teaching the teachers, and a deeply prized gift

Yesterday, after months of planning, I joined the English teachers of the T/E School District (K through 12) for a teach-the-teachers session. TELL THE TRUTH. MAKE IT MATTER. memoir writing workbooks had been ordered for each of the participants. My job was to connect many of the exercises inside that book to the books that children read. I chose, among others, BOAT OF DREAMS, TAR BEACH, FRIENDS, THE MEANING OF MAGGIE, RAIN REIGN, THE BOOK THIEF, and my own FLOW, GOING OVER, and THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU.

What a conversation we had. What work the teachers themselves produced. We moved from nonfiction into fiction, from fiction into truth, from history into the right now, from the personal to the public, from the silent fear to the empathetic gesture. There are few more delightful things for this teacher-reader-writer than to be among other devoted teachers-readers-writers. I was glad for all of it.

I left the program, spent an hour with my husband, then made the half hour drive to my father's home, where I have been spending so much of these past many weeks. I stayed until the near-dark, drove home in rush-hour rain, and dropped my bag on the floor. After a week of barely an hour or two of sleep each night, after so much TV work, so much other teaching, so much corporate America, so many recommendation letters, I was, for the moment, done.

"There's something for you from Jessica," my husband said.

"Really?" I said.

"Open it," he said.

I did. And here from our beloved Juncture friend (read her words in the sidebar here) was a beautiful card, a startling note, a book called RIVERS by Alison Townsend. Out in Wisconsin, Jessica had heard Alison read. Knowing my own obsession with rivers, my FLOW, Jessica had bought me Alison's book. Alison, as it turns out, knew something about me, a circle was drawn, a beginning touching an end touching a beginning, and flowing forward through our Jessica.

There is so much about our lives that we can't understand.

I do understand love.

Thank you, Jessica.

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when you want so much for those who gather close to tell their stories

We have returned from Sea Change, our memoir writing workshop by the sea. And oh what a sea change it was—for us all.

Each time I leave a workshop I leave stunned and grateful for the honesty of those who have come—for their willingness to reach, then reach again. We experienced transformations this past week of a nearly unearthly kind. Writers who found their stories. Writers who found their words. Reporters who became poets. Entertainers who struck at our hearts. Badassery latticed up with tenderness...and then some.

I barely sleep during these intense days. I am, by the end, on the edge of myself, the edge of each story, the edge of each truth. Where there once was blood there runs only an urgent hope that those who have joined us write big, write more, live whole.

Like a gymnast, I bend in all directions—I stretch, I fold. Sometimes, off that balance beam, I fall. I try one more trick, take one more leap, jump, turn, catch my toe, miss. That's me, the Beth Kephart I don't even really know until I'm the only Beth Kephart I am.

At the close of this session, the writers offered me a gift—their words turned toward me. These words below are from Louise, who has joined us now three times. Louise, who has found both her story and her words. I share them because they are for all of us—all of us who teach, all of us who hope, all of us who dare to want so much for the people we (we have no choice) do love.

We are given such glorious reasons to love. These women. Oh. These women.

Blank pages, open hearts, ready minds

We come to this place, to you

A safe harbor for our souls

Unsure, yet anxious to explore

We are transfixed, transformed

Torn down and built up 

Love is at the core. 

Juncture 21, our memoir newsletter, is now out and can be accessed here. Among other things we're featuring the poets Dan Simpson and Ona Gritz, who have written extraordinarily thoughtful words about the work they do alone and together. Dan and Ona's work provided touchstones for two of our writers this past week in Cape May. We returned to their words again and again.

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Summertide and Currents arrive by mail

Not quite a year ago, I sat with Bonnie Offit in Rittenhouse Square talking about a dream she and her friend Gary Jacketti had to produce a free summer magazine for the Stone Harbor crowd. The magazine would feature literature and art. All proceeds would go to the CHOP Brendan Borek Fund. Might I have some ideas, Bonnie asked.

I pondered. I thought of this: Why not share the first two-thirds of a summer mystery, to be completed by a young writer? And why not introduce Bonnie to the work of Hannah Litvin, a talented poet and memoirist (and fiction writer, too) whom I had met while teaching memoir at Rosemont College?

And so those things happened. I shared my story. A willing mystery writer wrote the end. Hannah shared her poetry. And then Bonnie, with her team of Gary, Jen Gensemer, and Cailin Fogarty, went away and dreamed much bigger, inviting photographers and designers and other writers into the fold.

