let's not toss entire categories; one more defense of YA (celebrating Cordelia Jensen and e.E. Charlton-Trujillo)

One wonders if it will ever end. The cast-the-entire-category-aside comments from those who cannot abide YA. The idea that all literature written with teens at its heart is literature of a lesser-than status.

Look. I'm uncomfortable with much of what is sold to teens—uncomfortable with books that forget how intelligent teens are, books that neglect the complexity of teen lives, books that don't embrace history or ideas or culture or the environment or real, abundant pressures as they also introduce characters and plot, books that don't investigate the power of language itself. I'm uncomfortable with easy. I'm uncomfortable with marketing machines that are motivated solely by the brass ring of commercial success, which is not always the same thing as the gold ring of genuine meaning.

But I'm also uncomfortable with the idea that all YA is to be shelved far below "real" books and that those who write it are second-rate dabblers. I'm a believer in seeking out the best in every genre—the best poems, the best history, the best biographies, the best "adult" novels, the best picture books, the best memoirs, the best middle grade, the best YA. Because there is, in fact, a great YA out there. There are people who are making the most of this very elastic form to write ferociously about kids who need their stories told.

Last week, at Books of Wonder, I bought Cordelia Jensen's teen novel-in-verse, Skyscraping, a true work of art about which you'll be reading more about here.

Not long ago, I read e.E. Charlton-Trujillo's When We Was Fierce, another novel in verse that is so deeply grounded in e.E.'s understanding of kids who need and deserve a voice. "If we can agree that the finest story-making erupts from impassioned empathy and a willingness to bend the rules of language," I wrote, after I read it, "then we must agree that e.E. Charlton-Trujillo ranks among our very finest story-makers. This is a lyric manifest that commands us to hear, so that we might have a chance at being healed."

You know how I feel about the other extraordinary YA writers in my real and reading life; I've written about them here. You know, too, how despairing I can get when literature devolves into gimmickry or merely brand-able ideas.

But let's evaluate each single book for what it might be and not dispense with entire categories.

And let's be kinder to each other.

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The Thing About Jellyfish/Ali Benjamin: a major new voice for younger readers (for all readers)

When Jessica Shoffel speaks, I listen.

She's the sort of person who makes you feel seen. The sort who, as a Penguin publicist, didn't just oversee the campaigns of mega-watt writers like Laurie Halse Anderson and Jacquelyn Woodson, but also took time to read my novel Small Damages, to tell me how the story worked within her, and to create a glorious press release and campaign on its behalf. The sort who stood with me through a difficult time. The sort who found me alone at the Decatur, GA, book festival and included me in conversations, in a dinner, in a memorable hour with Tomie dePaulo. The sort who makes time in a hugely busy life to reach out to young people who have experienced loss, to run marathon races on behalf of medical research, and to talk to a dear family member, Kelsey, about what it is like to work among books. Jess is smart and gracious and kind and hard working. She is there. She is present. She is with you; she is for you. She is a rare kind of sisterhood.

And so when Jess wrote a few weeks ago to tell me about a book she had just read in her new role as Director of Publicity for Little Brown and Company's Books for Young Readers, when she said it was my kind of book, I didn't for one instant doubt her. Can I send it to you? she asked. Of course, I said.

And so it arrived. And so I have read it.

This book—this gorgeous, intelligent, moving, seamless, award-destined, Andrea Spooner edited book—is a debut middle grade novel by Ali Benjamin called The Thing About Jellyfish. Everything about this story enwraps, engages, enraptures. Its frizzy-haired, science-leaning, universe-scanning narrator who has lost her former best friend. Its obsession with the jellies that bloom incessantly within our seas, leave the big whales hungry, endanger us with their undying stings. Its child-hearted hopes and its big-minded mix of science and mystery. Its neat division into paper parts—purpose, hypothesis, straight through to conclusion. Its language—just the right bright, the right curious. (I could quote from every single line and prove that to you; Ali Benjamin never writes anything less than a wonderful sentence.) The science itself—impeccably (never intrusively) filtered into this story about friendship, family, school, and school teachers who care.

And then—watch—Diana Nyad appears. Diana Nyad, the endurance swimmer who refused to give up on her dream. The endurance swimmer who braved the countless jellyfish stings and made it to the other side. Symbol, hero, character. There she is, in this most exquisite book.

(For more on Diana and her relationship with my friend and agent Amy Rennert, read here. And look for Diana's much buzzed memoir, Find a Way, out in October).

