reflecting on the land that feeds us, in today's Philadelphia Inquirer

We spent a week on a farm being cared for by the earth and those who know it best.

We will never forget that land, our hosts.

I tell that story in today's Philadelphia Inquirer.

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Sunday Pasta (on Wednesday Night): With Edwin Garrubbo (and Dave Roberts) at Valley Forge Barn

Several weeks ago, in an act of uncalculated whim, my husband bought two places at the table of Edwin Garrubbo, an Italian pasta master who had agreed to bring his art to the Valley Forge Barn in Wayne, PA. The Barn has become a fixture in our lives. The place where I buy my favorite gifts and meet my friend Kelly for our tradition of non-tea (okay, so, I have the tea and she has the gelato). The place that can be counted on for the unexpected pumpkin wreathe, leather from Australia, lessons in planting, flowers to carry home. Art and plenty of room overhead. Cookbooks I buy and actually cook from.

Last night was the Ed Garrubbo night. As I dressed for the event, straightened my hair, put on real shoes, I had no idea what to expect. Only that I was going to leave my worries behind for a spell and step out among lovers of pasta.

We were at ease from the moment we opened the door and entered in. Some sixteen expectant diners, the Barn staff, Ed, and eventually his wife and children, became our friends for the evening. Among those gathered there were Dave Roberts, the acclaimed ABC weatherman, and his stunning wife Patti. I'd watched Dave report the storms and sun for many years. He had projected grace through the TV lens. That grace wasn't, I can tell you, an act.

And so we watched Ed cook. And we ate three of his pasta dishes. And we learned about Italy, olive oil, proportions of salt, favorite restaurants. We talked about the Pope, ribbons of intention, living here and living elsewhere, Italian Christmas traditions. We finished with gelato.

An evening to remember with gracious hosts and guests. We came home with Ed's cookbook, Sunday Pasta, and a link to his popular cooking blog.

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taking HANDLING (and memoirs I've loved) to Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, PA

In an hour I'll set out for Bethlehem, PA, where I'll spend the day at Moravian Academy, a high school that has dedicated much of this year to stories of self and memory and that selected Handling the Truth as its all-school read as part of the process.

Moravian also invited students and faculty to read three memoirs I recommended—The Answer to The Riddle is Me (David Stuart MacLean), Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson), and Gabriel (Edward Hirsch).

We'll begin with an all-school assembly and a conversation about non-traditional forms. I'll then travel to two sophomore-level classrooms to workshop emerging student ideas and to talk more deeply about the making of truth.

A day I have anticipated happily for several months now is about to begin.

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what makes a book small?

It's been some time since I wrote that fifth memoir, Ghosts in the Garden—a meditation on the two years I spent walking Chanticleer (in Wayne, PA). I was at a crossroads. Middle aged. Not sure. Pondering my purpose.

Published by New World Library, this slender book, about a well-loved but entirely local garden (every garden is an entirely local garden), went on to be reviewed in papers across the country (I could not have guessed that) and to be translated (this was an even bigger surprise) in South Korea. It sold out of its original modest printing of 5,000 copies and was never reprinted.

Done. Gone. Another Kephartian exercise, by most standards, in the small.

And yet. Every now and then the book returns to my life. This past week it did, in the form of this photograph—a South Korean garden lover who had read the translation in her country (she holds it in her left hand) and come here, to Wayne, PA, to find the garden with her husband.

A book brought a reader across the ocean to a garden.

What makes a book small? What makes a book big? I wish we never had to ask that question. I wish that we'd stop quantifying authors by sales or prizes and take solace in stories about individual readers who allowed a book to prompt a journey.

One book. One reader. One garden. One sunny day. One surprising photograph. Two smiles on two faces.

Thank you, BJ, for sending that smile my way.

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In Media, with the Stars (in today's Philadelphia Inquirer)

Two Wednesday evenings ago, I ventured into Media (a town I've lately been rediscovering) to participate in the eighth-season kick-off of the grandness known as Dining Under the Stars(TM). Some 3,000 people were out beneath threatening (but never daunting) skies as more than two dozen restaurants wheeled their delectables into the street. Bob Deane, potter extraordinaire, was his beguiling self. Earth & State had its shine on. Flowers grew between trolley tracks.

The dazzle razzle of that story is here.

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an ode to Wayne, in today's Inquirer

I moved a lot as a child—and then, at last, settled in.

In this weekend's Philadelphia Inquirer, I'm writing about the place that has been close to my heart ever since that eighth-grade move, the town of Wayne, PA, which has beguiled me, supported me, and, of late, returned old friends to me.

With gratitude to all those fellow Radnorites and shop owners and librarians: this. While this Wayne story and my South Street/Magic Gardens story were written too late to be incorporated into my forthcoming collection of essays and photographs, Love: A Philadelphia Affair, both essays live close to my heart.

