reflections as the end of this teaching semester nears

Maybe it's because I lead but one class during the one semester at Penn that teaching carries, for me, such weight. I begin planning for January in August, often earlier. Choosing the books we'll read, plotting our course, interacting with potential students. I pack as much into every class as our allotted hours allow. Pressing in with ideas, exhortations, readings. Bringing guests like George Hodgman (via Skype), Reiko Rizzuto, Margo Rabb, A.S. King, and Trey Popp into the fold. (Next year we'll be hosting Paul Lisicky, and focused on the art of time in memoir.) Using multiple media, stretching the idea of memoir, expecting much. Finding the good while searching, too, for all that is still possible.

And, this semester, leading two remarkable thesis candidates—Nina Friend and David Marchino—toward work so extraordinary that, I believe, it will represent their calling cards for years and years to come.

Teaching is standing before a class, then stepping aside. It's managing the ripples and waves while keeping the craft on course.

Three more weeks. And then these students will be off on their own, carrying our lessons forward, glancing back, I hope, not just as writers, but as people who value truth, empathy, conversation, and a greater knowing of themselves.

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Fifteen minutes on home—a peace-yielding soundtrack for a raucous world

Last night, at the Kelly Writers House, we thought about home—a theme that has carried my current class of memoirists forward. We were graced by the presence of the exquisite memoirist/novelist Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, the young adult novelist super star A.S. King, and the all-round talent (fiction, young adult fiction, New York Times/Slate style commentator) Margo Rabb. We were joined by Penn faculty, my current students, my previous students, and friends. Jessica Lowenthal facilitated every last detail. Jamie-Lee Josselyn brought her ineffable spirit. Al Filreis sat among us, in the home that he has built. Julia Bloch was the woman we all love, and, Julia, I'll be forever grateful for your words.

The evening was made possible by the generous gift of the Beltrans, whose endowment causes all of us who teach writing at Penn to think even harder about how we hope on behalf of our students.

We closed the evening by dimming the lights and listening to the voices of students and faculty as they answered the simple, confounding question, What is home? This is a gloriously produced soundtrack (thank you, Wexler Studio's Zach and Adelaide), made even more stunning by the guitar work of our own music man (and someday Grammy winner), Cole Bauer.

I encourage you to listen (here). In a fractured world, these words offer light.

For even more writing and thinking about home, I encourage you to stop by the Writers House and pick up your copy of our Beltran chapbook, Where You Live & What You Love.

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Home as Heart, and Hearth: Join my students and my writing friends for the Beltran evening, at Penn

I talk about my beloved Penn students. I boast about them, often. And sometimes I have the honor of introducing their work to to the world.

That's going to happen next week, March 1, 6 PM, at the Kelly Writers House, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, when we convene for the Beltran Family Teaching Award program. The event is free and open to the public, and we hope you'll join us.

The official blurb is below.

(Those of you who may be wondering about the provenance of the cover photo for the chapbook we've produced: that is a garden in Florence where my Nadia (of One Thing Stolen) slipped away to feel at peace.)

Join us for HOME AS HEART, AND HEARTH: STORIES AND IDEAS, a discussion on what exactly makes a home—how it’s built, how it’s found, and how it’s sustained. This year’s Beltran Teaching Award winner BETH KEPHART will lead a conversation featuring beloved Young Adult novelist A.S. KING, New York Times contributing writer and Young Adult novelist MARGO RABB, and National Book Circle Critics Finalist RAHNA REIKO RIZZUTO. Following the event, “home”-inspired work made by guests and Penn students will be bound together in a commemorative volume.

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"Be messy." — George Hodgman

Earlier this week, George Hodgman of Bettyville fame joined us via Skype at Penn. I have been teaching the idea of home this semester—what it is, how writers frame it, how every book ultimately, somehow, departs from or returns to a centering place.

(Speaking of which, please join us for the Beltran event at Penn's Kelly Writers House, March 1, 6:00 PM, when I will be joined by Reiko Rizzuto, A.S. King, and Margo Rabb—along with students past and present—to discuss this idea of home in literature.)

