Handling the Truth Wins Books for a Better Life/Motivational Category Award—and I meet Meredith Vieira and Lee Woodruff

The thing is: I had already won.

I had been invited to the 18th Annual Books for a Better Life Awards Program, sponsored by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society New York City—Southern New York Chapter. I was seeing friends—Darcy Jacobs, nominee Patty Chang Anker, Katie Freeman, Julia Johnson, my Gotham editor, Lauren Marino. My husband had joined me for the evening, our sensational son had left work to see us an hour before, Jenny Powers, VP of Special Events for the Society, had put on an amazing show of truly exceptional everythings at The TimesCenter. I had a new pink dress, those famous new shoes, and Maggie Scarf, the bestselling author, was telling my husband and me a story that held us both in captive disbelief. Soon I would go down that long flight of stairs and find the fabulous Lee Woodruff in the bathroom. We would speak of pink dresses, pink scarves, the sometimes good luck of fashion.

Earlier in the day, the phenomenal team at Chronicle Books had posted the stunning new trailer for Going Over, my soon-to-be-launched Berlin novel. School Library Journal had named Going Over the Pick of the Day. Laura Fraser of Shebooks had sent sweet news. The weather was kind. Only most of my hair was a mess.

And so I settled back into my chair at The TimesCenter simply to watch the show. To be grateful for it all. To be unencumbered, for that moment, by doubt. The first category of ten to be announced was the Motivational category. Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, a book about the students I love and the things they have taught me, sat (remarkably) alongside The Novel Cure (Ella Berthoud and Susan Elderkin), Saturday Night Widows (Becky Aikman), Survival Lessons (Alice Hoffman), and On These Courts (Wayne B. Drash). Meredith Vieira—gorgeous Meredith Vieira—was looking stunning up there on the stage, post Sochi, post Oscars. She was reading off the nominees, then opening an envelope, and then—and then—she called my name.

I have never been so unprepared for anything in my life. I had not, for a single second, rehearsed the possibility of the moment; winning was out of the question. I had a wide stage to cross, and by the time I reached the microphone and Meredith's outstretched arms, I had been rendered incapable of speech. I have absolutely no idea what words I finally said. I know only that I told Meredith how beautiful she really is (inside and out). I know that I struggled to find words for the beauty of my students. I know I said "son" and "husband" and "Gotham" and "dreams."

(How grateful am I to Lauren Marino, Lisa Johnson, Beth Parker, and the entire Gotham team for saying yes to this book in a seaside nano-second. And a million thanks to my agent, Amy Rennert, who has supported this book from the second it arrived in her to-be-read bin.)

Afterward, when all the winners gathered on stage for a Publishers Weekly photograph, I had an opportunity to speak with Meredith, to learn more about her upcoming new program, The Meredith Vieira Show. It is going to be wonderful because she is through-and-through wonderful. A real show, real conversations, a set that recreates her own family room, her own interests, pursued. Look for it come Labor Day.

I end this as I must end this—with prayers for those who are living with and seeking to combat multiple sclerosis, a haunting condition about which important words were spoken last night. Without organizations like the New York City—Southern New York Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society—organizations that work throughout the year to raise awareness and research dollars, bring together authors and publishers, put leading lights like Meredith Vieira, Lee Woodruff, Arianna Huffington, Pamela Paul, Mark Bittman, and Richard Pine on one stage, and gather friends—hope would not loom so large.  

I have never been so proud to bring an honor home.

I head to South Carolina in a few hours to serve as the Elizabeth Boatwright Coker Distinguished Writer at Converse College. This is the week of a lifetime.

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Books for a Better Life Awards — at The TimesCenter

It is just like me not to know where I am going until a few hours before my going time. I don't know. It is, perhaps, the way I deal with gnawing nerves.

And so it isn't until just now, this very moment, that I realize that the Books for a Better Life Awards program, for which my humble Handling the Truth has been nominated, will be taking place at The TimesCenter. I've ambled near this building during many of my trips to New York City. I've never been to an event here, never been near the stage. I don't know how I got so lucky to be included in this special evening, which is honoring Mark Bittman and Richard Pine, featuring Meredith Vieira and Arianna Huffington, and in support of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Southern New York Chapter.

I don't know, but suddenly I'm so glad that I decided to buy a new pink dress and new nude pumps. Because I'm all over winter. Because that stage is so pretty, so bright. Because, in my own small life, these chances come around so rarely. Because I am going to live the night.

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The Internet Review of Handling the Truth

Sarah Morgan gives me the gift this morning of a truly magnificent review of Handling the Truth, now posted here on The Internet Review of Books, a site I was having so much fun reading (the reviews here are of the most interesting books) that I almost forgot to finish this post.

But I do wish to finish this post, because I am so very grateful for Sarah's time and for her insights. Her review begins like this, but the whole is well worth the read.

