remembering a Mayor Nutter moment in Philadelphia

Philadelphia. I love her. I write about her. I celebrate her. But don't think that I can't see. This can be a hard-knock city. It doesn't always love you back.

Today I'm remembering a moment I will forever cherish. Dangerous Neighbors, my Centennial novel, being featured as part of a First Book celebration. Mayor Nutter, standing beside me, signed my books for 120-plus young people who had never owned a book before.

I was honored.

I always am.

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a robust and thoughtful tween list from Sarah Laurence; some nice news for GOING OVER

I got behind on this day—a book to read and review, some client care, a trip to the dentist, some forever inadequate taming of the jungle of my garden (oh my), and lunch with a friend whose capacious mind is thrilling, frankly, to be near. What he knows. What he thinks. I sit back and listen.

It is not until just now, then, that I have a moment to thank Sarah Lamport Laurence for a list of tween books that has a lot of people talking. People are looking for Sarah's kind of thinking about books all the time, and today she put together a most valued collection of recommended reads for tween readers. I am honored to find both Dangerous Neighbors and Undercover included.

Additionally I am grateful to Junior Library Guild for making today its Going Over day. And I am thankful to Indigo for placing my Berlin novel on its Best Teen Books of 2014 So Far list.

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The Art of Faith: Talking Philadelphia and Memoir this weekend, at St. David's Episcopal Church

This weekend, St. David's Episcopal Church in Radnor, PA, is celebrating the life of St. David, Patron Saint of Wales, who established the church (a glorious stone building about a mile from my home) three hundreds years ago. Photography, singing vicars, and literature are all part of the fare, and I'm honored to be included.

My own talk is a two-part talk. First up—a Handling the Truth memoir workshop, in which participants will have a chance to learn about truth and consequences, sentences and ideas. Following a short break, I'll be discussing 19th century Philadelphia, particularly my three Philadelphia books—Flow, Dangerous Neighbors, and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent. There will be workshops here as well—fun exercises designed to get us thinking about our city more than a century ago.

These events are free and open to the public. The photography exhibit runs all day today and tomorrow, and includes an 11:00 AM photography symposium moderated by Tom Petro tomorrow.

My event is being held on Sunday in the Choir Room, Chapel, Lower Level. We'll start at 1:30 and go through 4:00 PM. Stay for both sessions, or come just for one. Teens and adults are both welcome (and, indeed, encouraged).

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I found Katherine and Anna (of Dangerous Neighbors) at The Barnes Foundation, in a Renoir painting

My husband and I have returned from a magical 24 hours away from construction boxes and dust, from a sinkless and unusable kitchen, from ceilings finally painted and repaired, only to be ruined by the rain that leaked through the roof that we've been waiting (for several months now) to be fixed.

We needed to get away.

And so we went to Philadelphia, stayed at glorious, expansive Loews (seventeenth floor! corner room!), had lunch at the Reading Terminal Market among thousands of soccer coaches, and ate dinner at the magnificent Fork Restaurant (where we had the chance to tell Ellen Yin just had perfect the entire meal had been, and when I say perfect, I mean perfectly perfect, perfectly considered, perfectly surprising and comforting, perfectly served). Between lunch and dinner, in the cold heart of the afternoon, we went to The Barnes Foundation for the first time. Something every Philadelphian should do at least once.

I have never seen so many Renoir paintings in one place. I fell in love, again, Modigliani. I encountered a local watercolorist—Demuth—whose work I had not known before, or, at least, anchored with a name.

And then, at near the end of our tour through those many rooms, I gasped. For there on the wall was this painting by Renoir. Titled La Sortie du conservatoire, it was painted in 1876, the year of my Centennial story, Dangerous Neighbors. It was as if I'd seen this image before, as if I'd worked from it, as if I'd lifted those two girls from this canvas. My Katherine and Anna, the ginger-haired twins that live on the pages of my slender novel, are Renoir's two girls. They look and stand precisely like this—the color of their hair, Anna's vivacious pose, Katherine's steady watchfulness.

