stop and notice when something beautiful happens

At the gym where I Body Combat on Saturday mornings and sneak in thirty-minute-CNN enhanced workouts two or three additional days each week, I qualify as the most poorly dressed. I have one pair of work-out pants. Four T-shirts, two of them now dryer-reduced to ten-year-old-girl status. Having been recently reminded of my poor fashion sense by a far-better heeled friend (it was suggested, firmly and more than once, that I would highly benefit from a stylist who would tell me with emphatic speed that black turtlenecks are out), it seemed time to get new T-shirts. Yesterday, as I waited for what turned out to be a beautiful conversation with Melissa Jensen and Cordelia Jensen (and the fabulous Ashley) at the Penn Book Center, I headed over to the Penn Bookstore to buy two replacement alum shirts.

And then I was stopped—completely stopped—by this. Story, center stage, in the window.

I need to thank someone, I whispered, to the young man at the information desk inside.

I am not a writer you'll find at many of the big shows. I'm not on the traveling circuit. Infinitely more interested in writing the next, in writing it better, in reading the work of others, in sharing what I find out, I don't do what most writers do to advance my personal career. And so I feel particularly blessed when the utterly unexpected happens. When those who read the books I write take the time to tell me about the experience. When my love for my city is acknowledged in humbling ways. When my high school invites me to speak to the graduating seniors on commencement day. When my alma mater (and employer) turns a book I wrote into window art. When people I respect—Melissa, Cordelia, Ashley—share fragments of their worlds.

There are so many measures in a writer's life—indeed, in any life. The trick, I think, is to stop and notice when something beautiful happens—however unquantifiable. And then, of course, to say thank you.

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we write for teens because: upcoming at the Penn Book Center: with Cordelia Jensen and Melissa Jensen

One Sunday afternoon, at Books of Wonder, I met Cordelia Jensen, whose reputation as a writer and teacher of enormous integrity precedes her.

One recent afternoon at Penn, I sat with Melissa Jensen and we talked. So many surprising connections between us, at least two shared students, a love of story, the start of a friendship.

We write for teens because we remember being one, because we love the ones we've met along the way, because the dialogue is rich, because of the friends we make.

On June 4, 2 PM, at the Penn Book Center on the Penn campus, Cordelia, Melissa, and I will be talking with teens—and with those who love them (or those who simply love a good story).

We'll be talking to each other, too.

We hope you'll join us.

We're grateful to Ashley, for hosting us. This will be the Penn Book Center's first teen event.

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sometimes you don't need to throw a launch party; the party is the day itself

Yesterday:

Early morning, opening this outrageously wonderful gift from Taylor Norman (Chronicle Books), in celebration of the launch of This Is the Story of You.

A 20-minute walk in the rain to the delayed train.

Train time spent with Diana Abu-Jaber's Life Without a Recipe, a very beautiful memoir launching from my first editor and house, Alane Mason, W.W. Norton, this month.

A walk in the lessening drizzle to Penn where, on my way to a meeting, I discovered Story in the front window of Penn Book Center, where I'll be joining my Jensen friends (Cordelia and Melissa) for a Saturday afternoon reading and discussion on June 4th.

A conversation with my teaching and writing colleague, that very same Melissa Jensen. "Pure sunshine," one of my students said of her, and oh she is.

The privilege of watching my students conduct a conversation about Between the World and Me. One by one, they wrestled with the readers' guide questions I'd prepared, felt free to disagree, voiced their opinions with precision—and deep respect. A discussion unbounded—content and craft.

The moment when I read out loud from Dear Mr. You, Mary-Louise Parker's collection of letters to the men in her life. The students had read "Dear Daddy." I shared, then, this, from "Dear Oyster Picker." Parker's father has been given little time to live. Parker is standing in a bookstore, on the phone with her dad, wanting to be all right, not being all right. These are the final words of this essay, and the book:

I said well, okay, I'm standing in this really awesome bookstore. You'd love it, I said. He gave a sigh of longing and said, oh my, tell me, they have anything interesting? I said yeah, tons. I'll send you a book from here, how does that sound. He said that's wonderful, that's just tremendous, thank you sweetie. I told him I was sending him some candy too and he thanked me, said he'd be on the lookout for it, and he then said, tell me, what are you writing now? You working on anything? I said oh Daddy, just little things, I don't know, and he said okay, but listen to me


just write, keep writing, promise me that you will.

The walk back to the train in brightest sunshine. The train ride home with the gloriously multi-gonzo talented Lorene Cary. The deliberately lengthened walk from train to home so that I might talk, as I love to talk, with Debbie Levy.

