Sister Kim's Girls Overwhelm Me with their Letters (Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls)

It was a busy week leading up to Thanksgiving—five days in Boston, a wind-rushed trip home, four rather complex side dishes to make in time for a fine family meal. And my boy is here—so rare, now, to have him near. So rare, and so I pause and stop for him.

Into all of this came a package from Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls. A brown envelope that held within some of the most moving letters I have ever received. Those of you who read this blog know how Sister Kim came to share two of my novels—Undercover and House of Dance—with her class. You know about the projects they created. But now, through letters, one by eloquent one, I met these girls. I learned a little about their lives. I got to see what it was like to meet me Elisa and my Rosie for the first time.

And I was honored by their presence in my life. 

For the love in these girls' hearts. For the passion that Sister Kim instills in them. For the glory of goodness. For small things that are the biggest things, I am grateful on this day after Thanksgiving. I am blessed that the right readers found these books. And I am once again in awe of the transporting wisdom of younger readers.

Thank you, Sister Kim. Thank you, Every Sweet Little Flower-er.

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Sister Kim teaches UNDERCOVER and HOUSE OF DANCE and her students make me cry

This is how it happened:

This past summer, a celebration of Philadelphia's Literary Legacy that began at the Philadelphia International Airport spilled into an evening at Warm Daddy's along the Delaware River. Among those who celebrated our city that day was a certain Sister Kimberly Miller, one of the biggest advocates for young adult literature—and for young people—anywhere.

I had previously met Sister Kim through our mutual friend K.M. Walton. I began to see her everywhere—at book festivals, at readings, at launch parties. I sensed her through-and-through goodness and her love for her students, and I had some extra copies of some young adult novels to share. And so, that Legacy evening, in a parking lot near Warm Daddy's, I carried boxes of UNDERCOVER, HOUSE OF DANCE, NOTHING BUT GHOSTS, and THE HEART IS NOT A SIZE (not to mention copies of SEEING PAST Z, my book about working with younger writers) from my trunk and lowered them into the trunk of Sister Kim's car.

And then we drove off our separate ways.

Recently, Sister Kim introduced some of those books to her students at Little Flower Catholic High School for Girls. She gave them inspired projects and waited for the work to come in. That work has arrived, and I am blown away by the projects that Sister Kim has photographically shared. There isn't room on this blog to share them all. Each and every single one matters to me, moves me. And when I go to Little Flower in April for an amazing writing day that Sister Kim and K.M. Walton have organized, you better believe that I'm going to be thanking every student personally for caring so much about their work.

Sister Kim is what greatness is all about when it comes to teaching. And her students are nothing short of inspired.

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Dance with Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy/Julia Ericksen

My friend Julia Ericksen is seeing the publication of a book on which she has worked for years.  We ballroom dance together, Julia and I, and she was one of the very first people I came to know at DanceSport Academy in Ardmore.  Julia is a professor at Temple University teaching courses on human sexuality, body, and gender.  She's a sprite, a darling and opinionated Brit whose other interests and life journeys have resulted in the publication of Kiss and Tell (Harvard University Press) and Taking Charge of Breast Cancer (University of California Press).  Often, when Julia and I talked, she would tell me about her travels to dance venues all around the world, where she competed (but of course) and at the same time interviewed top dancers and avid amateurs on this art form, or is it a sport? Or a fashion show? Or an odd and spectacular form of yearning?  Or something Beth does when her sentences stick, which is to say, on a very frequent basis?

I don't personally have answers to those questions (or I do have answers, but they change too often to be reliable).  But Julia does, and she's put them all into a book called Dance with Me: Ballroom Dancing and the Promise of Instant Intimacy (New York University Press).  The other day, Julia showed me an early copy, then flipped to a page that looks like this (above).  The caption, Julia says, goes something like this:

Figure 4.3. Learning the foxtrot is fun. Teacher John Larson with student Beth Kephart. DanceSport Academy, Ardmore, PA, July, 2010. ©2010 Jonathan S. Marion.