We are back home now, with leaking and unfinished things, and with way too much work for the week ahead. But Katherine and Anna are in the house. They are alive again.

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Dr. Radway named to the 2013 Kirkus Best Middle Grade Books of the Year list, which blows me away with quadruple joy

I don't know how else to say this:

I am bowled over and steeped in gratitude, for I have received the news that Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent has been named to the 2013 Kirkus Best Middle Grade Books of the Year list.

This is a story I was determined to write ever since I'd stumbled upon my character, William, while writing my Centennial Philadelphia novel, Dangerous Neighbors. It is a story about my city—a story about machines and headlines, about classified ads and courage, about a boy who, in rescuing lost animals, rescues those he loves.

Publishing Dr. Radway was a brave and idealistic venture. My husband joined me in the dream, providing the book's illustrations. New City Community Press/Temple University Press said yes one warm winter day, and made the book real.

Thank you—thank you!— to Vicky Smith at Kirkus Reviews and to a certain reader who believed.

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DR. RADWAY: The School Library Journal Review

I'm here on this blog this morning thanking Etta Anton for this kind review of Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent in School Library Journal. I love that she pairs this book with Dangerous Neighbors as well as Laurie Halse Anderson's Fever as books that open door to Philadelphia for younger readers.

That had been my ambition all along.

Thank you, Etta.

And thank you, Gary Kramer of Temple University Press, for letting me know.

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Scenes from the Independence Visitor Center Store, on a certain warm Saturday

Earlier today I was the guest of the truly beautiful and well-managed Independence Visitor Center Store on the Mall in Philadelphia. If you haven't been, you really should go. It'll make you proud of our city.

I was there to sign copies of my two Philadelphia novels, Dangerous Neighbors and Dr. Radway's Sarsparilla Resolvent. And as grateful as I was for the opportunity, I knew, going in, how hard this would be for this lifelong thwarter of sales scenarios. I couldn't sell Girl Scout cookies when it was required of me years ago. At other author events, I eschew talking about my own books in favor of promoting the books of others. And put me in the midst of a store with only my own books to sell, and all I can think of is how silly I must seem to all those passing by. An American curiosity with a twitch in her writing hand.

When I could climb out of my own head long enough, however, I was grateful for many things. For Sister Kim and her cousin Christine, who came and visited for a long sweet while. For the grandparents of twins, who embraced Dangerous Neighbors. For the junior in high school who hopes to be a writer, for the handsome couple who eventually overcame stormy skies and storm surges on the Chesapeake and made their way to the city, for the couple from Australia, for the couple from western PA.

And then there was this totally adorable little boy who could not get enough of the Dr. Radway cover. So convinced was he that he had to have this book that his mother and I began talking. She is a literature professor in China, as it turns out, at the end of a few months based in Boston, and it was fascinating to talk with her—and to hear her appreciation for this country. I was glad to hear that my fellow Americans had been kind to her and her family. I was glad to see the good of us through her eyes.

And that little boy—I'll never forget him.

I'm not good at sales. Indeed, I'm downright terrible at sales, suffering some inner shame as the clock ticks on. But today I was given the chance to see and hear the appreciation that others have for my city. It was enough for me. It was energizing.

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Gearing up for the Handling the Truth workshops (and see you at Independence Mall this Saturday?)

The other day, when my very bright orange Handling the Truth arrived, I took a very deep breath. It is time, I thought. Time to think about the way I will talk about this book and take it out into the world.

I'm still happy for the decision I'd made months ago to conduct workshops on behalf of this book, as opposed to offering traditional readings. Some of those workshops are noted on the left column of this blog—events in Alexandria, VA, Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere. Three will be conducted in northern California. One of those (noted above) will take place at one of my very favorite independent bookstores, Book Passages.

I hope to see you in my travels. And I hope, perhaps, to see you this Saturday, when I'll be signing copies of Dangerous Neighbors and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent on Independence Mall. It's gorgeous down there; it's the heart of Philadelphia history.

