TEDx: Let the Next Generation Speak

The news is not good.  We Americans have done so much wrong—borrowed and buried; abnegated and abrogated, failed—and today, as stocks crumble and foreign markets waver, as our pilloried economy once more retreats, blame takes center stage.  It's their fault.  It's his fault.  It's them.

I say we step aside, then, if we can't agree to find a cure.  I say let us give the next generation the stage—those big dreams, those bigger hearts, the power of that knowing.  Do you want to know what that looks like?  Do you want some good news for this day?  Then visit Allegro, where you will learn about TEDxRedmond and the work that Maya, her sister, Priya, and so many more are doing on behalf of hope, on behalf of this world.  They are calling their conference "The Spark in All of Us."  See what that means to them.

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Sisterly

This morning, the very dear and very smart Priya turns 15, and because her sister, Maya, adores her and hopes to surprise her and knows that we are out here wanting the same, she asked if we might post a little something in remembrance of this special day.

I had been wondering about what I might post, and then I had an idea that took me back into an old wooden photo album.  Perhaps, I thought, there is a photograph of me and my sister, something I might share.  I turned every page, didn't find the right shot.  I sifted through envelopes stuffed into the book's back pages.  It was in the very last envelope that I found this image, something I don't remember ever seeing before.  I must have been four here, my sister newborn.  Our mother more beautiful than one can say.

Happy Birthday, Priya, from one sister to another.

Love,

Beth

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Supernatural Fantasy

It was Maya Ganesan who asked me once (during a readergirlz chat) if I would ever consider writing fantasy—something within the supernatural vein.

I said, I don't know how.

It was hipwritermama who said, I bet you could.

I'd said that before—I don't know how. I'd said it about memoir, about young adult fiction, about poetry. I'd said it about corporate fable and novels for adults. I'd said it about being a mother. I But questions open doors. Would you ever consider...?

Lately, I have.

Inspired by a recent conversation I had with a certain someone from the world of film, inspired by Maya and bolstered by hipwritermama, I have just sent the first 77 pages of a supernatural mystery to my agent.

I think I'm onto something. I am hoping. It can be very difficult, as a writer, to keep your hopes alive. But I'm alive right now. Very much so.

Time, this rainy Sunday, to return my thoughts to corporate work.

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Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business

I sometimes talk about Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business, the corporate fable I co-authored with Matt Emmens, who is now the CEO of Vertex and chairman of the board of Shire. I explain the book to those who ask as an Alice in Wonderland-esque fable about the power of the imagination in corporate America. The story features a character named Moira, who wears read shoes and fine, striped socks as she winds her way through a sclerotic bureaucracy in search of a way to make a difference. In the process, she inspires those she meets—a character named Hedger, for example, characters named Nod and Bolt and Snort—to help revitalize a corporate giant called Zenobia.

Published by Berrett-Koehler in 2008, the book has gone to live and breathe in many countries, sometimes adapting the original illustrations (which were created by my husband) and sometimes unveiling entirely new graphic universes. I thought of this book last week, during the readergirlz chat, when Hipwritermama and Maya Ganesan and others asked if I'd ever consider writing fantasy.

Zenobia is the closest I've yet come.

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Sisterhood: Happy Birthday, Priya

Once there were two sisters—elegant and kind, smart but also (we suspect, we have been told) prone to giggles. One was two years younger than the other. She wrote a poem a day, sometimes two. The older one wrote beautiful poetry, too, and read deeply and wisely, and journeyed far to American Idol concerts and reported back with photos. She made so many friends in the blog universe that only she knew how to keep count.

The older sister, Priya, cherishes her younger sister, cherishes the poems she writes, makes it possible for her write them. She (we read in the preface to Maya Ganesan's Apologies to an Apple) "guards Maya's bike, she runs manuscript pages up the stairs from the printer and sometimes supplies piano accompaniment to our (poetry) lessons."

Not to be outdone, the younger sister, Maya, loves her sister, too—so much so that she has thrown her a surprise blog birthday party, inviting those of us who have grown to love these girls to welcome Priya into her fourteenth year.

Happy Birthday, Priya.

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Those Watercolor Journals: A Vlog

Pinkdogwood asked about those watercolored poetry journals of my yesteryear, and so this vlog is for her. (Ironically, given the heat in this house, the video kept changing color as I recorded.)

While searching the too-hot closets for this exhibition A, I found other journals of the not-color-drenched variety. Below is a found poem from an August 2nd, many years ago, when extroverted rhyme still mattered to me in poems.

But before I get to that, there is this: The other day I was reading Maya Ganesan's Apologies to an Apple, a book this lovely eleven-year-old poet had sent to me. Maya's the real thing; she absolutely is. When I look back on what I was writing way back then and look now to what this so intelligent soul writes today—the clear brooked wonder of it, the no-rush-toward-conclusion of it, the simple made large—I see a slice of the future, and the future looks like wisdom unspooled.

This, then, from my own past.

Who shall know this wooden
window box when you are gone?
Shall know it as you do at night,
shall watch, shall wait for pink
to enter through the moon's white light?

Who will care enough to guard
this mottled wall, the mason's hand?
Who will listen and belong
to street sounds, urban moods, to
the swish step skip of jumprope song?

And what will there be when
there cannot be your interludes anymore?
What will stand where two guitars
now balance on the floor?
And what will become of your easle eyes
when at last you shut the door?

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Priya Ganesan and the first official review of Nothing but Ghosts

On a day when many a soul is out there celebrating a certain Saint's day, I'm here, post-dinner, celebrating Priya, a marvelous thirteen-year-old (thirteen!) who, like her sister, Maya, offers something quite unusual out there in the world—clear eyes, a good heart, that nothing-can-stop-it mind.

Priya e-mailed earlier in the day and asked if she might post a review of Nothing but Ghosts, a book she'd borrowed from Maya. Yours would be the first official review of NBG, I told her. I was eager to learn what she thought.

Well. Look. Besides the fact that she has written some of the kindest words I've ever read about a book of mine, Priya has written an adult-caliber review. For the quality of her mind I encourage you to visit the blog that she calls Book Crumbs.

Thank you, Priya.

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On Answering Maya's Grand Questions

It took me awhile, but I found a garden image bright enough to suggest to you the star power of one Maya Ganesan, whose blog, Allegro, is home to a certain kind of serene intelligence. Never boastful, never anything less than thoughtful, always suggestive. Please check this young poet out.

Recently Maya was kind enough to ask a few questions about moi, and boy, did she do her homework. She inquired, for example, about my reaction to certain book-related news (my answer involves high heels, a London subway, a poundless-purse, and abject confusion). She asked about my reaction to reactions to Undercover (having visited a lively and engaging mother-daughter book group just last night, I might someday write a bit more about what I keep learning from younger readers). She asked about the genesis of Nothing but Ghosts. In any case, her blog is so worth visiting. I encourage you to make the journey.

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