I never thought I'd be in a book about ballroom dance (though I did imagine writing one once, and did:  House of Dance). But I do fondly remember this rehearsal day and how John was making me laugh so that I would forget the camera. He still makes me laugh, even if (is it something about my posture? my rise? my fall?) the cameras don't come around anymore.

Huge congratulations to Dr. Julia Ericksen (and her dancing husband, Gene). 

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Jan and Lana Dance the Jive (for real, ladies and gentlemen)

How often I can be found here on this blog, talking dance, yearning for it.  How many books of mine have taken a choreographic turn or stopped and lived at, say, the very House of Dance?  I've been blessed by teachers who sway me toward better—Scott Lazarov with his impeccable choreography, Jan Paulovich, who insists that I hear the music and is so artfully exact, John Larson, the King of Standard, Cristina Mueller and her Thursday wonders, Aideen O'Malley who does it all, John Vilardo, who worked me out of paralytic fear early on, and others, too.  Blessed is me.

I'm not terrific at dance, but I keep trying, and I console myself with the thought that the trying matters.  This coming Sunday I'll be trying again in a DanceSport Academy showcase—dancing the cha-cha with my husband and a waltz with Jan Paulovich.  I'm not exactly ready for either dance.  But the hours tick on, and Sunday comes.

Today, though, I share this video of Jan Paulovich and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, who dance so magnificently together.  This is what they do, these teachers, when they are free to be their ultimate dance selves.

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Melissa Walker Earns Her Place in New York Times Book Review

Melissa Walker is adorable.  She's the author of five YA books, a sometimes guest on big TV shows, a name you'll find in the Times Style section, a magazine writer, a voice on NPR, and an observer of our times.  She is also out there on a daily basis telling the stories of how other writers' novels came to be, how they settled in with their jacket art.  A few years ago, when I knew few souls out here in the Land of Blog, Melissa made a video log after she read my second young adult book, House of Dance.  It made me cry.  Later, she gave me room to tell the cover art stories of several of my novels.  Melissa, moreover, is part of the reason that I had the good fortune to serve as the Readergirlz inaugural author in residence.  Melissa reaches out, is what I'm saying.  She reaches out all the time, even as her own career and fame and family grow.

For many reasons, then, I am here today celebrating Melissa's debut in the pages of the New York Times Book Review—a Carlene Bauer review of Small Town Sinners, Melissa's fifth book, debuting Tuesday.  It's a glowing review, noting, among other things:

Walker has written a credible and tender evocation of the moment when a young person’s beliefs begin to emerge and potentially diverge from the teachings of a family’s religion. Lacey’s blind faith may not be entirely understandable to those who have never believed as she does. But for teenagers raised in more evangelical homes, as I was, the character’s spiritual life will ring absolutely true. 

"YOU SO ROCK!!!!!" I wrote to Melissa, when I saw the review at 4:30 this morning.  And that's because she does.  A big blue ribbon to Melissa, then, on this happy day.

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Meet the Dear Reader Giveaway Winners

I knew Dear Reader was a happening place months ago, when I was invited to stand in as a guest columnist for Suzanne Beecher.  Dear Reader is where a book-reading community gets built, where book clubs find their inspiration, and where conversations gather speed and force.  For my own guest column, I wrote about the young people I've met in my time as a young adult novelist—the passions they stir and the things they teach, the many ways that I am hopeful for and with them.

It was a special opportunity, and so I did something I've never done before—offered all six of my young adult books (the seventh,the Seville-based Small Damages, won't be out until next summer) as a summer giveaway.  And oh, what a response we have had.  I've heard from school principals and librarians, grandmothers and moms, fathers and grandfathers, uncles and aunts.  I've heard from young writers and young readers, students on the verge of college and students on the verge of applying to master's degree programs.  I've received notes from all across the country and all around the world.  Many readers have asked for YA books featuring a male teen; I'm 6,000 words into writing one of those.  Many described their particular passions, their favorite books.

I had originally thought that I would give all six books to a single winner, sweepstakes style, but as I read these notes through and considered the huge volume of mail, it occurred to me that there were some very right and particular titles for some very particular readers.  Here, then, are the winners, with the lines or thoughts that triggered my own "I have just the book for them" responses.  Please know, all of you, that I read and considered and valued and had a very hard time choosing winners.  I hope you'll look for books that sound interesting to you and let me know what you think.