July 13
1:00-4:00 pm
Independence Visitor Center Store
1 North Independence Mall West
6th and Market Streets
Philadelphia, PA

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Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent: some kind words from Savvy Verse & Wit

My friend Serena Agusto-Cox was an early reader of Dangerous Neighbors, my Centennial Philadelphia novel. She wondered, when she finished reading, about that character William, who plays a secondary role in Neighbors, and when I had in hand finished copies of Dr. Radway—a book in which William stars—I sent one her way.

She writes thoughtfully and kindly here about the story, and on this day, when I'm thinking so much about my city, I am particularly grateful.

Thank you, Serena. A small part of her review is here, below. The whole can be found here.

Kephart brings home the pressure of change and darkness with the thrumming of the machines, the locomotive commotion, and the constant mechanization of the city pounding in the background.  While the industrialization signifies a change and progress that can be beneficial and create opportunity, there also is the darker underbelly of those changes that must be dealt with — the corruption and the abuse of those willing to take advantage of their position and of others.  There is a keen juxtaposition of this in the characters of Officer Kernon and the Ledger’s editor Mr. Childs — one who abuses his position to get what he wants and the other who offers his aid in the form of mentoring and money to young men in need of guidance.

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Project Flow, Teen Writers, and the Color of Life at the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center

Take a look at those faces (well, all except for the old lady in orange pants). This is the company I had the privilege of keeping earlier this day, as a guest of the Project Flow program sponsored by Karen Young and the Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center. Rising ninth graders—young souls brought from schools all over the city. A medley of projects created and taught by teachers who love words, science, and art. The leadership of Ellen Freedman Schultz, the FWWIC education and outreach coordinator.

This morning, I had the chance to talk to the young people about my three Philadelphia books—all of which have pivotal scenes on the river. One, FLOW, is entirely about the river, while DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS finds its protagonists skating on its frozen skin (with calamitous results) and DR. RADWAY'S SARSAPARILLA RESOLVENT features an historic river race. But mostly we talked about rivers and transcendent language and mellow yellow fish (as well as gold ones). By way of introduction, I asked the students to reflect on the colors of their lives. Their work was so exceptional that I promised to share it here, after shedding a little tear (so did someone else in the room! twice! we caught him!).

I like nothing more than chilling with people like these young souls.

The color of my life is a pink and a blue fighting over a green. Pink wants green to be pink and the blue wants green to be gold when green just wants to be green and left alone.

— Tiara

The color of life is a red orange flame, when blue cooler yet warmer, and black when deceased.

— Rafael

The color of my life is a deep shade of blue. A cool, calm, collected blue. A quiet silent in the night blue. And sometimes a sad blue. But on some days, this blue turns as bright as an afternoon sky.

— Liam

The color of my life is magenta. It's a color that's different and vibrant but can also be very mellow. I believe that magenta can never blend in. It's a color that can and always will stick out.

— Kai

Shades of yellows, oranges, reds, pinks, and purples along with the pale blue that I recognize wherever I go. As we travel back home from any city when I say goodbye from the car window. As well as before I doze off on the plane ride home from another country.

— Olivia

The rainbow, for all the crazy emotions I feel and when and how they come out.

— Rashae

The color of life is a brilliantly bright orange that shines pure, untouched. It is like the age of the sun except with a perfect unblemished glow.

— Jake

The color of my life is a light blue. It was once a very dark blue close to black-purple. As the story of my life goes on the blue gets lighter and lighter defining the very exciting and depressing point in my life.

— Erika

The color of my life is red because it's passion. The reason why I pick red is because it is the color of my passion.

— Nafese

So the color of my life is nothing. I don't think my life has a color or will ever have one, well, not until I'm gone from this world, but my life would be what I want to make it be. If I want it to be red I'll make it red. If I want it to be blue, I'll make it blue. But until I'm on my deathbed I will never know because I didn't live it yet.

