paperback writer (three upcoming releases)

On this day, ahead of a predicted storm, I'm happy to share these three images—snapshots of books living forward.

Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir will be released in a month or so by Avery—its fourth printing—with a newly crafted afterword (featuring some of the newly read memoirs and evolving memoir theories I've had since Handling was first released in August 2013).

Going Over will be released by Chronicle as a paperback in November, following a happy run as a hardback (thank you, kind librarians, teachers, readers).

Small Damages has just been released by Speak (Penguin Random House) in its second edition paperback—slightly different packaging, same story, and much gratitude to those who found and read the book either as a Philomel hardback or a first-edition Speak paperback.

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The company I'm proud to keep: GOING OVER on the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list

Amazed and grateful, and oh, the company I keep on this treasured YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list.

Thank you, librarians, for including me in this sweep of terrific books.

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Going Over (and me) at Books of Wonder (and thanks for two kind new reviews)

I'm always honored when Peter Glassman of Books and Wonder notices a book I've written and invites me to his store.

So of course I said yes to his recent invitation to join Brian Conaghan, Padma Venkatraman, Lindsay Smith, and Marthe Jocelyn for

Great Teen Reads Night

June 24, 2014

6:00 - 8:00 PM
Books of Wonder

18 West 18th Street

New York, NY 10011

New York friends, I hope you will join us for this panel discussion and signing. More information is here.

And thanks, too, to two recent reviewers who found Going Over and had kind things to say. Miss Literati concluded her review with these words:

I found GOING OVER to be exhilarating to read. It was a great book and I’m excited to read other books by Beth Kephart! — Miss Literati

And then there was Ruth Compton, Librarian and Readers' Advisor, who wrote:

Ms Kephart has created a hauntingly lyrical and powerful story about lives in a divided Berlin, about choices and consequences, about love and loss that draws you in and won’t let you go long after you’ve put the book down. —  Ruth Compton

Thank you, Miss Literati and Ruth. And hello, Books of Wonder.

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lots of thanks, and My Friend Amy (warrior with wings)

The Jewish Museum, designed by Daniel Libeskind, in Berlin

First, I need to say thank you to everyone who made my birthday such a bright yesterday. My birthday-birthday, and my book birthday. The weather was surreal-ly sweet. The daffodils bloomed. I got the client project done in the nick of time. My students were their perfect student selves. My husband brought roses. A friend drove a long way to leave me with a glamorous basket of pansies. My brother played the birthday song, my brother-in-law was all sweetness, my mother-in-law sang. There were hummingbirds and William Kotzwinkle and Kelly Simmons just about did me in with words I swear I'm gonna frame.

I had crab cake.

I had dessert.

My son called—his voice the color of the day, his stories the kind that kept me smiling, late, in the dark of the night.

I know what, and for whom, to be grateful. And I am.

Today, I am, again, grateful for Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books and the release of Going Over, and for all of you who sent notes or Twittered or Facebooked or just plain kept me company during the release. Thank you for letting me know about the starred review in Shelf Awareness. Thank you for sending along the extremely kind BookPage review. 

Last evening, Chronicle Books kicked off the blog tour (following Serena Agusto-Cox's earlier blog kindness) with some words I wrote about music, writing, and Berlin, in a post that begins like this, below, and carries forward here:
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At the age of nine, on a Boston pond, I launched my (oh so very minor) ice-skating career. Twirls. Edges. Leaps. Falls.

Shortly thereafter (the precise day and hour escape me now), I began to write. Lyric flourishes. Running lines. Suspended disbelief. Revisions.

Music and story. They’re the same thing, right? Sentences are melodies. Plots are choreography.  The silence in between the lines is wish and wisk.

Today My Friend Amy, who has, for almost forever, truly been My Friend Amy, is continuing that blog tour. A book warrior with wings, I'll call her, who has accompanied me through so much of my writing journey, who has always mattered deeply, who spent some time reading Going Over, writes the sweetest words, and is offering a copy of the book to one of her readers, all of which is happening here.