The winds and the rains were fierce. I had my Skype-technology jitters. My students were ready, and so were the students of dear Julia Bloch, who were joining us for the session. And, oh—George Hodgman was brilliant. He was: Looking back over Bettyville—how it began, how it evolved. Circling then pinning the definition of memoir. Speaking of his mother's love and his enduring felt need to make her proud. Pondering the nature of, and the blasting off, of personal and writerly inhibitions. Recalling the sound of conversation above the slap of flip flops.

Next George spoke about his life as an editor. The importance of stories that don't wait to get started, the importance of writers who are willing to work, the decision an editor must make, early on, about if and when to get tangled up inside a draft's sentences. And then George said this simple but remarkably important thing: Be messy (at first). The worst books are the clean, perfect books, he told us. The ones that feel safe.

Be messy.

For the past many years I've been at work (intermittently) on a book I feel could define me. It's a novel. It is a structural storytelling risk. I thought last year that I could publish this book as novel for adults. After a great disappointment, I pulled it back. Let it sit. Returned to it just this week, fear in my heart. Was it any good? Had I pumped it up in my own estimation, without any actual basis for pride?

Open the document, Beth.

Find out.

I finally did. And what I discovered was a book that was, indeed, messy. Too pretentious on some pages. Unnecessarily fantastical in covert corners. Too wishfully literary.

But. The story, the characters, the scenes—strip away the mess of the book, and, I discovered, there was a beating pulse. Despite all the mud I had slung on top of my tale, there was a glorious gleam.

I am taking this mess. I am turning it into something. I am grateful, deeply grateful, that I made such a horror in the first place. Inside these pages are complexity and promise. Inside them is my world.

I am reminded, once again, that this writing thing is, above all else, process. Clean first drafts are a constricting bore.

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The Home Collection/Looking Ahead to the Beltran Family Teaching Award Evening

In the early hours of this morning, I've been reviewing the final submissions to the Beltran Family Teaching Award chapbook—a collection of reflections on home by Penn students past and present; featured guests A.S. King, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, and Margo Rabb; and the leaders of Penn's Kelly Writers House.

Trust me, please. The words (and images) are stellar and binding. No piece remotely resembles another. Each reveals and, in ways both quiet and surprising, sears.

I have crazy ideas, that is true.

But when those who join us that evening—March 1, 6 PM, Kelly Writers House, all are welcome—hold this chapbook in their hands and hear our guests and look out upon these faces, this particular craziness will not seem so very crazy at all.

Because it's them.

And they have spoken.

A huge thank you to my generous husband, who has spent untold hours by my side, laying out these pages.

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Home is where the art is: a new essay in Chicago Tribune

I've been working out ideas about home and literature, literature and home for awhile now, and on March 1, accompanied by friends A.S. King, Reiko Rizzuto, and Margo Rabb, my colleagues at Penn, and students past and present, I'll be doing even more thinking about the topic for the Beltran Family Teaching Award event at the Kelly Writers House at Penn.

My newest thinking is here, in this weekend's Chicago Tribune (Printers Row), with thanks to Jennifer Day, Joyce Hinnefeld, and Debbie Levy, upon whom I seem to first try out my ideas. (Oh, Debbie, you're a gift.)

To read the whole story, go here.

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cures for literary heartbreak

Look for me behind stacks of books. That's where I'm living lately.

Assembling the content for a traveling multi-day memoir workshop. Preparing to teach the personal essay during a morning/afternoon at a Frenchtown high school. Knitting together ideas for a four-hour Sunday memoir workshop, next weekend, at the Rat (also in Frenchtown; places still available). Conjuring poem-engendering exercises for the fourth and fifth graders of North Philly. Building the syllabus for my next semester of teaching at Penn. Putting more touches onto the Beltran Family Teaching Award event at Penn next spring (featuring Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, Margo Rabb, and A.S. King). Re-reading Buzz Bissinger so that I can introduce and then publicly converse with him at the Kelly Writers House this Saturday, for Penn's Homecoming. Talking to Jennie Nash about an online memoir workshop. Writing the talk I'll give this evening to kick off the LOVE event (featuring film students and Philadelphians) at the Ambler theater.