Today I received my two copies of Summertide, and what a genuine beauty it is, both at its soul core and in its art. At the same time, I received our copies of Currents, the magazine we create for each Juncture workshop initiative. Within this edition are the empathy pieces our writers wrote about their Frenchtown partners. Portraits that Bill took. Images of that place and our time.

And so it is a lovely day here. A day of quiet thanks.

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Introducing a new (beautifully illustrated) memoir workbook

Over the past two years, I've been writing a memoir workbook—a page-by-page introduction to the form enriched by prompts designed to lead you directly into the heart of your story.

(Not idle prompts. Not prompts as afternoon distractions. Prompts that teach the form and open doors to memory and meaning. This workbook is supplemental to Handling the Truth. It does not repeat it.)

Over the past many months, Bill has been designing and illustrating those pages, crafting a book that complements our five-day memoir workshops, our monthly (content rich) memoir newsletter, and, soon, on-line courses at Juncture.

Tell the Truth. Make It Matter. will soon be available through Amazon.

I'm so happy to share two spread previews from different chapters in this 210-page book here.

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The Frenchtown Empathy Project: The Power of Trust in a Broken World

Over the past many months, as our country has veered toward and sometimes cemented divisions and oppositions, Bill and I have been building the Frenchtown Empathy Project, an event that hoped for, in fact depended on, trust among perfect strangers.

We were bringing our Juncture memoir writers to this New Jersey town for five intense days of reading, writing, and growing. We were adding to their enormous workload (they'll tell you) another layer by asking them to search for connections in the community we'd chosen as our host.

Lynn Glickman, a memoirist expert in delineating the colors and temptations of a kitchen, was paired with Julie Klein, a Frenchtown chef (Lovin' Oven).

Starr Kuzak, a memoirist with music in her DNA and tenderness in her soul, was paired with Carolyn Gadbois, a drummer and espresso artist.

Hannah Yoo, a memoirist seeking (and finding) forgiveness for a wrong committed against her father, was paired with Bonnie Pariser, a yoga instructor.

Christine O'Connor, a deeply engaged political thinker and writer, was paired with Mayor Brad Myhre.

Louise O'Donnell, a memoirist who has retail community in her history and a love of all things people in her heart, was paired with the owner of town central, otherwise known as the hardware store (Mike Tyksinski).

Elana Lim, a memoirist whose family history is now on display in a Smithsonian-affiliated museum, was paired with the co-creator of a community theater program (Keith Strunk), while Tracey Yokas, who is not just writing about seeing her daughter (and herself) through a crushing chapter in both their lives but was also once an above-the-line producer for shows like the Oscars and the Emmys, was paired with the theater's other co-creator (Laura Swanson).

Jessica Gilkison, a memoirist writing about the wisdom we find as we lose a mother and parent a fluid, truth-seeking child, was paired with the creator of Real Girls (Catherine Lent).

I, meanwhile, had the opportunity to talk about gifts and gift giving with Meg Metz, who created and curates one of the finest stores anywhere (Modern Love), where the door really is always open.

Bill and I could not have created this project without enormous help, of course. Caroline Scutt of the Book Garden stepped in and made lists of people and sent emails when we presented our scheme. Catherine Lent and Keith Strunk made suggestions. Those we contacted said yes to a project that, by any standard, was utterly untested. They agreed to be interviewed by people they didn't know and to have their lives retold by voices that, well: Who were these people? All in advance of an outcome no one could predict.

Would our writers get it right? Would anyone come to the reading at Town Hall? Would this empathy mission, this bridge building, fall flat on its face? Would our theory about the power of listening and the integrity of reaching beyond one's own self be confirmed or shattered? Nerves were expressed. Bill and I shook our heads in quiet midnight anticipation. And then, Thursday morning as the writers rehearsed in the lobby of our home base, Pete and Marlon's National Hotel, I knew, as well as I've ever known anything, that something magic was about to go down.

It did. Frenchtown's Town Hall on Thursday night was jammed. Our writers were flawless. Our audience was leaning in. This odd thing we'd called the Frenchtown Empathy Project, this hope we'd had to build bridges in a time of fragments: it worked. It just worked. We all sat there. We listened. We knew.

Here is our Mike, in a note to us yesterday:

... Last night or actually this week has been a transformative experience for me and others here in Frenchtown. I spent time sharing who I am with a complete stranger as did several others, who then took some of my stories, got up and spoke as me in front of a room full of people some I knew and some I didn't. I sat between the Mayor and my neighbor Doug. The emotional impact on the room was surreal. It was as if we all became kindred souls through the sharing of ourselves. Oh by the way Louise my writer chose to include naked curry. The room was in stitches.

We build community one person by one person, one listening stranger by one vulnerable soul.

Truth is this.

