Viral Happiness (and a thank you)

You think I love dance so much because, well, I love to dance. And that is true. But perhaps I love dance more for the friendships it has yielded, for the conversations, for the simple but abiding truths that emerge—during lessons, during practice.

There is, for example, the bit about radiant joy. About how, once it is found (once it emerges, is discovered) happiness is a contagion. Perhaps it begins (often it begins) with the song itself. The power roar of rhythm. The lyric lush or tease. But after that, there is the one who asks the other, Dance with me?, and where happiness has asked the question, happiness answers back. There's just no not smiling when you are dancing with one who is. There's no holding back.

This week, all throughout the blog-o-sphere, readers, writers, bloggers, and all-round good souls have engendered, in me, an uncontainable happiness. They have reached out, thrown me a party, given me cause and room to dance. I am not a celebrity writer, not a powerhousing commercial writer, not a writer headed out on tour. But this week I was an embraced writer. I could never ask for more.

This morning I wish to thank the always-dear Miss Em, for her gorgeous review of Nothing but Ghosts. I wish to thank My Friend Amy for her amazing words about this book she chose to believe in, to rally behind, before she even turned its pages. I wish to thank all of you—Lenore, Becca, Florinda, Ed, Anna, Sherry, Holly, Vivian, Bookworming, Erin, The Book Resort, Serendipity Teacher, BooksLoveJessicaMarie, Ellen, Colleen, so many more—who have done what you have done.

Happiness. Happiness going viral.

Nothing But Ghosts is written in Beth's trademark lyrical style. It's a rich look at the heart and at life and loss. It unravels slowly, like a lazy summer day giving us glimpses into what makes a person disappear, what grief looks like, how life can go on after we lose someone we love. I liked that there was a bit of mystery, a hint of romance, a lot of reflection. But what I loved most about this book is the simple truth that we are all a bunch of people who have loved and carry around aching loss in our hearts, and yet there is hope to be found somewhere, often in each other.

— My Friend Amy

It does what all books should do, provide hope for the character's future while not telling us every single thing that will happen in that future. Katie is a living character in my mind, someone that I might meet on the street or in a library one day. And there are so many other details, so many wonderful layers to this book—the glass bottles, the bird at the window, the paintings—I couldn't possibly write all of them down in this review. Just trust me and get your hands on a copy as soon as you can.

— Em's Bookshelf

Read more...

Tangled Threads

It's when I'm taking a walk or cooking dinner or folding the laundry that I actually get some time to think, and often I'm thinking about what I'm grateful for. Yesterday, again, I was pondering all the really fine souls I've met in this blogging world, the tangle of friendships (to steal a book title from my past) that have erupted here for me. The funny emails about tomatoes from Liviana (inbedwithbooks), for example. The snatches of inside-book-launch-week from Melissa Walker (the Violet series). The sudden appearance of Lorie Ann Grover (readergirlz) and Charlotte, the ongoing companionship of Little Willow, the friendship with Grete, the greetings of Maude, the ballroom dance updates from Keris over at Trashionista, the gift from Sabrina, the unexpected notes from readers.

Goodness flows in, a balm.

Yesterday, Ambeen, a GoodReads friend, posted a guest blog over at her very fine blog house, and I'm grateful for that. The entirely dear Miss Em, meanwhile, sent along a story she thought I might be interested in. I was indeed. In fact, the quote of my day is lifted straight from that piece; Mitchard speaks for a lot of us here.

"I like teenagers because of their enormous passion and their peeled-back emotional quality, and I think you only feel that way during that window in your life. But it’s also the period at which people start to form the habit of being a reader for life.”

Jacquelyn Mitchard, quoted in Market Partners International Publishing Trends, August 2008

http://www.theravenousreaderreviews.blogspot.com/
http://www.emsbookshelf.blogspot.com/

Read more...

Angel Goodness

We sense the true in others—friendship that begins not as an exchange of services that might potentially be rendered, but in curiosity, optimism, and mutual respect. Friendship that promises and presages.

True is the reason why Miss Em and her Bookshelf are so widely loved—why so many readers of YA books consult eagerly with her site and have been inspired by her example to fashion book blogs of their own. Miss Em is in books for all the right reasons. She brings intelligence and heart to the conversation, an irreversible goodness.

Yesterday Miss Em sent me a mysterious email: I have left a gift for you on my blog. Bemused, I traveled her way only to be taken aback—not just by her words but by her photograph of a garden fairy. She'd taken the photo with her new cell phone, and I stared in disbelief. For the very same fairy that she'd discovered there in her vacation path sits here in my garden, looking up to the now-empty stalks of tiger lilies. My fairy is a little weather-beaten, a mite crushed-in about the feet. Still, she sits in the shade reading the one page of her book, patient as a muse.

http://emsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2008/07/vacation-thoughts-and-photo-shout-out.html

As if Miss Em were right here, among my favorite blooms.

Read more...

HOUSE OF DANCE Giveaway

Back when UNDERCOVER was a relatively new release, that wonderful Miss Em, whom so many know as a grand advocate for books and for those who write them, asked me some questions about the writing life, posted them on her blog, and conducted an interesting competition. We became friends; we couldn't help it.

It turned out that Miss Em was one of the very first people—in the world—to read HOUSE OF DANCE, and her note to me about it last winter eased my heart tremendously. Recently she interviewed me again and asked—and I think this was a touch of genius—that I answer some of my questions with photographs.

That interview, which is now up on Miss Em's blog, is part of a HOUSE OF DANCE giveaway, and you can participate by visiting here.

Thank you so much, Miss Em.

http://emsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2008/05/house-of-dance-interview-and-contest-to.html

Read more...

Em's Bookshelf Interview

So here I am relaxing now that nearly all my Christmas gifts are bought and wrapped, and all but one client project put to bed, and college application angst a thing of the not-so-distant past (okay, not really: my skin was never porcelain, my lips were never pouty full, my nose doesn't sweep toward perfection, and I can't find my pearl-encrusted bathing cap). Here is me, I should say, in my own mind's eye. A little less crazed.

And then, in the midst of a sigh, I receive an email from a really wonderful (extraordinarily generous) reader and writer named Em, who reports that a conversation we had over email has now been posted on her blog.

Boy, has she done an artful job of arranging the text and the images, and truly, she is very kind.

Here is the URL if you'd like to check it out for yourself. She asked good questions, made me think hard.

Thank you, Em. For being one of the very first to read and celebrate UNDERCOVER, and now perhaps the first (outside the editing circle) to have read HOUSE OF DANCE. You may never know just how much that means.

http://emsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2007/12/my-very-first-author-interview.html

Read more...