My writing (my novels) sit in a corner over there, where they have sat for most of this year. I'm sunk deep into the pages of other people's work. Their stories, their sentences, their churn: a thrilling habitation.

Every time I feel frustrated by a sense of career stall or perpetual overlook, I remember this: There are writers—truly great writers—who have gone before me, who have written more wisely, who have seen more clearly. I may want to be noticed, I may hope to be seen, I may wish to be important, a priority, first on a list, but honestly? Why waste time worrying all that when there is so much to be learned—about literature, about life—from the writers who have gone before—and ahead—of me.

James Agee. Annie Dillard. Eudora Welty. We could stop right there. Read all they've written. Make the study of them the year we live and it would be enough. It would be time well spent, time spent growing, time during which we learn again that aspiration must, in the end, be contextual. We can't hope to stand on a mountain's top if we don't acknowledge all the boulders and the trees and the ascent and the views that rumble beneath the peak.

My cure for my own sometimes literary heartbreak: Sink deep inside the work of others. Recall what greatness is.

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Carrying the great A.S. King and Patricia McCormick forward, in This Is the Story of You

My actual beach book. 

Due out next spring, from Chronicle Books.

Thank you, A.S. King and Patty McCormick. 

For the words.

For the friendship.

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I CRAWL THROUGH IT/A.S. King

At the Moravian Writers' Conference two weeks ago, she had it with her. Her second-to-last ARC of I Crawl Through It, the forthcoming novel (September/Little, Brown) that early critics have been stunned by.

I'm always stunned by King. She has made an art form of the intelligent unexpected. The unanticipated odd. The somehow-cohering strange. She has run inversions like a flag through a foggy battleground and come out the other side, victorious.

And here, more than ever, she does it again. Takes a story about psyche-battered teens, converts it into a surrealist coda, introduces an invisible helicopter, a walking digestive system, a liar with Hairocchio tresses, parents who have not been listening, an onslaught of bomb threats, and comes out the other side with a rallying cry for any who have been hit hard, live guilt, wonder if they will survive.

It's not ordinary. It is not, at first, easy. It's not supposed to be. It makes all the sense in the world. It is weirdness made synthetic and humane.

You're going to be hearing about this book. You're going to have to get yourself an early copy. You're going to sit and wonder afterward why you didn't (before) see invisible helicopters. You're going to see them everywhere hereafter.

You want to know more? I could type in here the jacket copy, but instead I'm going to leave you with some Rudyard Kipling. Part of the poem he called "If." It's everything you need to know about I Crawl Through It and King's latest masterpiece.

If you can keep your head when all about you
  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
  But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
  Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
  And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
  And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
  Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
  And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:  ...

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we had ourselves a moment

We were the body, heart, soul, and mind—and we were together last evening at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA. (IW Gregorio, Margo Rabb, Tiffany Schmidt, Moi)

For me, it was so very personal. Time alone with the great A.S. King, who is essential in my life in ways that go far beyond the page. The stunning surprise that My Spectacular David (a last-semester student whose own mind-expanding work you will all no doubt be reading soon) pulled off—taking a long drive from his home to join the celebration. The chance to chill with the force that is Heather Hebert, whose store is, in a word, a mecca. Sister Kim and her girls, one of whom, Kathleen, is bound for glory, as you can see. Anmiryam, Anne, Jenn. Friends, familiar faces, new friends. Fishbowl questions that were, well, as you can see from the photo above, challenging. Margo Rabb—famous writer, provocateur, New York Times-er, and Salon-er, esteemed member of the literari—I now know to avoid the ink color green when questions are being passed down the line.

I was glad to have this chance to read three pages from One Thing Stolen. To give my character Maggie, who was named for a fabulous former Penn student, a moment to speak out loud. Books are one thing on the page. They are something else raised from the page. I heard my Maggie as I read those words.

Time to return to a book in progress. I'm going to go quiet for a few days as I put my thinking cap on.