Thank you, Sarah.

There are thousands of books on the subject of writing, and many of those are about memoir. In my mind, only a few stand shoulders above the rest. Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir by Beth Kephart is one of these and a fine addition to any aspiring memoirist’s reference library.

Kephart describes herself as a dreamer and a writer. She worked her way through the writing school of hard knocks, and now, somewhat surprisingly in her mind because of her informal training, she teaches memoir at The University of Pennsylvania. She is also the author of 16 books, five of them memoirs.

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Book sightings (and GOING OVER arrives)

I found these dear-to-me images while I was out and about this week—and then came home to a box I surely did not expect—my box of Going Over. 

Work crushes down and a new storm is headed this way. These moments buoy my mood and help the hold back the tides of self-doubt.

Thank you to Penn Bookstore, Chronicle, Philomel, Gotham, and Temple University Press/New City Community Press.

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Graduates in Wonderland/Jessica Pan and Rachel Kapelke-Dale: Reflections

Common Knowledge: Beth Kephart loves her University of Pennsylvania memoir students, even the ones who drive her a little crazy at first with their wild tales and late assignments. We're working on the truth here, I tell them, eyebrows sternly bent, and eventually they settle down, they stretch their sentences, they find the story of their still unfolding lives.

It was with great pleasure, then, that I read Graduates in Wonderland: True Dispatches from Down the Rabbit Hole (Gotham Books), a book that you'll be able to buy (you'll want to buy) come May. Its authors are Jessica Pan and Rachel Kapelke-Dale, two friends who met at Brown, graduated to adventures in Beijing and Australia (that would be Jessica), Chelsea and Paris (that would be Rachel), and never lost sight of each other. They are wandering and wondering. They are underemployed and richly challenged. They are ashamed, surprised, delighted, hoping, never precisely sure, but then again, perhaps (at last) they are sure—at least of some things. They are growing up, that's what they are. And in Graduates in Wonderland, we watch it happen.

We watch it happen charmed.

Back and forth, the two friends write. Rachel of a bad boss, a demanding shrink, an apartment built for one and inhabited by three, dreams of Paris, dreams in Paris, the study of cinematography and the making of a novel. Jess of her ex-pat life in Beijing, of a magazine she edits, of wrong guys, of a right guy, of a preemptive almost honeymoon in Malaysia, of Australia where she settles (for a short while) to be closer to Mr. Right. Mistakes get made. Questions aren't answered. So much in this life, in this world, is flimsy, but not this friendship.

Rachel and Jess have done an extraordinary job, in the creation of this book, of turning an epistolary life story into something richly tender, and genuinely suspenseful. We read to know them. We also read to find out what happens. The intimacy here, is not just between the writers, but with the readers. There's a blessed absence of unparsable inside jokes. This is no aggressive staging of scenes for dramatic effect. There is zero sense that the living is getting done for the sake of a book sometime later. In Graduates in Wonderland, we find  two smart girls casting wide nets and reporting back from the front. Two smart—and funny—young women who love each other, root for each other, advise each other, miss each other, need each other, wouldn't be who they are without each other.

Here is Jess, writing to Rachel, who is keen to hear back regarding an application to the Sorbonne:

Don't rest all of your life expectations on one outcome. When you have no expectations, you don't lose all that money on wasted ribbons and polo shirts. I flew to Beijing without knowing a thing about what to expect or what to bring. Granted, I also had to live without deodorant and the correct prescription contact lenses for two months, but I survived. And so will you! Even if you don't get into your program, there will always be other ways to get to Paris and other ways to change your life.

I'm an old lady now, and one of my greatest life regrets is that I always lived so responsibly, so attuned to what was expected of me and what I might be able to do for others, what job I might do and how best I might do it, that I forsook adventure. But I've adventured forth now with Jess and Rachel, and I have returned with a warm, good feeling in my heart. I have showered over a toilet (or almost) and had my share of almond croissants and gone to Melbourne, where I mispronounce the city's name. I have had to decide, and I have decided, and I have made it to London, just in time.

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Big Handling Hugs to Florinda

I was looking for just the right photograph to thank my dear friend Florinda for her generous citation of Handling the Truth in her Best Books of 2013 list (and her subsequent discussion of the book's impact on her) and  then I found this.

I took it on a windy day in Boston. I'd escaped into the Museum of Fine Arts, found my way to an exhibition on the color pink, and was standing there all alone.

I had an entire exhibition room all to myself, alone.

I exhaled.

This is similar to what I do when I'm around Florinda, who has been such a dear friend now for a lovely few years, who served as my pronto, we didn't plan it, we loved doing it BEA publicist during the summer of 2011, and who even submitted to this YouTube video with yours truly.