Undercover, my first young adult novel, about a young, Cyrano-like poet and her discovery of her own beauty, to 14-year-old Kyla Rich, who wrote, "My 12-year-old sister and I love to read. .... you can never read too much, especially with how much you can learn from reading: Learn about the world, about scholarly things that you'd learn in school, or, sometimes, about yourself. I never really knew why I read so much or why I liked it but, as I read your Dear Reader, I realized why. I read to understand, to know beyond myself. Exactly what you said in your Dear Reader. I guess that might be another reason I write. My sister and I are writers, unpublished of course, and we write to craft the kind of books we like to read, to give someone joy, to help someone, maybe even start a craze. We write for even that ONE person who likes our books, even if it is just one. At least someone cares enough to read." 

House of Dance, about Rosie's quest to find a final gift for her grandfather (and her discovery of a wonderful cast of ballroom dancers), to Patricia Corcoran, who wrote, "I'm 63 years old and have read for as long as I can remember. Except for when I was growing up, I didn't read Young Adult books. I don't know why, but I didn't. About 3 years ago, I started reading them and thoroughly enjoy the ones I've read so far. I have 2 grandchildren, Gregory who is 9 and Emily who is 8. Both of them like to read and, of course, I encourage them to do so. I've set a goal for myself to learn more about the young adult books, their authors, the book awards, etc so I can be more knowledgeable in this genre of books. I'm so pleased you have the relationship with these young people that you do.What an enrichment they are to your life and how fortunate you are to realize this. Thank you again for sharing this most enjoyable column. The way you described these young people will help me understand and enjoy the young adult books I will be reading in the future."

Nothing but Ghosts, a mystery that stars a bright young woman named Katie, who has recently lost her mother and is trying to understand how one survives loss (a journey that takes her into the garden of a recluse and into the care of a fine and fashionable librarian), to Lisa Moss, a librarian who wrote, "Our department, technically, covers up to 8th grade. But so many of our kids don't ever leave! Oh, sure, they move on in school and read bigger, not better, books from the adult department - but so many keep coming back to us. They volunteer in our Summer Reading Program. They visit during Spring Break.  They tell us stories from their first jobs. And the first thing they all do is go over to the new YA display to see what's there! Once a connection is made, it is there forever."

The Heart Is Not a Size, about Georgia and Riley, whose bestfriendship is tested when they travel to Juarez, Mexico, to build a community bathroom for a squatter's village, to Janet Valentine of Orlando, who is contemplating joining a teenage mission trip and wrote, "You portrayed teen-agers in such a positive light, my husband will be so happy that I read your column and it makes me lean more towards accepting this ministry.  Maybe I will learn a lot more from them than the other way around."

Dangerous Neighbors, about twin sisters, set against the backdrop of Centennial Philadelphia, to Jean Brady, who wrote, "It is so uplifting to see life from someone else's viewpoint, to walk beside someone solving a mystery, though often fiction; to learn more about decorating, recipes, and the like."

You Are My Only, the alternating stories of a young mother who loses her Baby to mysterious means and a teenaged girl breaking free from a reclusive home, to Pat Harmer, who wrote, "I just read your column that you wrote to fill in for Suzanne Beecher. I was so moved by how you expressed the young people. And I am going to recommend your books to my granddaughter, who will be thirteen this fall. She has yet to find an author that she really enjoys, and therefore does not read as much as I would like her to. And perhaps your books will be the ones that drawn her into the wonderful world of reading. Thank you so much for the inspiration."

My thanks to Caroline Leavitt, the wonderful novelist and friend and Facebooker, who suggested Dear Reader to me in the first place.

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The Problem Parent: Julie Just on the adults in young adult fiction

Julie Just has an interesting essay in this weekend's New York Times Book Review—a piece that offers not just a history of sorts of young adult literature, but a stimulating rumination on the role that parents play in stories written for younger readers. "...in the classic stories, from 'Cinderella' to 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,' the hero's parents are more likely to be absent or dead than cruel or incompetent," Just writes. "In fact, it's the removal of the adult's protective presence that kick-starts the story, so the orphan can begin his 'triumphal rise'...."

