a conversation, and a medley reading of my books, with Carla Spataro

Yesterday, as part of this week-long teaching at the Rosemont College Writers & Readers Retreat, Carla Spataro asked me questions about themes (and food) and then invited me to read. I chose to share what I think of as postcards from my books—the opening words from stories—Small Damages, Going Over, One Thing Stolen, This Is the Story of You, Flow—that take place around the world.

The video captures some of that. I am grateful for the conversation.

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On Articulate (WHYY) with the brilliant Jim Cotter, and his kind and gracious team

The glorious hours I spent in the company with Jim Cotter and his entire team have produced these minutes on film that I will always treasure.

Here are so many of the things I care about—Philadelphia, the Schuylkill, Penn, memoir, story, language—all in one place, all at one time.

I'm not beautiful, as I always say. But maybe it is enough if beautiful things live in my world.

You can watch the segment, which also features literary translation and tenor Stephen Costello, here.

Or watch this evening at 10:30, WHYY TV, or on Sunday at 1 PM.

Articulate—all of you—thank you.

Gary Kramer of Temple University Press: you have opened so many doors. Thank you.

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these things are happening (and the countless countless)

Look. We come around to this. Again and again, we do. We are living with a book newly launched (though perhaps we wrote pieces of it years ago). We are grateful for the invitations extended, grateful for a chance to sing the book's song, eager not to fail those who have been kind enough to open their doors to us—and also aware that every time we mention our own book we are not talking about the countless million million things that matter much more deeply than ever our own books could.

(Refuges. Candidates. Hunger. Homelessness. Heartbreak. Danger. Unexpected and unimaginable losses. Aging. Love suspended.)

It has always been important to me to use this blog to celebrate the world and the work of others. To raise questions. To be honest. To admit: I'm failing right now. I'm not writing right now. I'm stuck right now. I screwed that up. I should have— Also to admit: I have been graced. I have been blessed. I know luck when I see luck.

That's what I'm here to talk about and I am (believe me) aware when I lose the hoped-for balance.

This, however, is also true. Book stores make room. Festivals provide opportunities to think out loud with people I respect. The ladies of Laurel Hill are throwing a fundraiser and I've promised to help them tell that story.

Forgive the apparent self indulgence.

I promise that it is almost over. That I am stockpiling books to read with an eye toward the future of this blog when, in just a few weeks, I won't be talking about me.

But for now, this weekend: I am blessed beyond measure to be included in the BookFest@Bank Street, on Saturday. I'll be talking about narrative risk in young adult literature with three people I hugely respect, and I'm going to learn so much (not just from that panel but from every single other person who is attending—what a list).

Sunday, October 25, I'll be talking with the wonderful voice of KYW, Brad Segall, about Philadelphia and some of the Philadelphians I love (go Sister Kim and her girls!) on WOGL 98.1 FM and WZMP 96.5 FM at 6:30 AM and on WXTU at 92.5 FM at 7:30 AM. Later that afternoon, at 4 PM, I'll be at Main Point Books, a glorious Indie on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, signing One Thing Stolen and Love. And next Sunday I will be at the Women for Greater Philadelphia annual fundraiser, there at Laurel Hill Mansion, a public event. We'll be celebrating the Schuylkill River by reading from Flow and two novels—Dangerous Neighbors and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent—where the river features boldly.

Where I live, on this morning, the sky is breaking blue.

It is another day.

That is the greatest miracle of all.

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Tomorrow, at Ryerss Museum and Library

I'll be talking about that river of ours—the great She, the Schuylkill—and selling copies of Flow. The facts are here, should you be in the neighborhood. I would love to see you.

 

May 3, 2015

1 PM
Schuylkill River/FLOW presentation
Ryerss Museum
7370 Central Avenue
Philadelphia, PA

(free and open to the public)

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the summer of friendship

This is the summer, it seems, of friendship. Of deeply meaningful lunches with friends whose stories have evolved, so magnificently, through the years. Of an afternoon spent in the glorious Brooklyn home of a very dearest friend. Of long conversations with neighbors—conversations that began a long time ago and that pick up right where they ended, as if many seasons and much weather had not intervened. How have you been? How do your seeds grow? How is your daughter, your husband, your mom? Of reunions with high school friends. Of saving grace phone calls and long walks. Of conversations with poets. Of former students who write or who appear in bookstores; they are growing up, they are growing up so beautifully. Of new friends, too, who kiss me on the cheek as if I have known them forever, or present me with a beaded lei and an ALOHA. Of emails that make me laugh out loud or astonish me or leave me with that happy something that erupts, naturally, when another's dream has been fulfilled.