In this summer of contemplation, this summer of weighing the odds, of wondering through the writing again, of maybe or maybe not trying again, of not knowing, it is a glorious thing to be reminded of what is possible with books. The thing about The Thing About is what says about what possible is.

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paperback writer (three upcoming releases)

On this day, ahead of a predicted storm, I'm happy to share these three images—snapshots of books living forward.

Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir will be released in a month or so by Avery—its fourth printing—with a newly crafted afterword (featuring some of the newly read memoirs and evolving memoir theories I've had since Handling was first released in August 2013).

Going Over will be released by Chronicle as a paperback in November, following a happy run as a hardback (thank you, kind librarians, teachers, readers).

Small Damages has just been released by Speak (Penguin Random House) in its second edition paperback—slightly different packaging, same story, and much gratitude to those who found and read the book either as a Philomel hardback or a first-edition Speak paperback.

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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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Jessica Shoffel Runs the NYC Marathon, in honor of those she loves

I cannot count the number of times I have said, to someone, I love Jessica Shoffel. We met through her extraordinary work as a Penguin publicist, upon the release of Small Damages.

She wrote a letter for that book that was perfection.

She stayed true to this quiet, little book as it found its right home in review after review.

We have remained dear friends through every transition.

We spent hours together in Decatur, GA—talking life, talking dreams—and it is because of Jess that I one day received a handwritten note from Tomie dePaola.

She is a radiating beauty—intelligent and kind, wise beyond her years, as equally devoted to a small author like myself as she is to the big names she illuminates (Tomie, for one, but also, at this very moment, Laurie Halse Anderson)—and here she is, moments after running the New York City marathon, standing with her mom, Joanne Shoffel.

Jess, I asked her just now, do you mind if I put your photo on my blog? She said I could. I cried a little, because it's about time that I get to share this beautiful young lady with you.

Jess says, and I quote:

"... it was a great moment because I ran with the American Cancer Society DetermiNation team in memory of my dad, Stan Shoffel, and my best friend’s dad, Tom Leo. My dad passed when I was a teenager. Mr. Leo was like a father to me when I went away to college and was far from family. He passed away in the spring."

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The Day the Crayons Quit/Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers

So there I was, at Children's Book World in Haverford, to hear Elizabeth Wein talk about her passion for World War II, her adventures in flying, and the thoughts she had while slicing an onion, which led her to the tremendous success we all know as Code Name Verity. (This is how the big stuff happens, folks. A long-time passion for a period in time, personal passion for a hobby like flight, and knife work. Also, slicing the onion must have made some sort of imprint on Elizabeth's storytelling sensibilities for, as she related last night, her books make many people cry, including Elizabeth herself).

I arrived early, because I love that place, but also because I was on the hunt for The Day the Crayons Quit, that new uber-bestselling picture book that my friend Michael Green of Philomel helped guide into existence.

People have been buzzing about this book since the BEA (and probably before that, but I wouldn't know, because I'm rarely in the know). My first trip to another bookstore earlier in the day had left me empty handed. But there I was, at Children's Book World, and there we were, the crayon book and me—just two copies left. One for the beautiful, age-appropriate family sitting on the step reading, and one for moi.

This adorable book is just what its title promises—a klatch of overused (except for Pink), big personality (let's leave White out of this), stripped down (I'm looking at you, Peach), niggling (spoiler alert: Yellow and Orange are at war), and negotiating (oh, Green, thank you for breaking type and defeating envy in favor of peace keeping) crayons that have decided to have a word or two with little Duncan, who finds a stack of letters in his waxy box.

I wrote "age appropriate" a few sentences ago, but don't think my old age stopped me. I bought a copy of this book for myself, because I do believe that nothing is more universal, and more endlessly appealing, than an excellent picture book.

This is an excellent picture book.

(Also, these books are going fast. Better get one for yourself real soon.)

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At Penn, At Home: Two Small Damages Sightings

A few weeks ago, I, like most every other voting American ultimately is, was summoned for jury duty. The news came at a treacherous time—so much client work and a book to launch and some overwhelming, long-tail exhaustion—and yet, I wasn't going to shirk the responsibility. We live in a democracy, and jury duty is part of our contractual obligation. 

Still, when my number was not called—when 78 jurors were needed and I had been labeled 86—I was, in a word, relieved. Two words: Greatly relieved. I was able to do, in broad daylight, all that I would have had to do at night.