Meanwhile, this past week I've been watching intense movies, reading an extraordinary book, talking to the esteemed editor Daniel Menaker, sharing a glass of wine with the great Debbie Levy, and learning from my Class of Spectaculars at Penn. I'll reflect on all that in the Monday edition of tomorrow's blog.

Anyone interested in receiving a free ARC of One Thing Stolen can now enter the giveaway on Goodreads.

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Seeing our book project through, at Epic Litho

We left the house at the 7 AM hour to attend a press check at Epic Litho. Around here, at Fusion Communications, press checks are our Christmas times. They are our Santa Claus. They're what we work for.

The project on the press was a book created to tell the story of the extraordinary "refinery that could" (American Refining Group). Of the man—Harry Halloran, Jr.—who, in buying the once-endangered plant for a dollar (and the promise of considerable other investments), saved the jobs of employees and strengthened the surrounding community. Of the people who were trusted to lead. Of management's great respect for the environment. Of the town itself that has rallied, in recent years, thanks to committed educational, cultural, and health care visionaries.

I had the pleasure of researching and writing this book. My husband took the exquisite photography and designed the book with his trademark care. The company's leadership and administrative team (including Harry, of course) were there at every turn to help us bring the story to life.

To print and bind this cloth-bound project, we turned to an old friend, Jarred Garber, with whom we have worked for many years. Jarred is the senior account manager at Epic Litho in Phoenixville, PA. He and has team have delivered—time and again—stellar projects. They are not just knowledgeable and personable; they work with some of the best equipment around, all in a building, by the way, that once housed a roller skating arena. These people know their stuff. They're trusted by clients ranging from Godiva, Ferrari, and Dansko to Bucknell University to Dunwoody Village to the little communications company that also can, Fusion Communications.

When it's press check time, they open their doors and let the eager writer/designer in.

A post, then, to thank Harry Halloran, Jr. and his entire team. A post to thank Jarred and Epic Litho for taking such great care of us.

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my happy introduction to West Reading: thank you, Wise Owl Bookstore

Yesterday I learned something new about my own near geography.  If you drive Route 422 all the way out—until it's no longer a highway but a traffic light road, until you cross the Schuylkill River several times, until the road starts to bank and curve, until you reach Penn Avenue—you'll find your way to West Reading, a most-happening place.  They teach ballroom dance in an old theater, serve gourmet meals out on the street, offer tasty cheese at a well-appointed wine bar, sell shoos spelled just like that: shoos.

And in The Wise Owl Bookstore, an independent as adorable as they come, shop owner Kira makes room for special events created by the very special Sue Lange (pictured front and center).  Yesterday was open mike day, and I was there, aligned with other writers and readers, for a memorable evening of stories and talk.  Teresa, my kick-butt combat teacher, stopped by.  A tawny cat slinked beneath chairs.  Stuffed owls hung suspended in time.  And that left elbow in the front row? It belongs to none other than the fabulous A.S. King.  (It's not that my camera neglected King, by the way.  It's that she ducked.)

In times like these—in any times—it is heartening to find a thriving town, an intellectual community, and a young book lover who chose to risk an enterprise that is subtitled "clever books for clever people."  I was proud and happy to temporarily stand among the clever.

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please join me at The Wise Owl Bookstore, West Reading, PA, Tuesday August 21st

It's all right here, in this lovely poster. 

I'll be there.  Teen writers will be there.  The good people at Wise Owl will be there. 

You want to hear something else?  Something full of super loveliness?  Teresa, the World's Greatest Body Combat instructor, thinks she may be there as well.  Teresa doesn't just kick my butt every Saturday morning at 8 AM.  She turns butt kicking and all kinds of other kicking into a party (and then goes off to teach another two hours of crazy fitness for the fit crazies).

Join us?

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It's just that it was there

so I took it.

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Phoenixville, PA

Last night, in search of a way to make the familiar new, we set out for Phoenixville, 25 minutes down the road, a town that was immortalized, perhaps not entirely justly, by Alice Sebold in her controversial second novel, The Almost Moon.

As passers through, we find much to love.

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Logical Progressions

"The problems in logic," my college freshman son writes at 1:15 last night, "are tricky, but once you figure them out, they're easy to do and almost impossible to get wrong. They're just logically correct and require a lot of thinking."

So it must be. So this is another lesson from my son, who has been teaching me courage and integrity since the day he was born and now teaches me logic, tolerance, new media, ambition. Nothing is black or white for him, as it should not be. Everything is to be considered, weighed, tested, found out for himself. Grasped and held onto as his own.

I haven't started a new writing project since he left for college; I only now begin to feel that someday (not today, not tomorrow, not this month, only someday) I might write again. I might write because, even though he is not here in this house or down the street at the theater or around the bend at the high school where his guidance counselor sometimes referred to him as the mayor, he's still this force that lights a path for me, that settles me at dawn with an email sent late in the night from a small room on a crowded floor where so many of his new friends live.

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