— Juan

A brief P.S. When I returned home today, I had three notes about our river. One included a link to this gorgeous new review of FLOW, a book published several years ago. My thanks to Tina Hudak of the St. Albans Lower School Lower School Library Collection, in Washington, DC.

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Dr. Radway and Dangerous Neighbors: a side-by-side review

Readers of this blog know that Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent is a story featuring a boy named William—a child of Bush Hill and Baldwin Locomotive Works, the brother to a young man murdered by a cop. William has lived in my imagination for many years. He was a primary character (but not the primary character) in my Centennial Philadelphia novel, Dangerous Neighbors. He rescues lost animals for a living. He matters to me.

Earlier today, I discovered that my friend Ed Goldberg, a librarian in the New York system, put Dr. Radway and Dangerous Neighbors side by side in a review. I love that he did this. I learned from his study. I'm deeply appreciative.

Ed's entire report can be found here, on his lovely blog, 2HeadsTogether. He ends his musings like this:

What both books do so well is describe one city, Philadelphia of the 1870s, although two different worlds. Both books delve into their main characters, William and Katherine, making them come alive. And both books use language as only Beth Kephart uses language.

It was a luxury reading the books one after the other, because it highlights the contrasts that otherwise would have been hidden. So, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent and then Dangerous Neighbors. The one-two punch in books.

Thank you, Mr. Ed. And thank you, Elizabeth Mosier, for the extraordinary note you wrote to me after you read the book through. No one can ever know just how much words like these matter to an author—especially in the case of this particular book.

I'll be talking about the research that fueled both books tomorrow, during the Week of Writing at Drexel University. If you're in the city I hope you'll join us, especially so that you can meet my most esteemed co-panelists, Rita Williams-Garcia and Eliot Schrefer.

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walking William's beat, yesterday, in Spring Garden

Yesterday, while walking to a meeting of fellow Philadelphia lovers and writers (so happy to see so many beautiful faces) I took a moment to be with William, the Dangerous Neighbors character I simply could not let go who therefore stars in my new 1871 Philadelphia book, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent. William lived on Carleton Street. He walked through territory that was once crowded and clonking with machine shops and rail yards. He rescued lost animals for a living.

This is a view of his world now, including Matthias Baldwin Park, a small snatch of land now given over the memory of one of Philadelphia's greatest entrepreneurs—the man whose rail machinery shops occupied many blocks of this neighborhood.

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The Diary of Pringle Rose/Down the Rabbit Hole/ Chicago 1871: Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Back in August 2011 I posted here under the title "How great is Susan Campbell Bartoletti?" I reported on how this award-winning writer for young adults had saved me in Orlando, FL, just ahead of an ALAN panel (we shared the dais; she mastered the technology; she made people laugh; I spoke, sorrowfully, of a massive fire). Later I wrote of Susan's kindness in driving many miles to appear in the Young Writers Take the Park event I'd orchestrated with The Spiral Book Case in Manayunk. And then one day I made a video for Susan and her Penn State students, about the crafting of dialogue in two of my novels.

But my very favorite Susan BC moment remains that August day in 2011 when we sat in a top-floor room of the Kelly Writers House on the Penn campus talking about our mutual love for 1871. Yes. Truly. How many people will I ever meet who will love that year as much as I do? Susan was deep into writing her Diary of Pringle Rose for the fabulous and famous Scholastic Dear America series (if you want to know how fabulous, here is Taylor Swift talking about the impact the series had on her). I was finishing my prequel to my Centennial Philadelphia novel, Dangerous Neighbors—a boy's adventure, an 1871 Philly story, due out in early May called Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent. In the cool shadows of Kelly Writers House Susan and I spoke of fires and trains and schools and prejudices, about classified ads and research. We will forever be bound by friendship and a year, by an afternoon at Penn.