They have waited, it has happened, it is good—and I am soaring with them. I am glad to be their friend.

The summer of friendship.

I've been thinking about that. Grateful for that. And, today (and for a long time, for our friendship is a long one, too) I am also grateful to a certain Nathaniel Popkin, who writes more beautifully about this city and about books than anyone I know. The man knows things, and he is a poet. Last evening, driving home from a perfect New York City day, I found these Hidden City words that had been Tweeted out to the world, and to me. I don't know what to do about words like these but to say, again, thank you. Thank you, Nathaniel, for your generosity.

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My river wins an award, and my FLOW heads toward a paperback edition

You know that I can't stop talking about her, dreaming about her, visiting her. And so here she is, my river, winner of the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year award, written of today, for North Philly Notes.

And (ladies and gentlemen), I have some news: FLOW will be relaunched this fall as a paperback, thanks to Temple University Press.

I could not be happier.

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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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Raw to the Bone: On Springsteen, Rivers, and the Arc of Creativity in Poets' Quarterly

April Lindner had the idea to gather us (Jane Satterfield, Ned Balbo, Ann Michael, me—her Springsteen loving friends) at the Glory Days Symposium at Monmouth University more than a year ago. We each gave papers, each talked about the influence that Bruce Springsteen has had on us.

I spoke about the arc of creativity under the influence of Bruce Springsteen's river songs, and I'm so happy to be able to share a link to that full essay here today, for the piece now stands among works by Donald Hall, Daisy Fried, Barbara Crooker, and Caroline Maun (among others) in the current issue of Poets' Quarterly.

It begins like this, below, and carries forward here:

Might as well start with “Shenandoah,” the old pioneer song that Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band transformed into sweet bitters in the living room of Springsteen’s fabled New Jersey farmhouse.  “Shenandoah,” the tenth song on the We Shall Overcome/Seeger Sessions album, is music being made, as Springsteen himself has said. Music created in the moment, held between teeth, conducted with the frayed bracelet strings of an uplifted hand. It’s music hummed, hymned, and high in the shoulder blades, deep in the blue pulse of a straining vein. Patti’s lighting candles in the darkening farmhouse, as the band tunes in. The antique clock ticks. The thickly framed mirror doubles the volumes of sound and space. And now the Sessions Band is elaborating, confabulating, and the Shenandoah roves.

 Many thanks to Leslie Nielsen, and Ann Michael.

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The Philadelphia Literary Legacy Exhibition: happiness-inducing news

Earlier today I was writing to two special friends—Ruta Sepetys and A.S. King—and in both notes, for very different reasons, I was writing about how important it is to me to be seen as a Philadelphia writer. I love this city. I write about it whenever I can—in Philadelphia Inquirer stories, in novels (I'm at work on a Philadelphia/Florence-centric novel as we speak), in books like Flow. I've seen this city struggle, I've seen it emerge, I've walked it in sleet and in sun. I believe in it.

Imagine how amazed and delighted I was, therefore, to receive a note from Leah Douglas, who is the director of exhibitions at the Philadelphia International Airport. Her note read, in part, like this:

For 2013, I am organizing an exhibition that provides a visual overview of Philadelphia's rich literary past and present. Given the theme, I invited librarians from the Free Library of Philadelphia to create a list of 50 Philadelphia-area authors/poets/playwrights (either born in the Philadelphia region or who lived a portion of their lives in the Philadelphia area). And, hopefully you will be pleased to know that your name was included on the list.

Leah tells me that the exhibition will be launched on July 2 and live for a year in Terminal A. The unveiling ceremony will be attended by Mayor Nutter, Airport CEO Mark Gale, and President and Director of the Free Library Siobhan Reardon, among others.

And yes, I'm going to be there.

The photo above was taken last Thursday evening, as I left the Penn campus. I had been working with a student for part of the afternoon and then attending an event with my father, a Penn alum. I was headed to the train, on the phone with my son, who is a city lover, too. "I hope you can see this night; the light is amazing," I was saying. I held the phone and I held my camera and I took this crooked shot.

But look at the light. That's how I feel.