But the sands have shifted, Just suggests, with many recent, highly lauded books starring parents who are, in Just's words, "mopey, inept, distracted or ready-for-rehab...." Hmmm, I thought, looking back over my own shoulder at, for example, Undercover, in which Elisa's much-loved and attentive dad is away on a consulting assignment, leaving a wife who, yes, it's true, tends toward the distracted. Then there's Rosie's mom in House of Dance—abandoned by her first husband and now looking for love in all the wrong places, leaving Rosie's dying grandfather to step into the void. In Nothing but Ghosts, Katie has lost the mom she loves to cancer and now cares for a dad who, in his absent-minded fashion, cares enormously for her. In The Heart is Not a Size, Georgia's parents are a well-meaning, involved presence, but they can't cure Georgia of her panic disorder (they do not even suspect that it exists), while Riley's (also undetected) anorexia springs in part from her reaction to a mother who is nothing if not distant.

Just's essay has me thinking, this morning, about how my young adult plots are ultimately facilitated by the role I've given to the fictional parents. Elisa could have never consistently escaped to that pond to write and to skate, for example, had her mother been paying more attention; she therefore would have never come to see the beauty in herself. Rosie would not have grown to love her grandfather—or found a way to honor him—had her mother been a better mother, or daughter. Katie, without her special relationship with her dad, would have never successfully wrestled with the mysteries of loss. And had Georgia been raised in a different kind of home, with a different set of values, on a different foundation, she would not have found what she had to find in Juarez—which was a sense, among other things, of her own inner strength and possibility.

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What is Dance?: The House of Dance Contest Winners

Something rather extraordinary happened when I invited you to define dance here, in this blog. It was as if all the other noise of the world had been turned off, and only music was playing. Your responses were all so good that I've chosen to reprint them all here.

I have chosen not two, but four winners (and wish, indeed, that I could send books to you all). Those of you who see your quote highlighted here, get in touch with me so that I can mail you a copy of House of Dance, now out in paperback.

Dance is a physical expression of music, a chance for anyone who is willing to close their eyes and lose themselves in the moment, to let their bodies respond to the sounds that fill their ears. Unlike any other art form, it's a blending of heart and mind, body and soul. Dance can be freedom. But not everybody wants to be free. — Solvang Sherrie

Dance is feeling the rhythm suffuse itself throughout your body, become your pulse, and allowing your body to naturally follow that beat. It's letting yourself go to the moment, to the joy of life, to inhibitions and fears. — J. Petro Roy

Dance is the body telling a story. It brings the song to life, as if your body is a host to the music. — Jami

I think that dance is a way to physically express emotions that can't always be expressed verbally; or sometimes its a way to tell a story that might not have the same effect by simply speaking it. — Lauren

Dance is expressing yourself and your emotions. You tell a story. — uprobablydontknowme

In simplest terms dance is self expression. It is the self expression of the creator of the movement, the choreographer. It is also the self expression of the dancer. Trained or untrained it does not matter. It is about expressing emotion through movement; whether to music or silence, in front of an audience or alone in your bedroom. — Danielle

Dance is telling a story with your body in it's simplest form...perhaps only a feeling...but an expression nonetheless. — Stiletto Storytime

Dance is creating art and a way to express who you are. — Sarah

Dance is the poetry of movement. I know my answer isn't as long as others but I feel that is the best way to describe dance. Terrific contest Beth. — Briana

Dance is a physical response to an irresistible stimulus, bringing internal and external rhythms together and forcing the body to move in time with them. As they sang in Hairspray, "You can't stop the beat." — Florinda

Dance is losing your inhibitions and expressing how music physically moves you. — BermudaOnion

Dance is an acristic:

Dappaankuthu from Tamil; percussion; Bollywood.

Ardha from Arabia; Bedouin; war-dance.

Nutbush from Tennessee (City Limits!); line dance...

