what I'm reading now, or will be reading next, and where you can find me, shortly

Blog readers, I have failed you. I have been absent. I have been mired. Same ole same ole. Life as Beth Kephart.

Two things, today.

First: The names of the books that I now own and am eager to read and to share:

From the house of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the desk of the magnificent Lauren Wein:

The Patron Saint of Ugly, Marie Manilla
For Today I am a Boy, Kim Fu
The Answer to the Riddle is Me: A Memoir of Amnesia, David Stuart MacLean

From a recent trip to a local bookstore:

River of Dust, Virginia Pye
A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki
The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner
The Invention of Wings, Sue Monk Kid
Elsewhere: A Memoir, Richard Russo

From the debuting memoirists, Jessica Pan and Rachel Kapelke-Dale:

Graduates in Wonderland: True Dispatches from Down the Rabbit Hole

On my iPad

Owl in Darkness, Zoe Rosenfeld (Shebooks!)
Beautiful Ruins, Jess Walters
The Apartment, Greg Baxter (because I could find it in no bookstore!)

Second, I will be at Mid-Winter ALA, which is being held in my very own city this January 24 - January 28 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and I'm hoping to see you there. I'll be at the Chronicle Books cocktail party Friday evening, and I'll be signing You Are My Only for Egmont (paperback) Sunday at 3 PM. Please stop by.

I can also be found at the following two events, both at local churches:

February 16, 2014, 11 AM
On the Making of Memoir, a lecture
Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church,
Bryn Mawr, pA

March 2, 2014, 1:30 - 4:00
Art of Literature/Art of Faith
Handling the Truth Workshop/Memoir Building
Historic Philadelphia in Novels (Dr. Radway and Dangerous Neighbors)
St. David's Church
Devon, PA

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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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Susan reads You Are My Only

Every now and then a reader returns to you your own story.  She reads with that rare passion.  She honors your relationship your characters.  She doesn't judge; she understands.  She stays up late because you have, and because you will again.

That has happened here, and I am deeply moved.  At Two Heads Together Susan writes of her response to You Are My Only, a quiet and yet still controversial book that will always mean the world to me.

Her words mean the world.

She writes, in part, this.  The rest can be found here.

I read the stories of Sophie and Emmy, one beautiful word at a time, savoring the words and images evoked by the poetry Beth Kephart brings to us.  Eager to turn the page but yet reluctant to let it go, I read on into the night knowing I needed sleep.  How can I turn out the light when Emmy and Sophie yearn for what they can’t have?  How can I leave them when they are trapped and alone?

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a happy-making photo

This photo, taken by Tiff Emerick and passed on to me by Holly Cupala, makes me happy.  I had the privilege of sitting with Elizabeth Law through much of the YALSA coffee klatch at the ALA.  This is proof that it wasn't a dream.

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The YALSA Coffee Klatch

On Sunday morning, in a gigantic room at the very beautiful Washington, DC convention center, YALSA conducted its much-anticipated coffee klatch (in which authors are given but a few minutes at each librarian-stoked table to discuss his or her books)—and I, as I have already posted, was a very privileged author participant.

I could say many things—about the kindness of many toward this first time "speed dater," about the dearness of Laura Geringer and Elizabeth Law, who stayed by my side.  But what I want to say right here right now is what a privilege it was to stand among those authors for that hour—to meet the entirely lovely Libba Bray, to share an old reminisce with Laurie Halse Anderson, to see the gracious John Green move among the crowds, to hear a rumor that Rebecca Steadman was among us, to laugh, again, with James Lecesne (note to self:  when in a photography session before many flashing lights, stand next to James; he knows the ropes).

YA authors, YA readers, librarians:  good folk.

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On the docket: the week ahead

I'll be around and about toward the end of this coming week.  Should you find yourself somewhere in the vicinity (see below), I hope you'll find my funny face and say hello.