One of those things involved a trip to the University of Pennsylvania campus, which I was photographing for an upcoming story. By the time I was done with my work, I had just 18 minutes to catch my train, and so I cut through the Penn bookstore on Walnut Street, to get a little closer to Chestnut. I know this bookstore well, spend happy time in it, noticed that the shelves had been rearranged. A large teen fiction section now beckoned. I took the slightest detour, the quickest look. There, to my happy surprise, sat Small Damages, the paperback. I snapped a photograph while a man walked by. "I wrote that," I said. He smiled.

Today I rose in the dark and banged away (again) at corporate work, grateful for the tumbling hours. I didn't leave my chair for hours, didn't live the weather, which aggrieved me. It was late in the afternoon when I went out to the stoop and found a box that had been addressed to me.

And there they were, my very own copies of Small Damages, a book I will always love for all it represents—faith in one's self over many years, collaboration with a beautiful editor and house. And this paperback edition—it's just gorgeous.

Two gifts on two given days.

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in which my nieces (and Serena) take their turn at responsive writing, at Hooray of Books

One of the very great privileges of spending yesterday in Alexandria, VA, at Hooray for Books, in the company of Debbie Levy, family, and friends, was the time we took to write together. Debbie encouraged us to write in the tradition of her mother's poesiealbum—the book of brief holocaust-era letters, urgings, and clippings that inspired her book, The Year of Goodbyes. She asked us, specifically, to think about this:

What about you are you sure your friends or classmates will remember 70 years from now? What do you hope they forget? (We adults were urged to think about what we hope long-lost friends who encounter us now will remember—and forget.)

Since we had been talking about the thin line between fiction and truth, I urged our readers/writers to take something from their pocket and write its autobiography. We heard from paperclips, car keys, phones, and a dollar bill, among other laughter-inducing things.

Here, below, are two responses. The first is by my niece, Julia, who is entering her second year at the Corcoran College of Art and Design; she is a talented photographer. The second is from Claire, whose 13th birthday I helped celebrate earlier this year. She's a big reader, a fabulous student, and all-round athlete.

The Remember? Forget? Exercise/Julia Emma Kephart Roberts

I go to a small small school in the basement of a museum, where you can usually find me in the first cubby of one of the largest darkrooms you've ever seen. There are about 300 students total - smaller than my graduating high school class. I know them all by name and face. I follow them on instagram and tumblr and flickr and every other website imaginable. But older folks be forewarned this means nothing in the actual relationship I have with these people. It also means nothing in regards to what I know about them or what they know about me. What stands out to one person about myself could be completely overlooked or misread by another. Because if you think about it, none of us really know what is remembered or forgotten or even if any of it is true or false, just what we remember about ourselves.

Autobiography of a SmartPhone/Claire Kephart Roberts

There’s a sad but almost happy loneliness the comes with being placed in someone's back pocket and sat on about a hundred times each day. You don’t get to choose what you wear, how you act, or most of all who you are. Everything about you is decided by someone of a higher standard. Although I am smarter then most significants around me I have no choice but to sit quietly and do what I am told. But the idea that my quietness has changed the life of anyone who finds me and my friends is almost remarkable. Significants put their life in us, what we hold is more then a game and social websites, everything typed and every scratch we acquire puts a new, maybe scary thought in our significant's head. Every little thing we do slowly eventually will blur our significant's lines until unreadable and they have no choice but to totally completely rely on us until we ourselves rule them.

And then there's this amazing narrative about our day together, written by Serena Agusto-Cox, who dressed her super-well-behaved little girl in bright pink and shared her with us. Serena has a response to the writing prompt in this post—a beautiful poem. I encourage you to click this link, and read it for yourself.

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Small Damages: it's paperback pub day!

The very great Jessica Shoffel sent me this copy of Small Damages, delivered on the day of the book's paperback release by the Penguin imprint, Speak.

It's a beautiful package, this book. Ever since Tamra Tuller acquired this story for Philomel, it has been given extraordinarily good care—through editing and copy editing, through design and publicity, through its transformation as a paperback.

I placed my implicit trust in Tamra, Michael Green, Jessica Shoffel, and the sales team, and I was never given a reason to doubt. When Eileen Kreit and her team assumed responsibility for the paperback, I was equally at ease.

So much can go wrong in the publication of a book. Nothing went wrong with this one. I am so proud and happy to have my first paperback (with the stepback!) copy of Small Damages in hand. And I will be grateful, always.

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Small Damages Paperback: the gorgeous stepback

Sometimes you write books and love those books and they disappear. Sometimes they're never published. Sometimes the person who doesn't love your book is precisely who you thought you were writing your book for.