Coček from Serbia; belly dancing; gypsy brass!

Eisa from the Nansei Islands; memorial service - Ryūkyū musicians...

Take your pick!

Tanja Cilia

Dance is opening of your heart and mind to the bodily movement of the inspiration that grabs hold of you. — Katie Guzman

Dance is moving your body in new ways, pushing boundaries and changing perspectives. I love getting lost in my own movements- sometimes even caught off guard. Dance allows you to be who you want to be (especially when done in the privacy of your own room). It is awesome. — Taryn

Dance is the body's way of celebrating freedom of mind and spirit. — Bee

Dance is when your body becomes a channel for which music can flow. When your veins run with the flow and rhythm. Your very movements are decided by the tempo, you get lost in the beat. Dance is like the changes of nature, for which each sound, your body, and the dance change in a never ending cycle. Dance is an expression of yourself,as you find your heart, and others somewhere on the smooth wood floors. To me, dance is an expression of emotion, but more importantly, Dance is the movement of life. — GooseGirl

Dance is a chance to express yourself through music, it's an art - blah blah blah. The classic textbook answer is that and such. Not that it's wrong, but I believe you can't just define dance to be a mere meaning to be able to just move your feet and/or body to a rhythm (though that's highly necessary, in matters that you wouldn't want to just fling your arms about and smack someone). For some people, dancing is their life. Others, it's a culture (perhaps to celebrate their succesful day of hunting). Wrong thinking would be, such as various belittling professionals: if you aren't willing to do your best, don't dance at all.
However that's not even remotely true. Just because you can't doesn't mean you shouldn't. If you want to say what you mean and you're not good with words, dance. Show others you mean something and that the beauty in what you see will be shown to the rest.
Plus, it's great exercise. — Jade

Dance is what you feel like doing when you are happy - so I could say that it is happiness in 3D :) — Pink Dogwood

Dancing discards the shell; discovers the soul. — Sherry

To dance is to let loose. Forget about the world and just flow with what's within. — TruBlu93

Dance is...an expression of everything one feels. It can be fast or slow; it can be with someone or alone. It can be joyful or sorrowful. Dance doesn't have to be perfect, nor can anyone really define perfection. It doesn't have to be pretty, but it has to come from the heart. Someone dancing without an ounce of rhythm can be just as beautiful as someone dancing with technical perfection. It expresses what one feels inside, and should be shown with unabashed freedom. — Hilary

I have always thought dance was your own form of interpreting the music. — pitu572

Dance is sweeping the air into life, learning that you can move, that you can fly; that you have every right to live and put your inhibitions behind you. — Inkgirl

Dance is the act of freeing your mind, body, and soul and just feeling the beat of the music as it moves through you, girating as if the whole world belongs to you and all your problems are wished away. — Boriquaz

To me dance is many things. First off - it is a way to express your emotions, your passion and your energy in a purely physical way. Dance is also something where you can view someone's entire soul by the way they hold their hand or they way the spin. It's beauty and poetry with no formal training required. — Michelle

Dance is letting go, remembering, or expressing yourself and your emotions. Dance simply is whatever you want it to be. It's anything, and everything. — Lea, YA Book Queen

dance isn't just moving along the music... is moving with the music, feeling it & expressing your own feelings to it. — CaRiiToO

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White Knight. Shining Armor.

At this point in this day I'm giving this blog post up to Nick Daniels, once the neighbor boy-wonder who cut all our lawns, now out on his own working with his dad in a thriving auto shop by day and still taking care of the rest of us by any other available hour. In the summer, Nick helps me reach the branches of the trees that have grown too tall for my own pruning. In the fall he takes away the leaves. In the spring he helps me mulch, if I need mulch, for a garden that (I admit) is ambitiously sized. Once I had a new front door put onto the house but it had a mind of its own. Nick stopped everything to help me get it closed. Took screws out, put them back in, joked around the entire time.

Yesterday, the snow, as you might have heard, came in high and heavy here in the east. This morning, having finished the first draft of a client project round about 9:30 a.m., I trekked outside to begin the business of clearing the path and the drive. An hour or so later, Nick drove by in his plow-outfitted pick-up.