Friday, June 25
Rutgers-Camden Summer Writer's Conference
Camden, NJ
12:00 - 1:00 Reading with Max Apple (open)
2:30 - 4:30  Workshop (closed)

Saturday, June 26
American Library Association Annual Conference
Washington, DC
3:30 - 4:30 Dangerous Neighbors Signing in the Egmont Booth

Sunday, June 27
American Library Association Annual Conference
Washington, DC
9:00 - 10:00 YALSA Coffee Klatch

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Dangerous Neighbors receives a sweet PW citation

I knew that BEA was extraordinary for many reasons; I felt something tremble in the air.  I didn't, however, expect to see Dangerous Neighbors listed in this PW article noting the show's "biggest" children's books by category.  Thanks to all of you who contributed to that buzz, who stood in line for that end-of-day signing, and who made me feel at home.

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James Lecesne and Virgin Territory

"I have been told," a friend wrote, "that the BEA is a non-event."

For so many reasons, it wasn't that for me.

Consider (among so much else), this:  I spent an Egmont-sponsored lunch rotating through tables with actor/Laura Geringer author/activist James Lecesne (I struggled with the listing of those attributes; James is all three, equally, and more).  We interviewed each other.  We discovered intersections.  We looked across the table and saw, in each other, an author who cares, first and foremost, about kids.

He went off to his thing after that, and I went off to mine, and by fluke and accident and perhaps fate, we ended up on the same train going home.  I had his book, Virgin Territory, in hand.  He had Dangerous Neighbors.  I have long nurtured a dream of seeing someone read one of my books on a train.  James was my first sighting.  I doubt it gets better than that.

When you adore someone, you want, you ache, to adore their book.  James makes that easy with Virgin Territory.  It's a book about a boy who has lost his mother and has a trembling relationship to faith.  A book about a town, Jupiter, Florida, that is rearranged by a possible sighting of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the face of a golf-course tree.  Faith seekers flock to the tree. A carnivalesque atmosphere ensues. Dylan, our hero, finds himself among new friends who believe that miracles erupt amidst the stirring of two things:  great desire and surrender to risk.

Supremely fluid, generous, and original, Virgin Territory is well made; it is seamless.  It takes the time to unfold characters that are new, complex, easily liked.  It paces perfectly—speeds up, slows down.  Its pieces fit its pieces, if you know what I mean.

You don't find many books like this—YA or otherwise.  And you don't find many people like James.  Buy the book and read it.  And after you do that (or before, if you insist), check out this trailer from the extraordinary documentary, After the Storm, which features James in a glorious Mad Hot Ballroom kind of tale about a musical that helps restore the kids of New Orleans.

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Scenes from the BEA

I was out of the house by 4:30 AM, and the day unfurled at lightening speed (save for the trains, which were both on the rather too late and slow side).  In the first photo:  The Egmont lunch for authors, booksellers, and librarians, held on the upper floor of a garment-district art gallery.  In the second:  Egmont Publisher Elizabeth Law, the remarkable James Lecesne (about whom I will soon be writing far more), Laura Geringer (who edits both James and me), and yours truly (in pink, because who else would wear pink on an 18 hour day spent among crowds and on trains?).

A huge thank you to all of you who stood in that line for the end-of-day, end-of-convention signing— I looked up, and there you were, and I won't forget the gift of your patience and enthusiasm.  Thank you to all of those who found me and stopped to say hello.  Thank you to the impeccable and beautiful Mandy King (I will always be grateful for our time together, and for all that led up to it).  Thank you to Amy Rennert and Louise (you know why).  A lasting thank you to the Egmont team—Elizabeth Law, Doug Pocock, Mary Albi, Rub Guzman, Regina Griffin, Greg Ferguson, Nico Medina, and Alison Weiss—who put together such a show, and who have welcomed me to the family in ways that I have never before been welcomed. (Nico, please note that I am thanking you despite your refusal to wear 19th century garb in support of my 19th century book.)  Thank you, Laura, for being there throughout.