Florinda, I will always be so glad that we connected. And that we remain connected, as readers and writers and friends. Thank you.

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The HANDLING gift, in Poets & Writers

We send our books into the world unarmed and hopeful. We are grateful to those who join our workshops, who send kind words, who tell us the story of the story.

We have no idea what we would do without them.

I am grateful this year to those of you who embraced Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir. Who made room for it in busy lives and on crowded shelves. Who set it aside for a friend.

Today I received this issue of Poets and Writers, wrapped in a bow. The ad, which was designed by my husband, was placed by my agent, Amy Rennert, in the January 2014 inspiration issue of the magazine that I read first and always when I was a writer just starting out on my own. Amy has believed in this book from its very inception. She has cheered it along. She said, We need an ad, and she made it happen, wrapped it up in a bow. Gotham Books shared Amy's vision, and so the gift is from them, too.

Faith in a book that was a joy to write.
A million thanks to Amy and Gotham.
 

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Handling the Truth is named a finalist in the 18th Annual Books for a Better Life Awards Program

I was sitting in the back of the ALAN conference room, listening to some very interesting writers talk about love in YA literature when my phone buzzed. I took a quick look. It was Lauren Marino, my Gotham editor, sharing the news that Handling the Truth had been named a finalist in the 18th Annual Books for a Better Life Awards.

It was one of those blink twice moments.

And also a very happy one.

There are ten categories, and among those named are Temple Grandin, Anne Lamott, Bill McKibben, Sara Gilbert, Maggie Scarf, Rick Hanson, and two other special people—long-time friend Patty Chang Anker and new friend Josh Hanagarne.

The finalists in my category are esteemed and I'm blessed to be named among them:

Meredith Viera and Arianna Huffington will be on hand. Mark Bittman and Richard Pine will be honored. What a fun night we will have. I imagine swirling.

I must find a dress.

More about this wonderful program and the full list can be found here.

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A few images from a blessed trip west

And not many words, for I am exhausted. (They don't call them Red Eyes for nothing.)

But, in order: Amber, Lara, Tamra, Stephanie, of Chronicle Books, who made my day there so special. Huge thanks to all four floors of the Chronicle team—so many working so hard, and so kindly, on behalf of a book we all believe in. I held Going Over in my hands for the first time. My friends, the packaging of this book is spectacular. The people behind the book are spectacular. And Tamra Tuller is more dear than she will ever know. Thank you, too, to Ginee, for hosting a dinner I will always fondly remember, and to Summer and Esme, for being first readers.

And then, at Book Passage, where I conducted a memoir workshop with truly talented writers, and where I spent extra time with Wendy Robards, who drove hours to join us. A beautiful moment. And then the opportunity to meet Linda Joy Myers, memoir workshopper supreme, in person. I'll be having a live tele-conversation with Linda (who is also the president of the National Association of Memoir Writers) later this month. Details are here.

Later that day, at Books, Inc., another memoir workshop, and time with my first Penn student (and muse from my corporate fairytale, Zenobia), Moira Moody Kuo, who is glowing as a new mom. Moira grew up and became a great teacher herself. She also became my first student to make me a pseudo grandmother. Moira, how could you? And also: I am honored, and thank you for your gifts and card.

Early the next day, I walked miles upon miles, to see (again) parts of this city I love. The fog had rolled in. The wild sea beasts were sunning. A dog had put on its shades.

And finally, a long ride to wine country, Santa Rosa, with Brian, the best driver ever. A man who has, as it turns out, driven many friends of mine—Ruta Sepetys, Jayne Anne Phillips, D.J. MacHale, Buzz Bissinger, among them—and who makes us all feel special. I spoke to a packed room of writers at the Flamingo Resort. I also met Vicki of Copperfield Books who had, she told me, laid the groundwork for my trip out west, by making one very special request of Gotham.

I'll be forever grateful. Thank you, Gotham team, for making the trip possible.

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Tomie dePaola, Stacey D'Erasmo, Jessica Shoffel, Doni Kay, Little Shop, Decatur: Best Book Festival Ever

I left the house at 4:30 AM on Friday morning and arrived at the Courtyard Marriott of Decatur, GA, six or so hours later. As if elves had been working behind the scenes, there stood Jessica Shoffel, the Philomel publicist about whom I so often gush, Doni Kay, a tremendous Philomel sales associate who was a huge supporter of Small Damages, and Gennifer Choldenko, the Newbery Honor winner. Three gorgeous women, just standing there. The start of something great.