"Hey, lady," he called. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I need to get the car out," I said. "Snow's in the way."

"Well, then," he said. "You step aside."

I was willing. Believe me, I was.

"Don't go anywhere, Nick," I told him, after a moment of watching him work.

"Why not?"

"I'm going in the house, to get my camera."

"What for?"

"So that people don't think I'm imagining things. So that they know you are real."

Those of you who read House of Dance and encountered a certain blue-eyed, car genius named Nick? Same guy, just grown up now.

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readergirlz writing contest (2): the story song winner

The second readergirlz contest asked writers to think out loud about the way their own work is choreographed—how it moves across the page, and from sound toward meaning. Our winner is Q. Here is her poem, and her reasoning. Q receives a signed copy of House of Dance.


Tinged with regret
The girl in the bus
window
sees me on a park bench,
me with all my waiting and
watching her,
too.

I might have known her
once,
and I wonder if she saw me
for who I was,
for who I am,
or for who I'd like to be.

And how do I see
her?

She is a sheet of
paper,
breezing by on the wind
of the bus she sits in.

(Maybe I should have
sung
when I had the chance.)

When I write a poem, each sentence is its own stanza. I break lines where the next word should be emphasized more, leave a word on its own when it should be said slower and more alone, and leave lines together where they ought to be said faster. That, however, is just the basic structure.

I imagine this speaker thinking about the direction her life is taking and, perhaps, not really knowing where it leads. The girl on the bus could be anyone--like the sheet of paper, she is generic and fleeting. Yet, the poem starts with her perspective because it ends with the speaker's. She allows the speaker to build to a climax at the end of the second stanza, and then draws the speaker to her regretful conclusion, all without saying a word.

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readergirlz writing contest (2): the story song

For the second readergirlz contest, I've chosen a topic close to my heart—choreography—and called it The Story Song. Please find the details below:

I read books to meet new characters, to go new places, and to find out what happens. I also read to learn how the author has chosen to choreograph the narrative. Is it a straight-forward telling, or a book that turns round on itself? Does the story speed up and slow down, are there embedded refrains, which themes recur, which details, and why? Watch this video, then share with me one of your own poems or short (up to ten lines) pieces of writing. Tell me, with your submission, just how you thought about the piece as lyric. What, in other words, was your choreographic strategy?

Send your entry to me at kephartblogATcomcastDOTnet by October 25, 2009. The author of the winning paragraph will receive a signed copy of House of Dance, a novel about a young girl who, in taking care of her dying grandfather and learning about the life he once lived, decides to offer him one final gift. The winning work will also be posted on my blog.

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Webbed in with DanceSport

Dance studios bring together souls from the middle of this country and the middle of another, guys who aren't precisely big on books and guys who are, mambo kings and samba sensations. In other words, they bring together people like Scott Lazarov and Jean Paulovich, who are pictured here. Scott is the artistic force behind DanceSport PA and one of the best choreographers anywhere (on Tuesday afternoons my husband and I dance Scott's brilliant tango; when I wrote House of Dance, I used Scott as the model for Max). Jean is the champion ballroom dancer, dear friend, and teacher who thinks I can pull off a Broadway/foxtrot/quickstep/Charleston/lindy hop/jive routine in time for a late-October showcase.

I'm not quite sure whom Jean thinks he's kidding, but I will tell you this: Yesterday, when fellow-dancer Julia was watching Jean and me kick slam our way through the routine, she suggested (with that merry twinkle in her eye) that Jean turn me loose on the stage alone so that I can do what I was already apparently seeming to be doing, which is to say, making it all up as I went along.

In any case, we do spend a lot of time with the good people at DanceSport, and the photos I sometimes post from there were all taken as part of a big web project—photography, design, writing, programming—that we have undertaken here, at the company that I run with my husband. Late last night that DanceSport web went live.

