"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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thoughts on it all, on Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day weekend, I write of long love in an era of tighter purse strings, a shared photography adventure, and wandering the streets of Conshohocken (and meeting one young entrepreneur, Marcie Spampinato, in a market fresh cafe) in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

I read Bettyville—that great George Hodgman memoir—through for the third time, as my class at Penn, joining with the students of dear Julia Bloch, prepare for a special Skype visit from the author. I first encountered Bettyville when reviewing the book for the Chicago Tribune. In returning to these pages, I find myself even more grateful for its championing of heart, its honesty of emotion, its embrace of sliding time, and its wisdoms, large and small. "To fall in love you have to think you're okay, stop watching for clues you've done something wrong."

I look toward a simple meal with the man I love.

These have been interesting days. I am learning how to live through uncertainty, find peace with broken promises, work toward the tangible in often intangible times, wrangle with dishonesties and pressures. I do less well when I survey the world at large—the posturing of politicians, the schoolyard antics of debates, the cruelty of regimes, the small voices that are not heard, the cracks in the earth. Three a.m. is my internal monologue-ing hour, and often nobody wins.

And then I remember to be grateful. For sun despite the frigid cold. For the laughter of my son over the phone. For the emails from friends who write of warming days, risotto, a mother's whisper, HelloFresh, encouragement for the books I write. For the team my father and I have become as we continue to hope for the sale of his home. For the orange roses that were waiting for me at five a.m. today, when I stopped talking to myself.

It's the small things, I think, that are the biggest things of all. The small things that sustain me, that break the monologue.

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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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reviewing the powerful, wonderful, kind BETTYVILLE, in Chicago Tribune

How I loved this book—for its kindness, for its wisdom, for the way it cracked itself open, quietly. My full review of Bettyville by George Hodgman can be found here, at the Chicago Tribune. It will appear in Printers Row this weekend.

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