Early this morning I had the great pleasure of reading Pringle Rose's story, which is secondarily titled Down the Rabbit Hole and was officially launched a few days ago. It's a pure pleasure of a read; it's vintage Susan. It's a story that takes its fourteen-year-old heroine out of the coal mining country of Pennsylvania (where Susan herself lives) and toward Chicago during a hot, dangerous summer. Pringle has lost two parents to an accident she doesn't quite understand. She has a brother, Gideon, who is different and lovable and deserving of her care. She boards a train with her brother in tow and believes herself destined for a new and elevated life. But the past catches up with these brave journey-ers. And then there's the heat of that summer, that devastating heat, that will crescendo to the Great Fire of Chicago.

Scholastic knew what it was doing when it invited Susan to write this Diary, and I am confident that it will now reach countless thousands—reach, entertain, and enlighten. Susan and I are nursing a fantasy that we'll have an 1871 Celebration Day together. Between now and then, I'm celebrating her.

(The photo above, by the way, is the street where my own 1871 character William lived. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get William and Pringle together.)

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Dangerous Neighbors (paperback) and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent: two upcoming releases

In just a few days, Dangerous Neighbors, my Centennial Philadelphia novel, will be released by Egmont USA as a paperback, with a bound-in teacher's guide.  A few weeks after that, in mid-February, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, an 1871 Philadelphia novel that features Dangerous Neighbors' own best-loved boy, William, will be released by New City Community Press/Temple University Press.

Dr. Radway's introduces, among many other Philadelphia places, Eastern State Penitentiary.  In this scene (below) William and his best friend, Career, are making their way toward the old prison, which was known back then as Cherry Hill.  They're going to keep William's father company, in the only way they know how.

The image above was taken two years ago, when I was in the midst of my research for this book.

Career pulls a stone out of his trouser pocket, drops it to the street, and kicks it ahead to William, who smacks it crosswise and up, stepping back to let two twin girls in dresses like pink parasols pass, their mother stern in blue.  Career lopes and knocks the stone to where William would be if he wasn’t still staring at the girls, both of them with the identical ginger hair and jewel eyes, neither somehow like the other.  Neither, mostly, like the mother, who casts her opinion on William and hurries her exotic procession along.  

William feels the heat in his face and runs for the stone.  He smacks it hard Career’s way.  The game stays good between them now—past Spring Garden and Brandywine, Green, Mt. Vernon, Wallace, all the way to Cherry Hill, where finally they stop and stand in the long skirt of the prison’s shadows, its massive gothic gloom.  Cherry Hill runs the full block and back, two-hundred feet in the east-west direction, four crenellated towers on its front face and a watchman high, looking for trouble. Career works another match into the shallow bowl of his pipe, and it takes.  The tobacco flares sweet. 

“You going to call to him, then?” Career asks, after a while.

“Walls too thick.”

“You going to try it anyway?”
            “Your whistling,” William says, “goes a longer way.”

Career blows the smoke of his pipe through the spaces between his teeth.  He clears his throat and finds his song, and it carries.  William closes his eyes and imagines his Pa inside—past the vaulted doors and the iron gates, beneath the eye of the warden, and of God.  People are puny at Cherry Hill.  People are locked away to consider what they’ve done.

“You think he can hear that?” Career asks now, stopping his song.

“Keep on.”

Career picks the song back up, and William stands there in the shadows, at his best friend’s side, trying to see Pa in his mind’s eye.   “Don’t do it, Pa,” Francis had warned him, Ma, mostly.  Don’t, don’t, don’t. 

Career whistles a professional melody.  William hears what he thinks is the wind, but it’s that bird winging in close, that dove tucking its wings then letting them go, its rise and its angling in effortless.  Career stops his song and looks up.  The bird goes on, north and west—a free line across the prison wall and out, toward the river.

Cherry Hill still locked up tight as a vault. 

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Dangerous Neighbors, the paperback with the discussion guide, arrives

Before Small Damages and You Are My Only, there was Dangerous Neighbors (Egmont), my Centennial Philadelphia story featuring twin sisters, a boy named William, and the fair that ushered in the idea of the modern.

