as I continued work on a strange and percolating project. I asked Matt questions, and he summoned details. I asked for the sound of talk, and he recreated conversations. I sent him the chapter his knowledge had helped me write, and he sent back notes. You should consider. Drop the octagon. That would singular, not plural. If you're considering a night scene, consider this.

There's a lot of just plain hardship that goes along with writing. There's a lot of solitary. But when there's the chance to ask questions, go ask the questions. Your book will be better off. And so will you.

Speaking of less than solitary, in a few hours I'll be at Rosemont College for the annual Philadelphia Stories Push to Publish conference. First up for me (1:15), a memoir/nonfiction panel with my long-time friend Karen Rile and Anne Kaier. Second up (2:30), a marketing for published authors panel with another dear friend (Kelly Simmons) and Donna Galanti. From there, I'm rushing back home for a quick change and a nervous drive to a local stage, where I'll be dancing the cha cha with my husband.

I'm sleeping in tomorrow morning. Then I'll get up and work with a few new details dear Mr. Emmens just sent me.

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the inside scoop on Tour de Blog—via Bill Wolfe and Caroline Leavitt and over to Kelly Simmons

Well, here we go. Mr. Bill Wolfe, that cool dude who reads only women's fiction and lives to tell the tale on Read Her Like an Open Book, tagged me (oh, the secrets, the secrets) on the My Writing Process Tour Blog. Bill, who keeps us guest bloggers honest, reviews incredibly interesting books, teaches for a living, and opines, but always kindly, is a tough act to follow. Equally tough is his tagger, Caroline Leavitt, whose inspirational story and stories (and blog) have been integral to the lay of my land for years.

(I've previously written about Bill here and Caroline here and many elsewheres.)

And now, here I stand, with questions to answer, pondering my capability.

I begin:

1. What are you working on? 
I am currently doing a final round of edits to a young adult novel that will launch from Chronicle Books in 2016. When that is done later this weekend, I'll return to two new projects—an adult novel and a book of nonfiction. Both are in the early 4,000-word stage, so inchoate, strange, and internal that I suspect I won't be able to describe them even after (if) they are done. They are projects designed to keep my mind whole, more than anything else, or as whole as this cracked vessel will ever get. In between, when feigning greater sanity, I'm writing white papers and news stories for clients and reviews and essays for the Chicago Tribune and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Oh, and a lot of student recommendation letters.

2. How does your work differ from others of its genre?
I always think this is a question best left to the critics—though I hate to presume that any critic anywhere will have time for such a Beth Kephart conundrum. I guess the answer, for me, has something to do with that old cliche of staying true to myself (hey, if Tim Gunn can say it on national TV, I can say it in Beth land). I'm not interested in bending my work to meet the expectations of our time (whatever they are) or to fall in line with trends. I write what is urgent, what intrigues me. I write to find out what might happen next, a small and increasingly daring enterprise.

3. Why do you write what you do?
Because I can't help it. Because I get obsessed with some historical event (the Berlin wall, the Spanish Civil War, Florence after the flood), some force of nature, some sound in my head, something someone said, some trouble. Because the only excuse I have to think about it longer is to begin to write a book. Otherwise, in my dim and insufficiently capacious brain, all is fleeting. And because I think that what we write has to matter in a broader way. We live in perilous times. I want to understand them. I want my stories and my work to lead others down inquiring paths. I also want my readers to think about language in new ways, and so I write what I hear in my twisted head.

4. How does your writing process work?
It rarely does work. Most of the time I'm doing my day job. But when I find patches of time I hunch my shoulders, draw out a pen (literally), sit on the couch where the depressed cushion suggests I should each less chocolate, and get going. When I'm writing I am living inside a fortress of books and newspapers (on some days the research is my favorite part). When I'm writing there's a happy buzz inside my head, except when the writing isn't working, which is an astonishingly large chunk of the time. Boy, I can write some really bad stuff. Boy, I can go off on tangents. But, hey. Nobody sees that, at least in the beginning. Nobody but me and my chocolate bars.

For the next stop on the blog tour, I nominate Kelly Simmons,who is not just a terrific, funny, compassionate, hardworking writer, but a starred writer, too, and a dear friend. (Kelly also knows where the best V-necked turquoise T-shirts live in the local shop, and she will join you in the consumption of six-ounce shrimp at the drop of a dime; she also forgives (I think) your poorly typed text messages; finally, I wish to add that, when you are walking together down Sugartown Road, the boys in the cars all stop for her, the Kelly Phenom.) Kelly's third novel (for adults, people!), One More Day, was PW announced days ago. It will be published by Sourcebooks next fall. I've read a few pages here and there. Ladies and gents, get ready for Wow.