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Ana Maia draws Nadia; A.S. King sends on the gift; I love Chef's Table

Yesterday was a wall-to-wall-er. You know how it is. I topped off the day by watching two segments of the Netflix documentary series, Chef's Table, a David Gelb production that can turn any too-long day around.

Chef's Table doesn't just focus on the famous chefs and what they make and how they live. It goes deep into questions about how early failures shape lives. It explores the consequences of the decisions we make. And oh my goodness, does it showcase the artistry of fine minds in kitchens and over flames.

Massimo Bottura. Francis Mallmann. Niki Nakayama. Ben Shewry. Magnus Nilsson. I'm telling you. Step inside their worlds.

I was saying goodnight to the day when I noticed an email from A.S. King. I pattered my fingers. I squinted. I read. To her note was attached this drawing above, from a Brazilian reader named Ana Maia, who had read One Thing Stolen and rendered my Nadia like this.

There is so much to this—so much extreme and gentle thoughtfulness. I am deeply touched.

Ana Maia does this—draws the characters she finds in pages. You can follow her here on twitter: @coloredpins <https://twitter.com/coloredpins

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growing into happiness: the Guardian, Little Flower, the Penn community, Hodgman

The annual Little Flower Teen Writers Festival is a school-wide celebration of writing and reading—a marvel of an invention in which a school, on a sunny Saturday, opens its doors to story weavers and student hearts. The dynamic, unstoppable Sister Kimberly Miller leads the way. Her girls wouldn't be anywhere else. And yesterday all of us who were in attendance were given keynote words from A.S. King that leapt us to our feet (yes, that's a deliberate inversion of language logic, but that's so what happened). King is one of those writers who has earned her status as a star. Her stories are essential. Her sentences are prime. And when she gets up there behind a microphone she has something actual to say—words that belong to her, ideas unborrowed.

I left Little Flower, rushed home, put on a skirt, swapped out my graffiti boots for a pair of four-inch heels, picked up the cake I'd made the day before, and headed out again to celebrate the career of Greg Djanikian, the exquisite Armenian poet whose life and work I profiled in the Pennsylvania Gazette last year. Greg is stepping down from full-time administrative duties at Penn so that he might write more and live less bounded-ly. Saddened as we are by the thought of seeing him less, last night was anything but a sad event. It brought together (in true Greg fashion) the teachers, writers, and student advocates who give Penn's creative writing program and Kelly Writers House their aura. Oysters, sherbet-colored shirts, an undaunted cat. Talk about food carts, the meaning of words, 1960, serial memoirists (the third Fuller), astonishing turns in storied careers, the art of the frittata, and the costs and high rewards of loving students. Sun when we arrived and stars when we left.

In between the two events, Kit Hain Grindstaff sent word of something wholly unforeseen—a Guardian review of Going Over. It begins like this below and can be read in full here.

Lyrical prose, beautiful and sensual imagery, a dark setting; yet, hope: there is always hope – because for the stars to shine, there needs to be darkness. Going Over just shot to my 'favourites' of 2015 list and I regret nothing. This book is graffiti, and colour and play dough and bikes. It is love, it is death, it is life; it is astronomy, maps, escapes and archery. It is a wall, splitting the earth with dark and hateful ideologies, and it is a spring in your step on one side: pink hair and coloured moles with a quiet and thoughtful being on the other; scope in hand, love clenched in heart and freedom circling though mind. Going Over is Ada and Stefan, Savas and Meryem, Turks and Germans and kids and adults. It is a story of humans and their plight in this world, and it is a story of love.

As is perhaps clear in this recent Huffington interview, I've been thinking a lot of late about what happiness is. I wrote toward that in today's Philadelphia Inquirer story, which has Frenchtown, NJ, as its backdrop. (Thank you Kevin Ferris and your team for another beautiful presentation of my photographs and words.) I've been also thinking a lot about kindness (never simple, often rare), thanks in part to George Hodgman's glorious memoir, Bettyville, which I reviewed for the Chicago Tribune, here.