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A World Without Walls? and A Most Generous Launch of the Going Over Blog Tour

This is the 25th anniversary year of the fall of the Berlin Wall—an anniversary that is being commemorated with lights, balloons, exhibitions, proposals of hope. And yet, in so many places, for so many different reasons, we remain a world divided.

I write of those contradictions, those residual fears, in today's Publishing Perspectives, in a piece that begins like this:

We live in a world of infinite gradations and restless infiltrations. We live in a world of checkpoints, watchtowers, walls. We are free to go, or we are not. We are here, but never entirely there. We are fenced in or fenced out. We are on the move (some 232 million around the world left one country for another in 2013, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) or we are hunkered down—stuck—behind a fortress of distance-making words: “Aliens.” “Illegals.”

We are global.

We are divided.

... and continues here.

My hope, today, is that you'll find time to read this piece and, if you are so moved, to share it.

My hope, too, is that you will send Miss Serena Agusto-Cox, most faithful and intelligent reader and writer, all kinds of yellow-tulip thoughts, for she has written such kind words about Going Over and soft launched the blog tour with all kinds of goodies, including the offer of a free book to one reader. You can find the whole thing here. I share, below, Serena's final words about the book:

Kephart’s Going Over is stunning, and like the punk rock of the 80s, it strives to stir the pot, make readers think, and evoke togetherness, love, and even heartbreak — there are lessons in each.

 Thank you.

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Going Over: The Trailer, The News

Sometimes, a whole lifetime's worth of specialness happens in a few short days.

Those few short days were these past few days. That Handling the Truth/Meredith Vieira moment in New York City, that trip to see old friends and make new ones in South Carolina. And the gifts leading up to the release of Going Over.

First, today, I want to thank the extraordinary Chronicle team—for everything, really. But in particular, for the trailer, above. I had no idea a trailer was in the works. It just arrived one day. It is perfect, in my eyes, in every way.

Second, the news, which is here, below:

School Library Journal Pick of the Day

Junior Library Guild Selection

iBooks Spring’s Biggest Books 

An Amazon Big Spring Book

“A stark reminder of the power of hope, courage, and love.”—Booklist, starred review

“An excellent example of historical fiction focusing on an unusual time period.” —School Library Journal, starred review

"Going Over carefully balances love and heartbreak, propelling readers through the story."— Shelf Awareness

"Readers will finish the book and continue to think about how effective one wall can be in separating a country and in fashioning attitudes toward life." —Reading Today

"At once compelling and challenging... this gripping effort captures the full flavor of a trying time in an onerous place." —Kirkus Reviews

  “A profound read meant for discussion.” —VOYA: Voice of Youth Advocates

"Gritty, painful and lovely."--Emma, age 17, SLJ Teen, Young Adult Advisory Councils Reviewer

Some very generous bloggers have agreed to participate in a blog tour that will kick off when the book officially launches on April 1. I've written pieces about history, graffiti, titles, editing—and I'll be answering questions—throughout it all.

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Bruce Springsteen sings "Chimes of Freedom" at the Berlin Wall

This morning, putting together my play list for the GOING OVER blog tour (thank you, Lara Starr and Chronicle Books), I found myself transfixed by this video of our own Bruce Springsteen singing Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" to the East Berliners one year before the wall came down.

Look at the faces of that crowd. Look at him. I can't even speak. Watch all the way through, as Springsteen answers an interviewer's questions about the people of Berlin.

Interested in joining the blog tour? Let us know.

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The GOING OVER Teacher's Discussion Guide

Like talented elves secreted away in a very special place, the Chronicle team has been at work on the Common Core Aligned Teacher's Guide for GOING OVER.

When Stephanie Wong sent me the document yesterday afternoon, I nearly fell over. It is so thoughtful, so remarkably thorough, so interesting, so well done that I could barely contain my joy. They asked for nothing from me. They, in fact, surprised me. And it's perfect.