 [A PS thank you to Brenda and Officer Titen, who made sure the doors were open for us.]

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how we keep on writing, how we center inside our song

The workshop was over. We stood there on the gravel road between the cabins we'd lived in, worked in, worked through. We stood there post-portraits, post-jazz hands, post-laughter, post-tears, and there were questions, still.

Mostly: How do we carry forward what has happened here? How do we write our stories through? Find the time? The calm? The self assurance?

I will write to you, I said, I promised. I will try, for myself, to remember how.

Often my life is not my own. There is no calm, no well of time, I do not see myself in any mirror. I can go on like that because I must go on like that, but then: I miss the words, I physically miss them. I feel an empty spin inside my soul until I can't help it anymore. I rise early to claim a sentence for myself.

Except: Days, weeks, months have gone by since I have written anything real. Except: The sentence that I write is obvious, flat. It is not art, and it is art I need, and so I turn to others. Just now Olivia Laing is sitting here. More Annie Dillard. Old James Baldwin. The first Ta-Nehisi Coates. I take what I need and my hour of me is up, but something, inside, stirs.

The next day I rise early again. I take out my flat sentence. I spin it around with a spoon. I work it until it holds some music for me, until it suggests what the next sentence might be. So now there are two sentences, maybe three, and for the next several days, in this earliest of hours, I read those sentences, I sink into their rhythms, I probably don't even know the story yet. But I've got me a song to sing through the rest of the day, when the client calls, or the work comes in, or I make a trip for oil or pepper. I've got me a song, a steadying place, and when the call I'm waiting for comes in late, or I'm put on hold, or the dinner simmers, there it is: my song.

The song is. I keep it close. It is a mystery, and it is something mine. That something alive, to return to.

We write our stories slow, from a centering place.

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Juncture Notes 07: coming soon

We're still in a bit of a farm-induced haze here at Juncture. Missing those writers we came to know on that slice of Central Pennsylvania earth. Imagining those stories flowing forward.

Our next issue of Juncture Notes will feature the scenes from and lessons of that workshop, as well thoughts on a new bestselling memoir. We'll send it out to our list in a day or so. If you'd like to be on that list, just sign up here. Juncture Notes, which combines Bill's art with my memoir obsession, is free.

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farm scenes. images from the inaugural Juncture Workshop.

It's been almost a year since Bill and I first began to talk about the creation of a landscape-immersive writing workshop series and eight months since we started planning in earnest. We chose a western Pennsylvania farm for our inaugural experience, a place where we believed that the history, authenticity, and land itself would yield, reflect, demand, transform. A place where hard work is earth work. Where routines dictate, except, of course, in all those cases, at all those times, when human beings have no actual authority.

We write about life, when we write memoir. This is life.

We had come to know these writers in the days leading up to the week. Or, we thought we had. But as each arrived, waved their hands, threw her arms around us, settled in, we learned so much more. About them, but also (inevitably) about ourselves.

There were lessons for us all.

We were fed the food of the earth at a time when every drop of water counted. We sat in circles on soft couches and hard chairs and trusted. We leaned forward or sat back. We were intensity. We were calm. We couldn't find what we needed to find and then (miraculously) we did.

I will write more of this soon. The next issue of our Juncture workshop newsletter will carry this story forward. For now, this post is an act of gratitude. A thank you for those who came, those who believed, those who, by making a commitment to the group and to themselves, by doing the asked thing even when the asked thing was a hard thing, grew.

Before our very eyes.

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what's wrong with a little happiness?

Into this steamy heat I went a few hours ago, on my way to errands. I was driving my yellow car. I was thinking about the heirloom tomatoes I would buy, the watermelon and feta, the chunky bread. Thinking about lamb chops for dinner, maybe. Thinking I might treat myself to a pot of ACME roses.

As the first light went from red to green, as I accelerated, something inside me stopped.

I'm happy, I thought.

I'm happy.

I had cleaned the house in the early morning. I had scanned 30 new pages for the Juncture memoir workshop now set for less than a month from now. I had written to a friend. I'd cracked an egg to make my breakfast and found, within, twin yolks. This had been my day so far. And it seemed a perfect one.

How long has this simple happiness eluded me? What did it take far too many years to step away from so much that hurt, degraded, deflated, consumed, buried me with worry, kept me up at the wrong hours, made me feel less than, a last-in-line priority? We never know how much more time we have. We are bound (oh, trust me, I know) by responsibilities. But I had lived so subsumed by burdens that I had not made room for simple happiness.

Watermelon. Heirlooms. Feta. Homegrown mint. Chunky bread.

A pot of ACME roses.

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