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Where I'll Be: Some Upcoming Appearances

I've met some pretty fine people during this life journey of mine, and over the next few months I'll be spending more time with some of them.  Here's a list of where I'll soon be, should you have the chance to join us.

Tuesday, September 20, 7 PM - 9 PM
Literally Speaking Author House Party, Elkins Park, PA
Mother/Daughter Night with Elizabeth Mosier 
Dangerous Neighbors and Flow
(details here)

Friday, September 23, afternoon

Country Day School, Bryn Mawr, PA
Dangerous Neighbors/Reading and Discussion
(closed to students and faculty)

Wednesday, October 26, 4 PM - 6 PM

Rutgers-Camden Visiting Writers Series
Young Adult Lit: It's Not Just Kids' Stuff Anymore
(details here)

Thursday, October 27, 7 PM

You Are My Only/Book Launch Party
Radnor Memorial Library, Radnor, PA
(details to come)

Monday, November 7, 6:30 PM
You Are My Only/Lecture and Reading
Haub Executive Center, St. Joseph's University
(details here)

My thanks to Lynn Rosen, Elizabeth Mosier, Kerri Schuster, Lisa Zeidner, Pam Sedor, and Ann Green, who reached out and made these events possible.

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The Author House Party: Join Elizabeth Mosier and Me For a Literary Mother/Daughter Evening

On Tuesday, September 20th, I'll have the great pleasure of joining the always gracious, perpetually brilliant Elizabeth Mosier for an Author House Party created by Lynn Rosen, the mind and heart behind Open Book.  Elizabeth's smart new novella, The Playgroup (which I've had the privilege of reading early) will be available that evening, as will her YA novel, My Life as a Girl.  I'll be reading from and talking about my Philadelphia-centric books Dangerous Neighbors and Flow. All in all, I know that I'll have fun, because I'll be near two writerly forces whom I've grown to love.

I hope you'll join us, and even spread the word.  In the meantime, take a look at all the other wonderful things that are being offered this summer-fall through the Literally Speaking Author House Parties. It's a fabulous line-up.

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Borrowed Names/Jeannine Atkins: Reflections

In 2001, as readers of this blog know, I had the privilege of chairing the National Book Awards Young People's Literature Jury.  Nothing prepares one for a job like that except, perhaps, a lifetime of disciplined reading.  I brought discipline, at the very least, to the table.

One of the most interesting books I found along the way was Marilyn Nelson's Carver:  A Life in Poems—a book loved onto the finalist list.  Here was a man's life and an era's history rendered by the kind of poet who studies her history and applies her craft and gives the reader more than prose could actually bear.  I thought for awhile about trying to write a book like that; I don't think many of us are up to it.  Instead I wrote the autobiography of a river (Flow) and continued wishing for more books of Carver's sort—steeped in history, generous with story, graced with the touchstone lines that leave one halted in one's tracks.

I read such a book today.  It's called Borrowed Names, and it's written by Jeannine Atkins, who teaches children's literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.  I've known of Jeannine through her blog.  I wanted her book to be as good as this one assuredly is. 

With Borrowed Names, Jeannine tells the stories of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, and Marie Curie—the writer, the entrepreneur/philanthropist, and the scientist—and their daughters.  All three mothers were born in 1867.  All three daughters grew up fierce and widely seeing.  In a series of vignettes, we learn the arc of those lives, those loves, those relationships—a format that yields so much more than traditional biography.  I'd wager to say that you don't know these historic women until you've read this book.  History needs Atkins' brand of poetry to render it this persuasively alive.

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What readergirlz sound like when readergirlz are talking

We readergirlz girlz tore up the keyboards last night talking everything from writerly schedules (thank you, Little Willow, for offering to make me breakfast); TV shows ("So You Think You Can Dance" rocks supreme); the joint appearance by Erin McIntosh and Melissa Walker in the newest six-word memoir book (oh, baby); certain showcase dance number videos that will never be aired (thank you, Mercy, for keeping our secret our secret); the emergence of Priya as a readergirlz street girl; favorite bands (yes, mine is still and will always be Bruce Springsteen); landscape as character (thank you, Nicole, for the question); favorite editors, past and present; how I stink at the samba (just ask Jean Paulovich); whether I will every write fantasy (thank you, Maya and Hipwriter Mama for your faith in my abilities); whether I've watched "Glee" (I'm so sorry, Lorie Anne); and why Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River was perhaps the most challenging and most rewarding book that I've yet published, though 2010 and beyond is filled with books and potential books that were probably even harder. All along Dia Calhoun and Holly Cupala were tossing out not just literary questions but riotously funny—and unexpected—images.