Today there is sun out there, flowering trees, wet-headed daffodils. I'm going to celebrate by finishing the fabulous Between You and Me (Mary Norris) and later checking into Chanticleer garden for the first time this year. I'm way overdue for a visit.

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when diversity is not a strategy but an essential element of the story being told: Blue Birds by Caroline Starr Rose

We Need Diverse Books. We absolutely do. Books that don't merely place a "non-mainstream" character into the story for the sake of inclusion. Books that go much deeper than the announcement of, or allusion to, skin color, origin countries, sexual preferences. Books that don't operate as if conforming to PC checklists. Books that function outside the circle of slogans and tell real stories.

Truly diverse books are books in which the culture and cultural heritage and economics of the characters are essential to the story being told. They explore wide ranging personages, languages, histories, orientations, dreams. They are steeped in the particular social and personal pressures faced by very particular (and particularly well-drawn) characters. They introduce characters that seem to live not just on the page, but off it.

Middle grade/YA novels such as Ann E. Burg's Serafina's Promise, Thanhha Lai's Inside Out and Back Again, Jacqueline Woodson's Brown Girl Dreaming, Kwame Alexander's Crossover, A.S. King's Ask the Passengers, and Patricia McCormick's Never Fall Down and Sold have, among many other titles, introduced lasting, fully dimensional, diverse characters to younger readers. With her second stunning middle grade novel, Blue Birds, Caroline Starr Rose has made another important addition to this canon.

Blue Birds is a novel in verse that explores a little-known chapter of American history concerning the "Lost Colony" of Roanoke. It's late in the 16th century. English explorers have arrived to Roanoke Island, off Virginia. Conflict and distrust erupt among the native tribes and the English.

Into this setting Rose has placed two young girls—Alis, from England, and Kimi, a Roanoke who has watched the English bring disease and disaster to her world. Out on her own, Alis discovers the natural beauty of the place. Watching, Kimi must decide whether or not to trust this fair-skinned creature. Will Alis and Kimi be able to peel back the social prejudice and befriend one another? Will they be able to step over the great divide that rises whenever individual people are presented with difference? And what will they do—what can they do—as tensions mount in their respective communities?

Rose has given us a complex story, a real and researched story, a story that, despite its roots in late 16th century America, feels contemporary. The questions about other are neither dodged nor trumped, and they never feel commercially strategic. The questions arise because such questions naturally do, because this is the story Starr is telling. And look how gracefully and honestly she tells it:

Why do they dress as they do?
To speak their language,
does it feel as it sounds,
like sharpened rocks on  your tongue?
What makes their skin
the color of a snake's underside?
Why do the men not keep their faces smooth
but grow hair from their cheeks?
Do they ever bathe?
For their strong odor lingers
long after they've gone.

Though they
have brought us heartache,
must all of them
be enemies?

In bringing readers Alis and Kimi, Starr has not just brought us a distant era. She's brought her readers a way of sinking in with real questions about difference—and a credible suggestion that such differences might be overcome.

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after being in the company of the rock stars of YA, I have a dream

Above? That's Libba Bray reading from her forthcoming novel (Lair of Dreams, due out in August) at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA—a scary little ditty that has Amy Sarig King and Gayle Forman shaking in their respective (albeit from opposing sides of the fashion world) boots.

Before them sit many of my neighborhood's finest writers. Also Sister Kim and her Little Flower students. Also bloggers and readers and enthusiasts and at least one bookseller from down the road and shall we go no further before we mention Heather Hebert, who makes it all happen, and with enthusiasm, and while I am at this, because heck, why not, can we locals all just pause for a minute and welcome Margo Rabb to our neighborhood, because she's here now, newly arrived from Austin, with her second YA novel (Kissing in America) due out in May.

(Seems like I might be reading with Margo and two other fabs from Round Here soon, but more on that to come.)

What a performance these three gave—Amy and Libba gamely (respectively) playing the parts of a stoner and a slick boy in a choral reading from Gayle's new bestselling book, I Was Here. Amy giving a thrilling preview of I Crawl Through It. Libba forcing everyone else into scare mode, then zapping the conversation with four parts hysterical ad lib and one part Barbara Walters. And then plenty of talk about the F word, by which I mean (of course) Feminism.