And sometimes you get so hugely lucky. You find an editor (and friend) like Tamra Tuller and a house like Philomel, a publicist like Jessica Shoffel and a friend like Michael Green. And then (you can't believe your continuing luck) you get a paperback team like Eileen Kreit and Krista Asadorian, who package the book with great grace.

Small Damages will be released by Penguin as a paperback on July 11th, and include this gorgeous stepback page. I am so grateful. I'll be launching the paperback in Old Town Alexandria, VA, and would love to see you there.

New News: Small Damages has been named a 2013 Carolyn W. Field Honor Book by the Pennsylvania Library Association.

July 27, 2013, 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Launching Small Damages paperback/Memoir Workshop
with Debbie Levy
Hooray for Books
Old Town Alexandria, VA 

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Small Damages Named to the Bankstreet Best Children's Books of the Year List

I am so grateful to Bankstreet for this honor—for including Small Damages among a tremendous list of novels written for younger readers.

Small Damages was named in the "Today" list and cited along with David Levithan's Every Day, John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, Tanita Davis's Happy Families, Aaron Karo's Lexapros and Cons, Martine Leavitt's My Book of Life by Angel, Deb Caletti's The Story of Us, and Kim Purcell's Trafficked, among other titles. It received a star for Outstanding Merit.

The entire list—of books for all ages, in all categories—can be found here.

Bankstreet does a lot of good in this world.

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On the eve of the Out of the Easy launch, with Ruta Sepetys

Tomorrow my friend Ruta Sepetys will launch her second novel, a book rich with landscape, intrigue, color, and snap called Out of the Easy (Philomel). It's a book that transported me to steamy 1950s New Orleans during a steamy 2012 Philadelphia day. It's a book that people have been talking about for a year, a book that, in recent days, has been featured prominently in every major news journal (with a full-page Entertainment Weekly interview, to boot!). Set to embark on a ten-week tour, Ruta is also launching some pretty cool initiatives, one of which should be of great interest to my young writing friends.

This initiative is nationwide, a Philomel-sponsored scholarship contest that will award one high-school student with $5,000 toward the college of their choice; the participating school will also receive 25 Penguin books. Those interested will want to read Ruta's book and reflect as well on a certain Charles Dickens quote. For details, go here.

In the meantime, I encourage you to embrace Ruta, her stories, and her great big soul as she travels somewhere near you. Her extensive tour dates (which actually extend through the entire year and will take her around the world) can be found here.

Finally, here is Ruta herself, on the making of Out of the Easy.

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2013 NYC Teen Author Festival

A few days before I left for a research trip to Florence, Italy, I spent this Friday evening at Children's Book World with David Levithan. Of course he is a legend. Of course I'd read many of his books. Of course I'd seen him charm and challenge at a Publishing Perspectives conference. But I hadn't met him in person until that evening, hadn't seen his fabled generosity at work until, at this group session with my friend Jennifer Hubbard, Ellen Hopkins, and Eliot Schrefer, I watched as he put others on his stage.

Because, in addition to writing bestselling, critically acclaimed books alone and with others, in addition to finding, editing, and believing in some of the most popular young adult books of our time, in addition to being a spokesperson for the possible in literature, David Levithan time and again puts others on his stage. Inviting rising young adult authors to appear with him when he is launching his own books. Serving as a moderator while established young adult authors speak. And spending who knows how many hours putting together what has become a phenomenon: the NYC Teen Author Festival.

He might have written an entirely new book, I imagine. But he spent time doing this. Over ninety authors from over a dozen publishers, over seven days, to quote David. And we're all hoping that you will both attend and help spread word.

I'll be whisking away from my Penn teaching/corporate world for the "mega signing" at Books of Wonder on March 24, when I'll remember what it is to be an author again. I've got my fingers crossed that you'll be there.

And while you are waiting for this fab event, pre-order David's upcoming book, coauthored with Andrea Creamer and edited by my friend Jill Santopolo for that wonderful house, Philomel. It's a really, truly excellent book. How excellent? Read here.

2013 NYC Teen Author Festival

http://www.facebook.com/NYCTeenAuthorFestival <http://www.facebook.com/NYCTeenAuthorFestival>

Monday, March 18  (Mulberry Street Branch of the NYPL, 10 Jersey Street b/w Mulberry and Lafayette, 6-8):   

I’ll Take You There:  A Change of Scenery, A Change of Self

Description:  In their recent books, each of these authors have plunged their teen characters into new places as a way of revealing their true selves.  We’ll talk about this YA journey narrative – where it comes from, and what it can lead to.