Which is all to say that if you haven't participated in a readergirlz chat, you really ought to. They happen twice a month or so. They will keep you at the edge of your fingertips.

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For Whom Do We Write?

In my post yesterday, "Boy among Girls," I riffed a bit on a conversation I'd recently had with my always dashing, never boring ballroom dance instructor, Jean Paulovich. He'd made a claim a week ago that turned on this fortissimo: men and women are two separate species; hence, the stories women tell about men have always and will forever devolve into a frustrated yelp of incomprehensibility.

I should say here about Jean that he is a purebred Belarussian and yet, since coming to this country less than ten years ago, he has become fluent in English, knowing more about root terms and grammar than most native speakers. He reads widely and deeply, is astonishingly quick witted, and he's an amateur psychologist to boot, a skill that, it seems, any ballroom dance instructor with aspirations for success must acquire and daily hone.

So that his comment caused me to step back and think, and now Kelly, aka September Mom, has thoughtified me (shall we say?) once more, with her comment/question: Beth, when you write, do you prefer writing to a primarily female audience? Does it change how you approach a story? I love the question so much that I yield this blog to it, and hope, of course, for your thoughts on the matter.

For me, the answer is this: I write the truest story I can find (be that memoir, poetry, fable, history, fiction) with the most-right language I can muster. I am by nature and by turns contemplative, ornery, outspoken, muted, at peace, distressed, entirely set on establishing a rhythm, then full of schemes to shatter the lyric's spell. I don't write for women, per se, nor for men, but for any who are willing to enter into the worlds I create. Much of the time, it is true, the willing are women, though I have heard from male readers of all my books, and I have treasured their responses to, say, Into the Tangle of Friendship, my memoir about friendship, and Still Love in Strange Places, my memoir about marriage, and Ghosts in the Garden, my memoir about growing up and older at Chanticleer, and House of Dance, a novel whose narrator is a 15-year-old girl. Flow, my autobiography of the Schuylkill river, was written in a woman's voice, and yet so many of its readers were men—men with whom I have had long conversations about time and love and hope and survival.

I have four brand new books on my desk to read. Two are by men, two are by women (more on these soon). I need, in my world, both men and women. I need their thoughts, I need their stories, I need their friendship.

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Writing My Life: Upcoming Talk

In a few weeks, on Tuesday, February 10, 7:30 PM, I'll be participating in the Tredyffrin Public Library Grand Opening Event with a talk called "Writing My Life." With my own photographs as my stage, I'll be musing about the ways my perspective and stories are shaped by the life I live (in a tiny house) on the storied Main Line. Ghosts in the Garden, a memoir, erupted from Chanticleer, of course, but so did Nothing but Ghosts, the young adult novel due out in June. Seeing Past Z, my memoir about teaching young souls the power of stories and words, is saturated with the regional and personal. Undercover was inspired in part by my years at Radnor High School, House of Dance takes place in a modified Ardmore, down the road, and the first long act of The Heart is Not a Size (due out next winter), is touched by the world in which I live. Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River and Forgiveness, that much-discussed novel-in-progress, are both born of the tactile pulse and power of my city, Philadelphia.

I have always loved my home. I have always turned toward it. But this will be the first time that I will be thinking out loud about how my facts conspire with my fiction, or, simply, with language itself.

I hope you'll join me, if you can.

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The End of Publishing?

The story is called "The End," its author is Boris Kachka, and there it sits—a mega feature in New York magazine, heralding the news (the news?) that "the book business as we know it will not be living happily ever after."

http://nymag.com/news/media/50279/

"... pretty much every aspect of the business seems to be in turmoil," Kachka writes. "There’s the floundering of the few remaining semi-independent midsize publishers; the ouster of two powerful CEOs—one who inspired editors and one who at least let them be; the desperate race to evolve into e-book producers; the dire state of Borders, the only real competitor to Barnes & Noble; the feeling that outrageous money is being wasted on mediocre books; and Amazon .com, which many publishers look upon as a power-hungry monster bent on cornering the whole business."

Across an-already vastly partitioned landscape, more fences are being thrown up, the skies are growing darker, and we writers, we readers, we lovers of ideas are—well, what? What are we supposed to be doing? What sort of future waits for us?