I was there on behalf of Handling the Truth, but Jess and Doni immediately took me under their wings, walking the town with me, sitting down at lunch with me, and finding, with me, a copy of Small Damages in the window of The Little Shop of Stories. We stepped inside this amazing store, and at once I was embraced by the shopkeepers, who had been warned of my coming by no other than Judy Schachner, whose image graces the wall of the Philadelphia International Airport (I had snapped the picture at dawn that morning) and whose beauty I was just writing about the other day. They had been told, by Judy, to take good care of me, and oh did they. They were like family, from the start. Diane Capriola (shown above with her daughter, watching Tomie draw), you run an exquisite enterprise. Thank you for your graciousness toward me.

I went off on my day. Heard Clyde Edgerton, that southern raconteur, speak about his writing life. Conducted a memoir workshop on the Agnes Scott campus with an incredible group of writers. Found a text from Jess inviting me to spend the evening with the Penguin crowd—and I did. Walked up the stairs at The Little Shop of Stories and met none other than Tomie dePaola, whose books I had collected through the years and read to my son—perennial favorites. He was drawing an image for The Little Shop. He was telling stories, signing his new book. And then we went off to dinner, a handful of us, to hear more about Tomie's life in mid-century America. DJ MacHale was in the house—the uber bestseller of the Pendragon series, author of the newly released Sylo (the critics say no one does suspense like MacHale does suspense), and a complete class act. So was Nancy Krulik, another children's book star with a massive following. I wasn't really sure what I was doing there among the super stars of the children's book world, but I allowed myself the happiness.

Back in my room I prepared for the day to come—a conversation I have long anticipated with Stacey D'Erasmo. Someday soon I will write here about her brilliant (!) novel, A Seahorse Year. I have already written about her super smart writing book, The Art of Intimacy and I will be the first in line when her new novel debuts next May. I cannot tell you what a privilege it was to spend an hour with Stacey before our talk, to walk to the Courthouse stage at her side, and finally to sit in a beautiful room to talk about uncertainty, memoir, intimacy, process. What a crowd we had. What a day it was.

I'm back home now. In a few days I'll leave for San Francisco. Will see my dear editor Tamra Tuller and the Chronicle team, then plunge into all kinds of Handling loveliness.

I plan to spend today watching movies. But right now, this minute, I want to thank all the people who made Decatur so fantastic. I'll never forget it. It's one hell of a town. Beth Parker and Gina Chung, of Gotham, thank you for making my trip there possible.

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HANDLING THE TRUTH: a little publishing news

It is just after five in the morning, and I have been sitting here searching for words, wanting to begin this post in just the right place.

But I am perplexed, for there are so many beginnings.  I shall begin at the end, then, and share what is, for me, such day-breaking, joy-making news:

April 17, 2012
Non-fiction:
General/Other        
Memoirist, fiction writer and National Book Award finalist for A SLANT OF SUN, Beth Kephart's HANDLING THE TRUTH, a book devoted to the reading, teaching, and making of memoir; about consequences and libraries, privileges and pleasures, and finally knowing ourselves -- providing a proven framework for teachers, students, and readers, to Lauren Marino at Gotham, by Amy Rennert at the Amy Rennert Agency (world). 

HANDLING THE TRUTH emerges from my years of writing, critiquing, and teaching memoir.  It erupts from a place both scorched and urgent.  It means so much to me because my students mean so much to me, and because memoir—the form, the possibilities—must, I think, be both reconsidered and defended.

But no book emerges on its own.  This one will exist because my agent, Amy Rennert, received the first 70 pages of this book on a Saturday morning, read it on a Sunday morning, and called me that Sunday afternoon.  She already had a plan.  She was certain.  She took the book out into the world, and before I even had a chance to dream, she had found this book its right home.   Shore lady, she wrote to me last week, as I was contemplating dolphins and sea, we have a deal. Lauren Marino is the executive editor of Gotham Books, a Penguin Group imprint (who doesn't love Penguin?). She has worked with Diablo Coady, Isaac Mizrahi, Thomas Moore, Jeffrey Zaslow, Ann Crittenden, Ruth Reichl, Jane Green, Cindy Crawford, Willie Nelson, and others.  I am honored by the chance to write for her.

I am delighted, too, to share this one other small thing at this early hour:  HANDLING THE TRUTH is a book that once sported another title.  And then one morning, while grousing on Facebook about a nonfiction writer who takes (in my opinion) far too many liberties, Melissa Sarno posted a video clip meant to make me laugh and (perhaps, who knows?) to silence my rant.  All day long I kept thinking about that clip and about how much I love Melissa.  I knew by dusk what I had to do.  Sarno, you are loveliness supreme.

I have many people, then, to thank today.  Gregory Djanikian, for inviting me to teach at Penn in the first place. Al Filreis of Penn's Kelly Writers House, for supporting my work in the classroom.  My students, whose work and faces and stories thrill, inspire, uplift me.  Amy Rennert, for believing so much in this book, for making sure it had the right home, for being a friend through all these years.  Lauren Marino, for your (joy-making) faith.  And, of course, Melissa and Jack.

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