Yesterday, the paperback edition of Dangerous Neighbors arrived, complete with its fancy discussion/teaching guide.  The book will go on sale in a month or so, just ahead of the release of Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, the prequel that features 1871 Philadelphia and that animal-rescuing boy named William. 

My thanks to Elizabeth Law and the Egmont team.

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Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent arrives (as galley pages)

It's been quite a week here, as proof pages for both Handling the Truth and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent arrive.  Over the next few days I'll turn my attention to the second, my 1871 prequel to Dangerous Neighbors, which features Eastern State Penitentiary, Baldwin Locomotive Works, Schuylkill River races, George Childs, a famous murder, and a boy named William who rescues animals for a living.

This book also features illustrations by William Sulit and a book design by Elizabeth Parks (and copy editing by my blogger friend Quinn Colter).  It will be released this coming March from New City Community Press/Temple University.

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The Next Big Thing (I've Been Tagged and I am talking about Dr. Radway's Sarsparilla Resolvent)

A few days ago, I was tagged.  Not by birders or rare fish scouts, but by Helen W. Mallon, author, most recently, of the short story "Casual Day at the Crazy House."  Helen herself had been previously tagged by YA author Catherine Stine.  Check these fine writers out for yourself.

Being tagged means joining the Next Big Thing Gang (I think we all get T-shirts, and I have requested a V-neck with just a splash of bling).  It means answering questions, specifically the ones below.  And so here I am, talking about Dr. Radway's Sarsparilla Resolvent.  Because it is coming out in March (New City Community Press/Temple University Press).  Because it is about the city that I love (Philadelphia) and its history (1871) and its fabled institutions and people (Eastern State Penitentiary, the Schuylkill River races, Baldwin Locomotive Works, George Childs, Matthias Baldwin, Norris House, Preston Retreat).  Because it is illustrated by my husband.

Wait.  Did this intro just answer all the questions?  It's early morn.  I'm getting there.

What is the working title of your book?
The title of this book, for real and for good, is Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent.  See the cover above?  We're not changing it. 

Where did the idea come from for the book? 
William, my hero, is obsessed with the medicines of the time, for he is searching for a cure for his heartbroken mother.  Dr. Radway lived in Manayunk and his Sarsaparilla Resolvent was world-renowned for curing everything, perhaps even sleep insufficiency, in which case I am ordering me up a bottle.  Today we know this medicinal magic as root beer.  Does anybody have a glass of ice handy? 

What genre does your book fall under? 
This lady, who is not a fan of labeling fiction, would, if forced to do it, describe Dr. Radway as historical fiction for middle grade/young adult/adult readers with two teen male protagonists at its heart.  Simply and non-boastfully put, Dr. Radway is a good book for everyone.  I am so good at non-boastful. 

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 
There's a young prostitute, named Pearl, who is integral to this story.  She's tough, she's big-hearted, and she saves the day.  Jennifer Lawrence is my Pearl.  William has a grieving, beautiful mother—Marisa Tomei or Amy Adams.  As for William and his best friend, Career, Alex Shaffer (Win Win) and Josh Hutcherson (Hunger Games)  Josh looks exactly like my Career (so long as you give him a pipe to suck on).  Alex was brilliant in Win Win, which is, by the way, one of my favorite indies and the brain child of my friend Mary Jane Skalski.  But I digress.  There are others in the story—the ghost of an older brother (not yet cast), a father in prison (Sean Penn, but younger), and a little sprite of a girl who lives next door.  Let's give that role to Mackenzie, the youngest dancer in that whacky reality TV show, Dance Moms.  She's so cute I have to stop myself from reaching through the TV and pinching her cheeks.  But why am I watching that show anyway?  And, since we are on the topic, Are mothers really like that?  Have you ever met anyone like any of those moms?  Okay, back to the topic.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 
Shouldn't this question be first?  And have I ever one-sentenced anything?  In my life?  Sorry, Blog Game Rule Makers.  I'm going with the full paragraph:  