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Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking by Christian Rudder/Reflections

My son is a trendspotter, a quiet strategist, a Child of the Social Media World. I knew I had to buy him a copy of Dataclysm: Who We Are When We Think No One's Looking, Christian Rudder's new book, as soon as I started reading about it two months ago.

Rudder is one of the founders of the online dating site OKCupid—a Harvard grad with a popular blog. He has access to massive personal data and he has insights about (and now I am jacket copy quoting): "... how Facebook 'likes' can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person's sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America's most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly...."

You get the point. Innately interesting stuff.

The book now in hand and my son briefly at home, I've proven myself an Indian giver—bandying the book about, reading interesting bits out loud, and saying, "Wait until you read this chapter," while the poor guy sits there, waiting to read that chapter. Rudder isn't just smart, insightful, and data-possessed. He proves himself to be a charming, engaging writer, even as he fills his book with red and black scattergrams, word charts, and x/y axes. He's not brash, he's not impressed with himself, he would never himself submit to online dating. He's just curious. And he has the facts.

Haters above all else confuse me; I see little point in spending one's time engaged in ruthless take downs, unprompted negativity, public/private screeds, and all those other e-facilitated things (which is one of the reasons I will never Google my own name or check my Amazon stats; life is too short to worry through the unkindness of strangers). I'd much rather listen to someone who has something to say or who has created something dazzling than to someone merely blessed with the right cheekbones. I don't feel a personal need to be "hot"—below the radar suits me just fine (just ask Kelly Simmons and Donna Galanti, who have the distinctly unpleasant task of planning a self-promotion panel with me at the upcoming Push to Publish conference; they have had to politely encourage me to stay on task more than once, bless them, these dear and task-appropriate souls).  Nonetheless, I'm fascinated by Rudder's facts—and by his musings. I find them distinctly relevant and helpful. Here he is, for example, reflecting on "the data generated from outrage.":

It embodies (and therefore lets us study) the contradictions inherent in us all. It shows we fight against those who can least fight back. And, above all, it runs to ground our age-old desire to raise ourselves up by putting other people down. Scientists have established that the drive is as old as time, but that doesn't mean they understand it yet. As Gandhi put it, "It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honored by the humiliation of their fellow beings."

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despite end-of-the-world quality rain, we had a GOING OVER party

You could say that I have pretty lousy book-launch party luck. Once, for example, a short first printing left us with only a handful of books for the book party. Once we launched the book on the very same night that every available parking space had already been consumed by another event, sending some would-be party goers home.

And then there was last night—24 hours or so into an historic deluge that had drains busted, streets flooded, cars stranded, basements swimming. This was the GOING OVER launch day. My email kept pinging with notes from people who had planned to come but couldn't. Oh dear, I thought. Oh, my. Because who would drive flooded streets in dark, unstopping rain for a book? Who would dare float toward Berlin?

You could say that I have lousy luck, but I'm not going to claim that here. Because the fact is this: despite impossible weather that demanded all variety of rubber foot gear, we had a party. Pam and Molly of Radnor Memorial Library are famous for their generosity, and there they were again—gracious, open-hearted, slicing into that cake. Beside that cake stood the GOING OVER vessel my clay-arts friend, Karen Bernstein, had made.

And in the audience—because we did have an audience—were my father and husband, neighbors of now and a dear neighbor of then, long-time friends, fellow writers, a Berlin scholar and a Berlin traveler, the inimitable Kevin Ferris of the Inquirer, three sweet-and-smart-as-heck Little Flower Catholic High School students (Kathleen, Amber, Julia) and their Sister Kim, and a Radnor High contingent—Rib, Jim, Tom—who had orchestrated a sweet surprise. They look precisely the same as they did those years ago. I could not believe it.

Then there was Heather, that gorgeous young woman featured above, who was the inspiration for Ada in GOING OVER. Her face. Her deep connection to color and life. Some of the secrets she once whispered into my ear while I sat in her hair-salon chair. I love that I can show you who she is, right here. Ada is one of my favorite characters, and Heather is even greater than fiction.

Those who came last night had to brave the weather. They had to decide to leave their homes in a sinking mess of a day and make the drive. Sister Kim and her girls ultimately spent three hours in a car. Soup had to drive the highways. My father had to dodge the flooded potholes. Kevin had to walk a long block in soaking rain.