Check out Tamra Tuller's clever tagline: A wall divides them, their love unites them.

This guide will be shared with teachers at the NCTE/ALAN conference I'll be attending next week in Boston. And I'm free to share it here on my blog. Should you know of teachers who might be interested in teaching a book about Berlin, divisions, war, love, and a certain question about the "guest" workers of Turkey who came to help a tattered country survive, please share this with them.

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Going Over: The Berlin Book Cover Reveal

This is one of the most spectacular book covers I've ever seen.

How amazing, therefore, that it will now be associated with a book I wrote—a book that had its beginnings in a trip I took to Berlin and in a conversation I had with the ever-dear Tamra Tuller.

I have Tamra, my editor, to whom this book is dedicated, to thank for seeing this cover through. I have Ginee Seo, Lara Starr, Stephanie Wong, and the entire Chronicle team—for their great enthusiasm and care. And for this gorgeous, thoughtful, it-says-it-all imagery, I have Jennifer Tolo Pierce, the director of design at Chronicle. Jennifer, this is perfection.

This, then, is Going Over, due out from Chronicle next April 1st. I so eagerly anticipate this release.

It is February 1983, and Berlin is a divided city—a miles-long barricade separating east from west. But the city isn’t the only thing that is divided. Ada, almost 16, lives with her mother and grandmother among the rebels, punkers, and immigrants of Kreuzberg, just west of the wall. Stefan, 18, lives east with his brooding grandmother in a faceless apartment bunker of Friedrichshain, his telescope pointed toward freedom. Bound by love and separated by circumstance, their only chance lies in a high-risk escape. But will Stefan find the courage to leap? Will Ada keep waiting for the boy she has only seen four times a year ever since she can remember? Or will forces beyond their control stand in their way?

Told in the alternating voices of the pink-haired graffiti artist and the boy she loves, Going Over is a story of daring and sacrifice, choices and consequences, and love that will not wait.

“Beth Kephart has done it again. She’s spun gold out of the language of longing and has shown us how to make room for miracles. This novel –about a boy and girl separated by the cruelest of fates–will inspire any reader to make the leap for love.”

Patricia McCormick, author of National Book Award Finalists Sold and Never Fall Down  

“An unforgettable portrayal of life and love divided. Kephart captures the beauty and desperation of 1980's Berlin with prose both gripping and graceful.” 

Ruta Sepetys, New York Times bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray and Out of the Easy

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I return (at very long last) to Florence

I'm not just teaching sixteen memoir makers this semester at Penn. I'm also working with the very talented Alice Ma, whom I selected from a strong field of applicants as the Bassini Writing Apprentice. Alice returns me to my novel-in-progress. We think together about what kind of research must fuel a novel like this one, what questions must be answered, and how truth becomes fiction of an engaging but authentic sort.

There's been one small problem with this arrangement. Too many consecutive twenty-hour work days have left me no time for the novel-in-progress. So there is Alice, pursuing questions. And here has been Beth, suggesting in theory.

I had promised myself and others that I would right that tilted ship this weekend, and today I honored the pledge. I had 30,000 words of the novel, banged out during a few weeks last fall. Today I printed those pages, sat beneath a blanket, and forced myself to sit and read. If there was some horrid stuff, and there was some horrid stuff, there was also a book that makes me happy. Happy to work on. Happy to pursue. Since the best part of the writing life is the writing, in my humble opinion, I better be happy to pursue.

Having spent this day righting the wrongs of my in-progress novel, I will spend tomorrow writing forward. I will be afraid, very afraid. And I will let the fear propel me.

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we wait for the storm, we hunker down,

we pray for trees to stand tall, for safety for friends, for love in the dark pell mell of it all.

I am off to the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House to see my students and my friends, and to read, for the first official time, from Handling the Truth.

As I leave, I tuck forty-four pages of my new Florentine novel into a safe, dry place.  

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