Gayle Forman
Kristen-Paige Madonia
Bennett Madison
Jennifer E. Smith
Melissa Walker

moderator: David Levithan


Tuesday, March 19  (WORD Bookstore,  7-8:30, 126 Franklin St, Greenpoint):

The Only Way Out is Through:  Engaging Truth through YA

Description:  Pain. Confusion. Loss. Mistakes. Revelation. More mistakes. Recovery.  One of the things that makes YA work is its desire to engage the messy truths of both adolescence and life in general.  Here we talk about what it’s like to engage this messy truth, and how to craft it into a story with some kind of form. 

Crissa Chappell
Tim Decker
Ellen Hopkins
Amy McNamara
Jessica Verdi

moderator: David Levithan


Wednesday. March 20 (42nd St NYPL, South Court room, 6-8): 

Imagination: A Conversation

Description:  It’s a given that authors’ minds are very strange, wonderful, twisted, illogical, inventive places.  Here we talk to five rather imaginative authors about how they conjure the worlds in their books and the stories that they tell, along with glimpses of the strange and wonderful worlds they are creating at the present.

Holly Black
Lev Grossman
Michelle Hodkin
Alaya Johnson
Robin Wasserman

moderators:  David Levithan and Chris Shoemaker
                       

Thursday, March 21:
SOHO Teen night, 6-9pm (Books of Wonder, 18 W18th St)

Celebrate the launch of SOHO Teen, featuring readings by Jacquelyn Mitchard, Joy Preble, Margaux Froley, Elizabeth Kiem, Heather Terrell & Ricardo Cortés, and Lisa & Laura Roecker.

                       

Friday March 22, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL, Berger Forum, 2nd floor, 2-6)

2:00 – Introduction

2:10-3:00: He Said, She Said

Description:  Not to be too mysterious, but I will email these authors separately about what I’m thinking for this.

He:
Ted Goeglein
Gordon Korman
Lucas Klauss
Michael Northrop

She:
Susane Colasanti
E. Lockhart
Carolyn Mackler
Sarah Mlynowski
Leila Sales

moderator:  David Levithan


3:00-4:00:  Taking a Turn: YA Characters Dealing with Bad and Unexpected Choices

Description:  In each of these authors’ novels, the main character’s life takes an unexpected twist.  Sometimes this is because of a bad choice.  Sometimes this is because of a secret revealed.  And sometimes it doesn’t feel like a choice at all, but rather a reaction.  We’ll talk about following these characters as they make these choices – both good and bad. Will include brief readings illuminating these choices.

Caela Carter
Eireann Corrigan
Alissa Grosso
Terra Elan McVoy
Jacquelyn Mitchard
Elizabeth Scott
K. M. Walton

moderator:  Aaron Hartzler


4:00-4:10:  Break

4:10-4:40:  That’s So Nineteenth Century

Description:  A Conversation About Playing with 19th Century Archetypes in the 21st Century

Sharon Cameron
Leanna Renee Hieber
Stephanie Strohm
Suzanne Weyn

Moderator:  Sarah Beth Durst


4:40-5:30:  Alternate World vs. Imaginary World

Description:  Of these authors, some have written stories involving alternate or parallel versions of our world, some have made up imaginary worlds for their characters, and still others have written books that do each.  We’ll discuss the decision to either connect the world of a book to our world, or to take it out of the historical context of our world.  How do each strategies help in telling story and developing character?  Is one easier than the other? Is the stepping off point always reality, or can it sometimes be another fictional world?

Sarah Beth Durst
Jeff Hirsch
Emmy Laybourne
Lauren Miller
E. C. Myers
Diana Peterfreund
Mary Thompson

Moderator:  Chris Shoemaker


Friday March 22, Barnes & Noble Reader’s Theater/Signing (Union Square B&N, 33 E 17th St, 7-8:30)

Eireann Corrigan
Elizabeth Eulberg
Jeff Hirsch
David Levithan
Rainbow Rowell
Nova Ren Suma

Saturday March 23, Symposium (42nd Street NYPL,  Bergen Forum, 2nd Floor, 1-5)

1:00 – Introduction

1:10-2:10 – Defying Description:  Tackling the Many Facets of Identity in YA

Description:  As YA literature evolves, there is more of an acknowledgment of the many facets that go into a teenager’s identity, and even categories that once seemed absolute now have more nuance.  Focusing particularly, but not exclusively, on LGBTQ characters and their depiction, we’ll discuss the complexities about writing about such a complex experience.