The year is 1871, and the place is Bush Hill, Philadelphia—home to the Baldwin Locomotive Works and a massive, gothic prison, home to William Quinn and his Ma, Essie, barely surviving in the wake of family tragedy. Pa Quinn is doing time in the penitentiary. Brother Francis has been murdered by a cop. Ma has lost something that she can’t forgive herself for, and William, fourteen, has been left to manage. Featuring a best friend named Career, a goat named Daisy, and a blowzy who goes by the name of Pearl, Dr. Radway’s Sarsaparilla Resolvent captures the rhythms and smells of an extraordinary era and is flavored by the oddities of historic personalities and facts. Terrible accidents will happen and miraculous escapes. Shams masquerade as the truth. And readers of Dangerous Neighbors will finally learn just who this boy with a talent for saving lost animals is, and how he learned the art of rescue. 

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 
Since this book is a prequel to Dangerous Neighbors, my 1876 Philadelphia Centennial novel, I have been working with my lead character, William, for more than seven years.  A requited love affair, fictionally speaking.


What other books would you compare this story to within your genre? 
I try not to compare.

Who or What inspired you to write this book? 
My love for Philadelphia history.  My absolute love for William.  I could not let him go. 

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 
Are you suggesting that I have not yet piqued reader interest? Maybe what you are really asking is, Who copy edited this book?  In that case, I have an answer for you.  Quinn Colter.  She's a brilliant young reader who has followed my blog for years.  She will be, upon graduation, a force to be reckoned with in publishing.  Dr. Radway is her first copy edited book. 

Who have you tagged?
Okay, this question was easy!  I am tagging my glorious friends, listed in alphabetical order.  Aren't they great friends, though?  Aren't I lucky?  Look for their posts in the coming week.  They have until next Thursday at 5:35 AM.  Because that's just how we roll here.  If I have not properly alphabetized, please forgive me.  It is now 5:45 AM in the morning.
Kimberley Griffiths Little
Elisa Ludwig
Elizabeth Mosier
Kelly Simmons
KM Walton

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the 1871 Philadelphia novel moves into final design, and Dangerous Neighbors prompts an afternoon reverie

I returned from Asbury Park and Bruce Springsteen Appreciators to an email from Quinn Colter, a young friend destined for a big career as a copy editor.  I had invited Quinn to join the Dr. Radway editorial team, and she had—plying my text with wonderful questions and delightful commentary (it seems that Career, one of my primary characters, has won our Quinn Colter over).  Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, my 1871 Philadelphia novel about Bush Hill, Eastern State Penitentiary, Baldwin Locomotive Works, Schuylkill River races, George W. Childs, and two best friends, now goes into design and will be released next March by New City Community Press/Temple University Press.

I left the desk at last to take a walk.  Meandering through my streets, I discovered Kathleen, a very special green-eyed woman, who had, she told me, read Dangerous Neighbors a few weeks ago.  Kathleen grew up in Philadelphia at a time when circus elephants walked the streets of Erie and Broad, and in Dangerous Neighbors, a book about Philadelphia during the 1876 Centennial, she discovered many details that resonated with her.  Standing there in the glorious afternoon sun, Kathleen told me stories about the Oppenheimer curling iron, the fifteen-cent round-trip trolley, the ferry one took from Philadelphia across the Delaware, and the shore years ago.  Kathleen's grandmother was an eleven-year-old child during the time of the Centennial, and so Kathleen remembered, too, whispers of the great exposition.

I had published an essay about the Jersey shore in the Philadelphia Inquirer a few weeks ago, and that story prompted for Kathleen memories of her own trips to the sea as a child.  We spoke, then, of this, too—this shared geography that has been transformed by time and yet remains a signifier, a home.

As much as I often wish I were back in the city living the urban life, I am tremendously grateful for the streets where I live.  I am grateful, too, for the people who enter my life—for Quinn now on the verge of her career, and for Kathleen with her storehouse of memories.