The doors were open at Children's Book World, to dispel all that animal heat. The skies were ripped apart with rain. I headed home among storm-imperiled drivers and then I fell asleep. At which point I dreamed I was still with the gang, only we had moved onto a Friendly's Restaurant (note: Friendly's, I lie not) and we were having high-calorie ice cream and nobody would speak to me. My offense, in my dream, was that I been me—asking too much, pressing too hard.

I woke just after I'd leaned over somebody's shoulder and read the texts that were circulating about me.

"Beth Kephart," they said, "is so annoying."

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Moravian Writers' Conference: blessed to be joining the community

Many years ago, I found and read a book I loved, In Hovering Flight, and wrote about it here.

I never anticipated that Joyce Hinnefeld, that novel's author, would one day lead the writing program at Moravian College and create, as well, an extraordinary writers' conference that last year featured both Laurie Halse Anderson and Ursula Hegi. I never imagined that I'd receive an email from the beloved teen author/Bethlehem Area Public Library Executive Director Josh Berk that contained both a question and a bridge.

But both things have happened, and this June I will have the great pleasure of spending time with Joyce as well as Josh, as I participate in the Moravian Writers' Conference as a keynoter and panelist and (to make it all even more glittering) in conversation with the very special guest A.S. King. (King, we're gonna have to take our glorious private conversation public. You ready?) There are so many opportunities for area writers during this three-day (June 5 through 7) event—so many terrific writers, teachers, publishers participating.

(Another special bonus: my friend Nic Esposito of The Head and The Hand Press will be participating in the publishing panel.)

I invite you to learn more about all the presenters and the line-up here.

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And then A.S. King read One Thing Stolen

It took a long time and a lot of heartache to find my way through One Thing Stolen. I had an idea about vanishing and effacement. I am obsessed with birds and floods. I sometimes misplace things, especially names, and I have, therefore, a growing obsession with the mind and where it puts the things that once were.

I also have students I love. And I believe that language is plastic, that it must be taken apart and put back together again so that it might remain alive, so that our stories might live, too.

All of this became the web of the book called One Thing Stolen, and by the time I had finished it for real and taken the first 100 pages apart yet again— nanoseconds before it went off to the copy editor—I was in a quiet place. Bewildered by—and grateful to—the strange workings of the literary imagination.

I sought no blurbs for the book. It was going out there, bravely, on its own.

Two nights ago, a friend alerted me to some goings-on on Twitter. Did you see what A.S. King has written about One Thing Stolen? the friend asked. What I found there, on the Twitter stream, made me cry. It kept me up through most the night. An act of friendship so remarkable. Words I needed to hear.

When I wrote to thank Amy for her generosity, she offered to write a blurb for the book. Really? I said. Really, she said. Or something like that. She wrote not one, but two, and because I like them both so much I will share them here. These words will appear on reprint editions of One Thing Stolen (for the book has already gone to press) and everywhere else, starting now.

Grateful doesn't begin to describe it. Thank you, A.S. King.

Kephart at her poetic and powerful best. ONE THING STOLEN is a masterwork—a nest of beauty and loss, a flood of passion so sweet one can taste it. This is no ordinary book. It fits into no box. It is its own box—its own language.

ONE THING STOLEN is a tapestry of family, friendship, Florence, and neuroscience. I’ve never read anything like it. Kephart brings the reader so deep inside Nadia we can feel her breathe, and yet her story leaves us without breath.

 A.S. King is the author of Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future, Reality Boy, Ask the Passengers, Everybody Sees the Ants, Please Ignore Vera Dietz, and The Dust of 100 Dogs

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What bungles some YA tales, and why A.S. King rises above (and the launch of Glory O'Brien)

Here are some of the ways that young adult authors can get themselves in trouble. There's the endless repetition of tropes—the clever line on repeat. There's the fuzzy hey-I-can't-really-explain-this-implausible-plot-so-I'll smudge-the-language-into-lazy-ambiguity-and-hope-it-all-looks-like-part-of-an-actual-master-plan. There's the Valley Girl/Guy voice and the untrusting over explaining and the shying away from big themes with the hope that a familiar plot—or a cinematic a-ha ending—will be enough.