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The Long Habit of Color, and a Laura Geringer Note

Ever since I started writing poetry (I was nine years old, I was a tomboy, I was a loner), I was color obsessed. Not that I could name all the colors, and not that I could paint, but I found that I could not write a poem into my blank journals unless I'd watercolored the whole page first—given the poem a bed of molten color to ride on. This made for some rather soggy poetry journals, some deeply porous word choices, and a whole lot of feeling to go along with not-so-much story or depth. Still, I worked, color sensationalized, in bliss.

It was during the writing and editing of House of Dance that it became clear to me just how essential color remains in the way I dream stories, and tell them. "Re: Color.," Laura Geringer, my impeccable editor, wrote, "I felt a bit that as I was moving through the manuscript, I was going from black and rather stark white-- to black and white with hints and touches of color--to blazing full color at the end. Was that conscious on your part? I think whether it was or not, it's brilliant. Almost wizard of oz-like in a way. We start out in Kansas in shades of gray and end up in a technicolor world that promises a richness and vibrancy of experience that transcends the pain of disease and death. I loved that about the book. Perhaps it could be brought out even more, in Rosie's thoughts & perceptions?"

I was thinking about this yesterday, while walking the paths of Chanticleer and looking over the shoulders of the painters who had gathered there to work. I was thinking of how color is my medley, my soundtrack. Of how I remain the loner tomboy, riding color across those blank pages.

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House of Dance a 2009 Bank Street College of Education Best

I was at the dance studio today when word came in that House of Dance was named a 2009 Bank Street College of Education Best Children's Book.

I am, of course, entirely grateful. House joins books written by some of my literary heroes and heroines—Sharon Creech, Jane Yolen, Louise Erdrich, Avi, Neil Gaiman, and Mary Engelbreit, among others.

New: I close the day with these words from dear Priya, about Undercover.

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The House of Dance Trailer

House of Dance has a slightly modified cover in store for its release next March as a paperback; thank you, Carla Weise and Jill Santopolo.

In this trailer (the last of the three that I've been creating these past few weeks), we go through the streets of Ardmore and up into the Dancesport Academy studio, where it has taken an entire planet's worth of gifted dancers—Scott Lazarov, Jean Paulovich, John Villardo, John Larson, Jim Bunting, Cristina Rodrighes—and one very fine manager (the lovely Tirsa) to teach me a few things about the box step. This is the studio that inspired this novel, which was named one of the best of the year by Kirkus in 2008.

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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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The Drexel InterView: On rivers and young adult books

Last fall, I received a note from Lynn Levin, the executive producer of The Drexel InterView, who was inviting me to spend some time in the company of Dr. Paula Marantz Cohen, the popular author and Drexel University Professor of Literature. Would I join poet Gerald Stern, Chuck Barris, Craiglist's Craig Newmark, astronomer Derrick Pitts, Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Brian Tierney, social critic Steven Johnson, and others in the Season Six line-up of interviewees, she wondered. I said yes, but of course.

(Then worried for days about lack of appropriate wardrobe.)

In early October, on the second floor of a fabulously ornate 19th century building, Paula and I spoke of many things. Of the writing heart, of a career (my own) that has moved from poetry to short story to memoir to poetry to history to novel and back again to short story and poetry (and what, you ask, is this blog? A bit of everything, I guess, and too much of all, as someone just told me). The genesis of Flow, my autobiography of the Schuylkill River, was discussed, as were my three young adult novels to date, Undercover (soon to be released in paperback), House of Dance, and Nothing but Ghosts. If memory serves, we also discussed my short story, "The Longest Distance," soon appearing, along with work by An Na, M.T. Anderson, Chris Lynch, Jacqueline Woodson, and K.L. Going, in the HarperTeen anthology No Such Thing as the Real World. Young adult literature—where it came from, where it's going, what it might someday be—was very much on our agenda.

Lynn (a poet whose work you should seek out) has just written to let me know that that conversation will premiere this Tuesday, March 31, in the Philadelphia area at at 8 p.m. on DUTV (Comcast channel 54; in West Philly 62), then air four more times that week at 10 a.m. (Wed, Sat, Sun, and Mon). On April 5, it will air again on MiND (formerly called WYBE) at 10 a.m. In subsequent months, the interview will be available in other cable markets across the country.