Everyone had to disregard the police barrier that signaled that, due to excessive rains, the road to the library was closed.

It was not closed. Pam and Molly made sure of that.

(And Children's Book World made sure we had books!)

Afterward, my dear friends Elizabeth Mosier and Kelly Simmons treated me to their glorious selves, their raucous laughter, pizza, white wine. But let's get back to their "glorious selves" part.

Thank you. Everyone. For coming. Thank all of you who would have been there if you could. I really believe in this story, GOING OVER. But more than that, I believe in you.

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That Florence, Italy, novel: the title, the synopsis

Next spring, Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books will be releasing a novel set in Florence, Italy, and (to a lesser extent) West Philadelphia. It took me a long time, and many drafts, to get it right, and it is only recently that we have settled on a final title.

I share that here, with an early book description:

Something is just not right with Nadia Cara. She’s become a thief, for one thing. She has secrets she can’t tell. She knows what she thinks, but when she tries to speak, the words seem far away. Now in Florence, Italy, with a Master Chef wanna-be brother, a professor father, and a mother who specializes in at-risk teens, Nadia finds herself trapped by her own obsessions and following the trail of an elusive Italian boy—a flower thief—whom no one else has ever seen.  While her father tries to write the definitive history of the 1966 flood that threatened to destroy Florence, Nadia wonders if she herself will disappear—or if she can be rescued, too.

Set against the backdrop of a glimmering city, ONE THING STOLEN is an exploration of obsession, art, and a rare neurological disorder. It is a story about the ferocious, gorgeous madness of rivers and birds. It is about surviving in a place that, fifty years ago, was rescued by uncommon heroes known as Mud Angels. It is about art and language, imagining and knowing, and the deep salvation of love written by an author who is herself obsessed with the beguiling and slippery seduction of both wings and words.  

My students Katie Goldrath, Maggie Ercolani, and Stephanie Cara inspired me as I wrote. Emily Sue Rosner and Mario Sulit helped me get the Italian right. Alyson Hagy, Amy Sarig King, and Kelly Simmons kept me going. Patty McCormick and Ruta Sepetys listened. Lori Waselchuk gave me her West Philadelphia. Wendy Robards gave so much of her time and heart during desperate days. And Tamra Tuller stood by.

Always grateful.

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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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A.S. King comes to town; we celebrate her love

Last night, at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA, A.S. King blew in through the back door (or perhaps she bobbled slightly) and that was it:  we were already in stitches.  Kate Walton and I had already arrived, claiming first-in-line privileges at this Ask the Passengers signing.  We'd been hearing all the good things—the many starry, best of things—about this newest King novel, and we were eager.

A.S. had been warned not to make me laugh (think of the damage to my gum graft stitches, I implored her), but she's unstoppable.  She roved, incautiously, from venison to rad eyeball wear to root canals to Rohm and Haas photography (yes, A.S. and I were working for this chemical giant at the same time, bizarrely) to chocolate pretzels (they're part of the root canal story) to streetwalkers to Poe to roach motels to wrecking balls to her electrical engineering talents to unventilated dark rooms—and the night hadn't even started.  She broke her don't-be-funny promise several times.  She read from Ask the Passengers and her forthcoming Reality Boy, and it was good.

But what was also good, or riveted to the good, was the feeling at Children's Book World, one of the best stores anywhere.  Kelly Simmons and Jenn Hubbard were also in the house.  The tried and true CBW entourage.  We had plenty of time just to sit and appreciate a writer who writes (in her gnarly radiating, radioactive ways) about love.

Now to clear away the corporate maelstrom that has had me down and out for weeks and find some time to read.

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humbled, and grateful.

For reasons too complex, too personal to render fully here, yesterday was a day of deep emotion.

There were, however, friends all along the way.  Elizabeth Mosier, the beauty in the dark gray dress, will always stand, in my mind, on either side of the day—at its beginnings, at its very late-night end.  For your mid-day phone kindness, for your breathtaking introduction of me at last night's book launch, for the night on the town, for the talk in the car, for the bounty of your family—Libby, I will always be so grateful. 

To Patti Mallet and her friend, Anne, who drove all the way from Ohio to be part of last night's celebration, I will never forget your gesture of great kindness, your love for green things at Chanticleer, and a certain prayer beside my mother's stone.  Patti and I are there, above, at the pond which inspired two of my books.