I came home to see my boys (a midnight rendezvous) and to attend to corporate work.  I'm back on that train in a few hours, to join book bloggers at a convention and to speak about author/blogger relationships.

The horses are down the street; I'll sneak into their world early Saturday.

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Dangerous Neighbors: Unspeakable Happiness

To all of those who have carried me forward, who have believed: 
Thank you.

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The week ahead

I'm headed into the Big Apple today (though not by way of clydesdales, sadly) to talk about the power of the Kelly Writers House program at Penn, to read with Kimberly Eisler, one of my truly talented students, and to witness the indomitable Al Filreis teach a poem (that should be something; hope he doesn't call on me).  Two days later, I'll head back down into Philadelphia to see my first Penn student, Moira Moody, say I do to the man she loves.  I'm banking on Dr. Filreis showing off some highly ecclesiastical moves at Moira's wedding. I'll take hip hop, too. Or even the cha cha.

By mid-week next week, I'll be spending the day at Chanticleer (the site of Ghosts in the Garden and Nothing but Ghosts)—teaching memoir to the aspiring writers of Agnes Irwin, thanks to the invitation of Julie Diana, who is not just the head librarian at Agnes Irwin, but the wife of the fabulous writer, Jay Kirk.  Thursday and Friday, back in New York, I'll spend some time with editor Laura Geringer and the glorious Egmont team; the book bloggers I have come to love; Amanda King, Gussie Lewis, and Jennifer Laughran, booksellers extraordinaires; and maybe even grab a few moments with Amy Rennert, my west-coast based agent with whom I often speak but whom I rarely see.

I am not, by nature, a sustainably social person, and so, when I return home next Friday evening, I'll be grateful that one of my very favorite events of the entire year—the Devon Horse Show—will have rolled into town.  We moved here in large part because the fairgrounds are just down the road, because these horses do trot by just after dawn, because I like few things more than walking through the shadows of stables, fitting my hand to a sweet mare's nose.  I like the sound of clop and whinny, the tinny music that accompanies balloon dart games and Ferris wheels.

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Reading Dangerous Neighbors, as a book, book

Yesterday I sat down for the first time and read Dangerous Neighbors, cover to cover, inside its covers. I remembered, as I read, the many iterations this book went through. Three voices had, at first, told this story, and one of those voices was a fire. Countless Centennial scenes were painstakingly researched and written and then excised, so that the story might move at a more rapid pace. 1876 Cape May once had a cameo role; now it reveals itself across pages. The young man named William, who rescues lost animals for a living, evolved from a bit player into a major protagonist, and into the character I've most enjoyed writing.

Writers are supposed to know what they are doing. I rarely have. I have felt an impulse. I have submerged myself in research. I have written lines until I've heard a voice. And then I have found my way until I can no longer find my way, until other readers—Amy Rennert, my agent, and Laura Geringer, my editor, among them—say stop, look at this, consider that.

The bookmarks are here...

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Leave the Book Be; Return to it in a New Season

The best thing that we can do for our books-in-progress is to let them be for a long while—to return to them in a new season, with a fresh eye. This is what I will now be doing with Dangerous Neighbors, my Centennial novel due out from Egmont next fall. The book has been in the hands of my trusted editor, Laura Geringer, for a spell. It's been safe with her. Percolating. Late last night she sent along her thoroughly well-considered notes. Think about this, she says. Consider that.

It is time now to collect my courage and to look back on that story—time to wrestle with myself. It's the final leg of story making, my last chance, the time to put it all on the line. To make the hard decisions. To throw away the pretty sentence, the hard-won research, the tangent that takes the reader nowhere. To throw away, and then go deeper.