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Philadelphia Street Scenes: transferring the keys to my city

I call Philadelphia "my" city, but it does not, of course, belong to me; nothing is ever for keeps.  But I did grow up visiting my mother's mother and father in southwest Philly, and I went to Penn across the river, and I lived first in the Art Museum area, then on Camac (two different apartments) and next on Gaskill, and I've returned, repeatedly, to take photographs, to collect stories, to teach.  If any city were, for a moment, mine, it would be this one.

But now this place I love will also belong to my son, as he moves into a new job and apartment among the gridded streets.  Last night, perhaps the nicest night Philadelphia has seen all summer long, we took him to a special dinner.  I, being my perhaps overly enthusiastic self, suggested a before-dinner stroll down near Delancey, where much of Dangerous Neighbors takes place, before working back toward Rittenhouse Square and east.

I caught the moment with my tiny Canon.

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It's Official—and Cover Reveal: Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent

Many years ago I wrote an odd book called Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River.  Flow had grown out of my love for my city, was supported (in all its strangeness) by a Pew Fellowships in the Arts grant, and was published by the best possible house for a book such as that one:  Temple University Press.  Micah Kleit, my editor, gave the book room, while Gary Kramer, a savvy and delightful publicist with deep Philly roots, gave it wings.  Not so run-of-the-mill in tone, structure, and voice, but always Philly true, Flow sits today—slender and alive—on my shelves, thanks to Micah's picking up the phone when I called.

From Flow grew Dangerous Neighbors (Laura Geringer Books/Egmont USA), my 1876 Centennial novel.  Katherine, a bereaving twin, stands at the heart of that story, but just one step to her left is a character named William, a young man from the poor side of town who rescues lost animals for a living.  William was a character who never left my thoughts.  He lived with me long after Dangerous Neighbors ended.

Soon I was conjuring William as a young adolescent living among the machines of Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1871 Philadelphia.  His brother has been murdered by a cop (the murder based on a real Philadelphia event), his father is in Eastern State Penitentiary, and it is up to William to protect his heart-and-soul-sickened mom.  William gets some help in this from his best friend, Career, who has a job with the newspaper man, George Childs.  He gets help, too, from a prostitute named Pearl, and from the little girl next door.  He thinks he's getting help from the strange medicines (that sarsaparilla resolvent among them) that were being pedaled at the time.  And those ginger-haired twin girls from Dangerous Neighbors?  They're in and out of his poor neighborhood, thanks to their feminist mother.

After I'd finished writing this novel, I sat and thought for a time about publishing options.  I wanted a true Philadelphia home for this book.  I wanted an opportunity to work with a house that might connect this story to Philadelphia school children, museum goers, history buffs.   It wasn't long before I was writing a note to Micah at Temple University Press, who thought the story sounded interesting and encouraged me to send it on to his colleague, Stephen Parks.  Steve is a Syracuse University professor who also runs New City Community Press.  NCCP began as a literacy project in the public schools of Philadelphia, won a major national grant in support of its ethos, and remains today committed to telling community stories.  I liked the sound of all that, and so, last February, I met Steve in Chestnut Hill and we talked.  There's been no question (in my mind) about this book's future ever since.

Today I can officially announce that Dr. Radway's Sarsparilla Resolvent will be released next March from New City Community Press and distributed by my friends at Temple University Press.  It will be illustrated by my husband, William Sulit, who also designed the book's cover, revealed for the first time here; for a glimpse of interior art, go here and for more of Bill's art, go here.  In January, Egmont USA will release the paperback of Dangerous Neighbors, with my teacher's guide bound in (the starred PW review of Dangerous Neighbors can be found here.).  It is my great hope, then, that the two books will make their way into the homes and hearts of Philadelphians and others.  There are some other fun developments in regards to this project, but I will save them for later.  For now, my great thanks to Micah, to Steve, to Gary, to Egmont USA for the paperback, and to Amy Rennert, my agent, for stitching the innumerable parts of my crazy dreams together.

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