To Pam Sedor, the lovely blonde in violet, a world-class Dragon Boat rower recently returned from an international competition in Hong Kong, the librarian who makes books happen and dreams come true, and to Molly, who puts up with my techno anxieties (and who, recently married, has a new last name), and to Radnor Memorial Library, for being my true home—thank you, always.  (And to Children's Book World, for finding us books in time.)

To my friends who came (from church, from books, from architecture, from corporate life, from the early years through now)—thank you.  Among you were Avery Rome, the beautiful red-head who edits Libby, me, and others at the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Kathy Barham, my brilliant and wholly whole son's high school English teacher, who is also a poet (shown here in green).  To the town of Wayne, which received our open-air tears and laughter late into the night (and to Cyndi, Kelly, Libby, Avery, and Kathye who cried and laughed with me)—thank you.

And also, finally, to Heather Mussari—my muse (along with Tamra Tuller) for the Berlin novel, a young lady so wise beyond her years, and a cool, cool chick who (along with Sandy) does my hair—I arrived at 11:15 at your shop inconsolable.  You listened.  You said all the right things by telling the truth and telling it kindly.  I adore you, Heather.  I hope you know that.

After I posted this, my dear friend Kate Walton (who was there with our friend Elisa Ludwig), sent me this link to last night's party.  Kate—whose kindness is so clear in her post—preserved the night for me in photographs.  I will always be grateful.

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when I say that I have some gorgeous friends, I am not messing around.

Here are those Wilson girls—Jane, with music in her heart, Katherine, our sensational, happy, smart, loving, and blog fabulous Newlie, and Carolyn, with whom I could stand and talk for hours, and why, oh why, can't we have more hours?  We did not pre-color coordinate (those Wilson girls have other things on their minds), but I suspect you won't believe me.  But I am proud and lucky to know this family, and to have known them for so long.  Every radiant inch of their outsides is equaled by who they are within.

Gorgeousness is also my friend Kelly Simmons (The Bird House, Standing Still), who drove all the way out to Exton, PA, to see me today.  I love Kelly, and I love that she surprised me, and I'll never forget us rearranging the mall furniture so that we could pretzel ourselves up and talk books.  I only wish I'd thought to take your picture, Simmons.

SIMMONS?!  :)

Kelly, thank you.

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Do e-books free us from distractions? Responding to Tim Parks

This morning Shelf Awareness serves up this quote of the day, and it stops me.  I think I might just move on, but I can't.

Because Parks' assertion that reading the e-book frees us from "everything extraneous and distracting" ... "to focus on the pleasure of the words themselves" in no way jibes with my experience.  Yes, I have downloaded dozens of books onto my iPad.  Sadly, I've left many of them stranded.  Unable to scribble in the margins, dog-ear the pages, underline emphatically—unable, in other words, to engage in a physical way with the text—I grew distracted, disinterested, bored.  Yes, Michael Ondaatje will always keep me reading.  And so will the work of my friend Kelly Simmons, and the words of Julie Otsuka, Leah Hager Cohen, A.S. King, Timothy Schaffert, Paula Fox, and Justin Torres—though I wish I owned all of that work on paper.  But here on my iPad—stranded, unfinished—sit Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, Andrew Winer's The Marriage Artist, Margaret Drabble's complete short stories, and many other tales. These are, most likely, extremely good books, and yet, I find myself incapable of focusing on them in their e-format.  I need to interact—physically—with the texts before me.  I can't do that, in the ways I'd like to do that, with a screen.

I am also, as a footnote, intrigued by Tim Parks' final lines, when he speaks of moving on from illustrated children's books.  With the rise of the graphic novel and the increasing insertion of images back into teen books (and I suspect we'll see that illustration encroachment continue), I wonder if we have really moved away from illustrated texts.  I wonder, too, if we should. Art is not just for juveniles, after all.

Here is the quote at length, as excerpted by Shelf Awareness.

"The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, the page to come has yet to appear) would seem to bring us closer than the paper book to the essence of the literary experience. Certainly it offers a more austere, direct engagement with the words appearing before us and disappearing behind us than the traditional paper book offers, giving no fetishistic gratification as we cover our walls with famous names. It is as if one had been freed from everything extraneous and distracting surrounding the text to focus on the pleasure of the words themselves. In this sense the passage from paper to e-book is not unlike the moment when we passed from illustrated children's books to the adult version of the page that is only text. This is a medium for grown-ups."

--Tim Parks in his post headlined "E-books Can't Burn" at the New York Review of Books blog

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