A passage from the many that I'll be mulling:

Katherine turns her head east and looks out upon the spires, rooftops, bridges, and factories of Philadelphia, her city. The red brick and white lintel and brownstones and green swaths and temples of home, work, religion, pause. It is flat-roofed and hunkered. It is peaked and pompous. It is congested and incomplete, and Katherine’s eyes cannot possibly hold it all, until finally they settle on the dark bracelet of the Schuylkill River, which arrives from the north, pools and calms, before hurrying away with itself. Cure yourself, she thinks. Look away. But she cannot. Winter returns. February 6th. The day that she lost Anna.

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In the Company of Stars

There's a spark in the children's lit air and her name is Elizabeth Law (her title, by the way, is VP and Publisher, Egmont USA). She's being talked about and interviewed in many places and, from what I'm hearing from friends like Sherrie, Elizabeth's keynote address at SCBWI-LA was exquisite—empowering and enlightening. This is the same Elizabeth Law who stopped by, unexpectedly, to a book chat sponsored by My Friend Amy, on behalf of Nothing but Ghosts. Amy is a book blogger Elizabeth follows on Twitter. Nothing but Ghosts is a Harper title. I was typing away, trying to keep up with the chatter, when it occured to me that the Elizabeth Law whose name kept burbling up among the chat-room many was THE Elizabeth Law, of Egmont.

Imagine that.

Every single time I hear an Elizabeth Law story, I stop and remind myself how entirely lucky I am that my historical novel, Dangerous Neighbors, will be released by Egmont next fall. I don't just get to work with a phenomonal, brilliant editor—Laura Geringer—on this book. I get to work with a publisher who is out there on Twitter and Facebook and Blogs and Chatrooms, talking about books she loves, trends she sees, things she hopes for. Elizabeth Law is a galvanizer. It is peace-yielding to look ahead to this collaboration. I wish that I could have been in LA, at her keynote talk. More than that, though, I hope and believe that the daring and caring that Elizabeth brings to books will become a surge wave that works its way across an industry that desperately needs her kind of energy and faith.

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Dangerous Neighbors, my historical novel, has found its right home

Several years ago, Laura Geringer wrote a most extraordinary note, inviting me to consider writing for young adults. Despite years spent teaching children and a stint as the chair of the 2001 National Book Awards Young People's Literature jury, this was not something that I felt I knew how to do. Nonetheless, I loved Laura's mind from the first, I loved our conversations, and we kept talking. We talked for almost a year until we finally met in person—Laura asking me questions on a rainy Sunday morning to which some combination of my personal history and imagination responded. Undercover emerged under Laura's great care. House of Dance was next. Nothing but Ghosts and a short story for the just-released HarperTeen anthology No Such Thing as the Real World were subsequent. Finally, Laura bought the early pages of The Heart of Not a Size, the Juarez novel due out from HarperTeen next March (and carried so ably forward by the delightful Jill Santopolo).

Laura left HarperTeen in August of last year, but our friendship continued. Today I am so utterly happy to announce that I'll be working with Laura again on an historical novel that is currently titled Dangerous Neighbors. It's a book that I conceived of several years ago, when writing Flow, my autobiography of the Schuylkill River. It's a book that Amy Rennert, my agent, wholly believed in. It's a book that went through several iterations and will, no doubt, again, for Laura asks exquisite questions, she pushes authors far, she sees, and—more than anything—she believes in literature and complex stories, in fiction that pushes boundaries.

I have the chance to work with Laura again because she has formed an alliance with a genuinely interesting publishing house called Egmont USA, an outgrowth of a publishing house with a long European pedigree. In making her announcement about Laura today, Egmont USA publisher Elizabeth Law noted that "her excellent taste, creative ideas and deep relationships in the field will be a perfect complement to our fast growing children's list."

Yes. Yes. And Yes.

A brief description of Dangerous Neighbors:

It is the Centennial year in Philadelphia, and Katherine has lost her twin sister to an inconceivable accident. One wickedly hot September day at the height of exhibition madness, Katherine sets out to cut short the lonesome life she is no longer willing to live. This is the story of what happens.

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