As the category becomes ever more popular, as it sells increasing numbers of books (according to Shelf Awareness, "children's/YA continued to soar this year, with sales up 30.5%, to $695.9 million (while) sales of adult fiction and nonfiction fell 3.6%, to $1.726 billion), as it permeates the culture in dissings and debates, it is, I think, increasingly important to look at and learn from those who do YA well.

A.S. King is one such author. Her Glory O'Brien's History of the Future, launching on October 14, is, once again, a brave and elastic plot that gives King room to ruminate on big themes and agitations. Yesterday afternoon, I read the first 67 pages, and discovered, again, just how particular King's language is, how capable of building characters, stretching worlds, and conversing with mechanical and natural phenomena.

For example: King, a photographer herself, has made her narrator a photographer. It's not a casual choice. It's both plot and metaphor. And it's instruction of the sort that is real and meaningful. Read the passage below. Check out its specificity and its ease (not at all simple to achieve both at once, I assure you). Then look at the words "max black." King, being King, will not leave that alone. She'll soon capitalize the M and the B and make Max Black a character. It is of a whole. It is considered. This is how fine YA gets done.

A light meter could tell you what zone everything in a scene fell into. Bright spots—waterfall foam, reflections, a polar bear—were high numbers. Shadows—holes, dark still water, eels beneath the surface—were low numbers. You had to let the light into the camera in just the right way. You had to meter: find the dark and light spots in your subject. You had to bracket: manually change your shutter speed or aperture to adjust the amount of light hitting the film—or, in my case, for the yearbook, the microchip. You didn't want to blow out the highlights, and you had to give the shadows all the detail you could by finding the darkest max black areas and then shooting them three zones lighter.

You can download the first 67 pages of Glory O'Brien for free here. In two weeks, you can buy the book itself. I hope you'll do both. In the meantime, congratulations to A.S. King.

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getting real, with friends

 

Today was full of many things—an early morning with my dad, time with a manuscript, a fantastic (even raucous) baby shower crowded with such dear friends, a trip to the Schuylkill River to experience the Flow Festival, and almost (not quite) finding A.S. King in my own 30th Street Station (we missed each other by minutes; we will not miss each other again). Tonight, day's end, I am thinking of the souls who gathered, the baby who is waiting, the joy that convened. I am thinking, too, about a conversation—the kind that makes me stop and appreciate its sheer rarity.

"We need to talk about Savas," the conversation began. The speaker was a dance friend, a tech genius, someone I hadn't seen in many months. I was so startled that at first I couldn't imagine what he meant. It was Going Over, the Berlin novel, he was speaking of. It was a decision I'd made about a character, a young Turkish boy, that he was questioning. How? he asked me. Why? Should it not have been impossible to write what I wrote down?

My friend had questions, too, about Ada and Stefan, what my west Berlin graffiti girl saw, at first, in her East Berlin lover. He wanted to know about point of view, how I decided what was to be left on stage, and off. And where did the graffiti come from, he wanted to know. Were you (in a distant past) some kind of graffiti delinquent?

I kept shaking my head. I kept smiling inside. I kept reminding myself—Wait. He took the time. He read your book. He thought about it. He wondered. I thought later how unusual this was. To be asked, with real interest, about something I'd written. To be invited to talk—not about all that superficial stuff that interests me less and less, but about the story itself. It's a rare friend who makes room for this—who presses you, who listens, who may not agree with some of the choices you made, but whose interest, nonetheless, is genuine.

I have been dancing, on and off, for a few good years now. I'm no better at it than when I began. But I dance, like I do clay, for the conversations and the friends. Of this, today—among so much laughter, within such warmth—I was reminded again.

Congratulations, in the meantime, to Aideen, Mike, and Mercy, who brought us altogether. What a family you have. And many thanks to Ms. Tirsa Rivas. One of the best party-throwers in the land.

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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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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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