Does a future wait for us?

Call me crazy (others have), but I'm still going to bet on a future enriched by books. I'm going to remember that I never was one of those writers who earned a mega advance, or even a big advance, or even, well, you get the point. Indeed, one of my books earned no advance at all (the new "model" of publishing that New York magazine makes reference to); but, heck, that advance-free book went onto sell in several foreign countries, went on to get some bloggers talking, went on to sell out most of its print run. Another book netted me something like $800 after all was said and done—$800 and so many new friends, so many exquisite new opportunities, so many chances to get involved in the life of a city I love, not to mention, the chance to write a book in precisely the way I wanted to write that book, quirky point of view and all.

Writing books gives me an excuse to dwell—with ideas, with language, with research, with people who know more than I do, in places I wish to celebrate. And yes, I'm sad that Barnes & Noble has so much control over my future (literary YA not being high on its buy list at the moment, sad to say). Yes, I wish Amazon wouldn't leverage its power the way that it does, wouldn't insinuate itself so thoroughly into the making-books side of things. Yes, I wish that it were easier, at times, to spread the word about books.

But I'm not giving up on books quite yet. I'm not giving up on writing them, and I'm not giving up on talking about them, or rooting for them. I'm looking up to people like Melissa Walker, who takes three fine books into her own hands, surveys the virtual world, MySpaces and Blogs and Vlogs and FlipBooks and GoodReads and Throws Competitions and Goes ReaderGirlz and gets a lot of people talking about important things in an utterly charming fashion.

The old rules might not apply in publishing anymore. We're going to need some new hiking boots for the trek ahead. But I hope you'll take the journey with me. I hope that we won't ever stand on a hill (or in a valley) and see The End.

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Fond Farewell

There are those in this world who make us better people. Our children, who ask the truest questions and who watch to see who we actually are, what we actually believe in, what we actually do in times of tension or stress. Our friends (and agents, when we're so blessed) who insist on honesty. Our neighbors, with whom we share the news...and the sugar. That guy who teaches the samba and who says, after five weeks of struggle, "You are becoming a samba dancer, Beth. You are finally hearing the music."

For those of us who write, there are editors, and I'd have been nowhere fast without mine. My very first was an editorial board at the literary magazine, Iowa Woman, which gave me three chances to improve an essay I'd titled "Pearl," about a lost heirloom necklace. In books, Alane Mason at Norton helped draw essential, delineating lines in a collaboration that extended over the course of three memoirs and left me with a treasured real-world friendship. At New World Library, Georgia Hughes, a California editor, embraced Ghosts in the Garden, a book about a Pennsylvania garden (and garden walker), and helped elevate it to the universal. At Temple University Press, Micah Kleit took a chance on a whole new category of book, Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, and slyly (so slyly he might have thought I didn't notice) helped me relieve it of its extra weight. At Berrett-Kohler, Johanna Vondeling helped turn an inverted, fantastical fairytale called Zenobia into something a bit more straightforward (and therefore more meaningful).

So that I come now to Laura Geringer of HarperCollins Children's Books, who has had her own fabulously successful imprint there for the past 17 years and who sold an astonishing 50-million books plus during that time. Laura wrote me a letter a few years ago—reached out and made a suggestion that we work together on novels for teens. It took us more than a year to figure out just what we should be working on, and then it happened—a collaboration that for me was both joyous and rewarding and that resulted in Undercover, House of Dance, and the soon-to-come Nothing but Ghosts and The Heart is Not a Size. Laura lived those books from the inside; she helped me imagine them more fully. She said, "It's your book, and we'll publish it as you wish, but perhaps you'll consider...."

I always considered. And the books are so much better for her many provocations and long and always literary emails.

Yesterday I learned that Laura is leaving her imprint to pursue her own writing, to explore digital storytelling, and to work with a favorite charity, First Book. I felt sad, of course—no one wants a partnership to end. But who among us would ever stop a friend from living her dream?

A fond farewell to Laura then. Books on my shelf that I'm proud of, thanks to her.

A thank you to Jill Santopolo, for the conversation, and for all the glorious bridging she does, even as she edits her own authors and writes her own books. (I will go to dinner with you, Jill, but you can forget right here right now about the mojitos and my dancing on any tables.)

And a thank you to Lisa Bishop who has posted a piece I wrote on revising Heart at that fabulous myspace HarperTeen site.

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=72210576&blogID=422296192

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