I invite those of you who have the time and interest to listen in.

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Just Do It

You know you have those days—the wrong weather, the wrong answers, the wrong smudges on the soul, not to mention that dastardly, lingering migraine.

I woke to that at three a.m. and couldn't shrug it, and as I looked ahead to the day and my afternoon ballroom dance lesson with Jean Paulovich, I had one prevailing thought: Well, that will surely be rich.

Funny thing: It actually was. Because by the time I walked up that tall flight of steps, put on my sand-colored shoes, and slipped out onto the floor, I'd battled all the battles I could battle in one day and my mind was spectacularly clear. The first dance was a waltz, and I yielded. The mambo was next, suspiciously swooshed, and then the cha-cha didn't defeat me, and the rumba was slow where slow was right and contagiously fast at the quicks. Even the jive didn't thwart me as the jive often does—it was (and this is strange) more right than wrong.

Why is so much of life that much easier when you stop fighting with yourself? When you cast off your own self doubt, your disappointments, your melodramatic exasperations? When you just shrug your shoulders and do? When you stop thinking, and dance?

Oh, dance.

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Details, Details

Do you remember this? The swing when you could swing alone? The feeling of power and soar? The bird that came to you because it understood your admiration, your way of trying to be just like it was? Do you remember?

I sang on the swing when I was a kid—Bob Dylan and My Fair Lady. I pumped higher than I'd been taught to, and one day, on the highest arc I'd ever achieved, the chains snapped and the plank that I was sitting on flew out over the yard. When it came down my arm was shattered and it would never be the same, and so that one moment changed everything for me—there wouldn't be gym class until 9th grade, there wouldn't be team sports, there'd always be this brace when I skated—my sequined dresses, my funky arm.

When I saw this boy at the beach last Saturday, I did this thing I do—project myself back then arc me forward, imagining one small detail changed, chains, in this case, that never snapped. But it is the single detail that often does define a life, and in my case who knows if I'd have been a loner writer if I'd been able to play team sports, or had I not been sent to the library all those years in lieu of gym.

The single detail. I try to pay attention to these in my fiction, because I have learned what the single detail does to real life.

On another note: I have been blessed this past week by the goodness of others who have taken the time to read my books and to put down some thoughts about them. I'm not entirely sure these good people can ever know just what this means to me. But today may I thank one of those incredible bloggers out there, aquafortis, at the collaborative YA bookspace, Finding Wonderland, for these words about House of Dance.

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Eruptive Scenes from a Novel in Progress, and a thank you to The Shelf Elf

We've been talking about outlining, not outlining. Below is a scene from a novel-in-progress that emerged from nowhere, then set a tone.

Before I get to that, though, may I extend enormous gratitude to The Shelf Elf, for her truly dear and generous words about House of Dance. I've been working through the deepest dark of this night (rain outside, a drumming in my head). I found her post by almost accident. I am so grateful.

The agent left us there, outside the locked-door of our graduation house. “To the sea,” Tim said, taking the lead for once, spinning an imaginary umbrella in the spitting-with-winter air. We drew our plastic hoods over our heads and when we got to the beach, we took off our shoes and ran. Ellie got to the water before the rest of us could. She stomped down a wave, and then I joined her, and Robb did, and the waves were freezing—oh God, the whole beach was. When I turned I saw Tim and Kevin in the distance, walking the rusted pipe that stretched parallel to the shore. “All the way to Cape May,” Tim directed, and now we were running toward Tim and Kevin, our shoes in our hands, clambering up the pipe, catching our balance, marching south.

The wind blew the salt into our skin. Robb’s hair rose and fell like it might fly. We walked single file, the rust beneath our feet, until the skies grew dusky and Kevin jumped from the pipe and reached his arms toward me. I leapt high and up and down, and I knew he’d catch me. I knew that he’d hold me, and he did, and then we both turned and saw Ellie still high on the rusted pipe, Ellie alone, and Kevin put me down and reached for her, and now Tim was taking Robb into his arms. Then we all stood just inches from the first froth of waves and tossed clamshells until real darkness fell.

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