The infusion of unforeseen support and hope and kindness on Twitter, on Facebook, on email, regarding the launch of Story. Thank you.

A dinner with my husband, where we lifted our glasses to sea and storm and, then, sun.

A call from Danielle.

Sometimes you don't have to throw a party for a book. The party is simply all bound up in the day that you have lived.

Thank you, universe.

Just write, keep writing

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oh, those creative, hospitable, restorative indies: thank you

Lately I've had cause (again) to celebrate the independent bookstores. That they exist. That their owners and their colleagues work so very hard. That they know books. That they believe in culture, literature, and ideas.

That they are endlessly innovative, funky, fun.

In and out of the shops I've gone. Toward the events they have supported. No single event has been like any other event. Every single store is its own vibrant cluster of possibility.

And so today, a photo thank you to the stores that stand at the heart of our communities. To Ann of The Spiral Bookcase, who lugged all those books out to those very special events at the Ambler Theater and Laurel Hill. To Heather of Children's Book World, who sent One Thing Stolen to our Philadelphia/Florence party at Radnor Memorial Library (where I learned that the book was in its second, newly colorized printing). To Cathy and Anmiryam of Main Point Books, where we had the nicest Sunday afternoon. To Ashley at Penn Book Center, who placed LOVE in the window and talked to me for a long time one afternoon. To Michael at Joseph Fox Books, who supported the Free Library launch. To the glorious Bank Street Bookstore, which sold Small Damages to this beautiful reader during that be-all-end-all conference. To Caroline of Frenchtown's Book Garden, who organized our memoir retreat at the Rat (where James Agee once wrote) as well as my morning at the art-filled Delaware Valley Regional High School. And to Stephanie of Harleysville Books, who brought out a crowd on a rainy night and who invited the great baker Ann to share her special treats (pretzel brittle, in honor of Philadelphia!).

I'll be visiting a few more bookstores—both the incredibly hospitable Barnes and Nobles and two more indies, Chester County Books and Big Blue Marble Books—in December, the dates below.

It's restorative, being around people who care about holding the world close and safe.

December 3, 2015, 7 PM
LOVE signing
Chester County Books
West Chester, PA

December 5, 2015, noon
LOVE signing
Barnes and Noble
Devon, PA

December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes & Noble signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA

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The Soul of an Octopus/Sy Montgomery: reflections

Last week I went in and out of three city bookstores. I might as well have traveled the world.

In the glorious indie Penn Book Center, on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania, Ashley and I talked about who was reading what and why (a favorite conversation) and (in the midst of it all) I asked for a copy of Sy Montgomery's National Book Award nominated The Soul of an Octopus. Sy and I met when I reviewed her glorious book about swimming with the pink dolphins years ago. I've read all of books (for adults) since (Sy is an award-winning natural-world storyteller for children, too). And once, it seems ages ago, Sy and her friend and my husband and I sat in a restaurant just off Pine Street in Philly talking about the worlds we love.

The Soul of an Octopus is Sy's best book yet—and that is saying something. It's Sy as Sy—the intrepid explorer with the gonzo heart in the petite and capable body. It's Sy spending Wonderful Wednesdays with her friends at the New England Aquarium as they get to know—and be known by—a succession of form-shifting, camouflage-bedazzling, big-one-minute-squeezing-through-a-two-inch-crevasse-the-next octopuses. Sy falls in love with the first octopus touch. She begins to live on octopus time. She scubas into seas to see the wild octopus up close. And then she returns to the barrels and tanks and public displays to watch Octavia and Kali and Karma conveyor-belt food up their suction cups toward their mouths, beat with three hearts, unlock puzzles, and demonstrate intelligence, compassion, and personality akin to any human being.

But let's also pause right there, with human beings. Because, while Sy has always taken the time to introduce us to the other explorers and animal-kingdom lovers that she encounters in her wild adventures, we have never met characters quite like these—young people, older people, expert people, diving people, people with diagnoses, people with broken hearts, appreciating people. Sy's communities of octopus lovers are immaculately drawn. So much so that kindness (about which I was just recently musing, here) is as integral to this story as Sy's desire to understand octopus consciousness. Indeed, I would say the two are inextricable.

We can't help but love (even more) the wise and personality-prone octopus as we read (and finish) this book. We also can't help but love Sy.

I leave you with an early passage:

Perhaps, as we stroked her in the water, we entered into Athena's experience of time—liquid, slippery, and ancient, flowing at a different pace than any clock. I could stay here forever, filling my senses with Athena's strangeness and beauty, talking with my new friends.

Congratulations, Sy.

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