Marissa Calin
Emily Danforth
Aaron Hartzler
A.S. King
Jacqueline Woodson

moderator:  David Levithan


2:10-2:40 -- New Voices Spotlight

Description:  Each debut author will share a five-minute reading from her or his work

J. J. Howard
Kimberly Sabatini
Tiffany Schmidt
Greg Takoudes


2:40-3:30 – Under Many Influences: Shaping Identity When You’re a Teen Girl

Description: Being a teen girl is to be under many influences – friends, parents, siblings, teachers, favorite bands, favorite boys, favorite web sites.  These authors will talk about the influences that each of their main characters tap into – and then talk about what influences them as writers when they shape these characters.

Jen Calonita
Deborah Heiligman
Hilary Weisman Graham
Kody Keplinger
Amy Spalding
Katie Sise
Kathryn Williams

moderator:  Terra Elan McVoy

3:30-3:40 – Break

3:40-4:20 – Born This Way: Nature, Nurture, and Paranormalcy

Description:  Paranormal and supernatural fiction for teens constantly wrestles with issues of identity and the origin of identity.  Whether their characters are born “different” or come into their powers over time, each of these authors uses the supernatural as a way to explore the nature of self.  

Jessica Brody
Gina Damico
Maya Gold
Alexandra Monir
Lindsay Ribar
Jeri Smith-Ready
Jessica Spotswood

moderator:  Adrienne Maria Vrettos


4:20-5:00 – The Next Big Thing

Description:  Again, not to be too mysterious, but I will email these authors separately about what I’m thinking for this.

Jocelyn Davies
Leanna Renee Hieber
Barry Lyga
Maryrose Wood


Saturday March 23:  Mutual Admiration Society reading at McNally Jackson (McNally Jackson, Prince Street, 7-8:30): 

Sharon Cameron
A.S. King
Michael Northrop
Diana Peterfreund
Victoria Schwab
Nova Ren Suma

hosted by David Levithan


Sunday March 24:  Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing at Books of Wonder (Books of Wonder, 1-4): 

1-1:45:
Jessica Brody  (Unremembered, Macmillan)                         
Marisa Calin  (Between You and Me, Bloomsbury)             
Jen Calonita  (The Grass is Always Greener, LB)                 
Sharon Cameron  (The Dark Unwinding, Scholastic)                       
Caela Carter  (Me, Him, Them, and It, Bloomsbury)            
Crissa Chappell  (Narc, Flux)             
Susane Colasanti  (Keep Holding On, Penguin)                                
Zoraida Cordova  (The Vicious Deep, Sourcebooks)                        
Gina Damico   (Scorch, HMH)                                  
Jocelyn Davies  (A Fractured Light, HC)                  
Sarah Beth Durst  (Vessel, S&S)                               
Gayle Forman  (Just One Day, Penguin)
Elizabeth Scott  (Miracle, S&S)         


1:45-2:30                   
T. M. Goeglein (Cold Fury, Penguin)                                    
Hilary Weisman Graham (Reunited, S&S)                                                                            
Alissa Grosso  (Ferocity Summer, Flux)                                
Aaron Hartzler  (Rapture Practice, LB)         
Deborah Heiligman  (Intentions, RH)                       
Leanna Renee Hieber  (The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart, Sourcebooks)         
Jeff Hirsch  (Magisterium, Scholastic)                       
J. J. Howard  (That Time I Joined the Circus, Scholastic)                 
Alaya Johnson   (The Summer Prince, Scholastic)     
Beth Kephart (Small Damages, Penguin)                              
Kody Keplinger  (A Midsummer’s Nightmare, LB)

2:30-3:15                   
A.S. King  (Ask the Passengers, LB)                                    
Emmy Laybourne  (Monument 14, Macmillan)                                 
David Levithan  (Every Day, RH)    
Barry Lyga  (Yesterday Again, Scholastic)                           
Brian Meehl  (Suck it Up and Die, RH)                                
Alexandra Monir (Timekeeper, RH)  
Michael Northrop  (Rotten, Scholastic)                     
Diana Peterfreund  (For Darkness Shows the Stars, HC)                 
Lindsay Ribar (The Art of Wishing, Penguin)                      
Rainbow Rowell  (Eleanor & Park, St. Martin’s)                  
Kimberly Sabatini  (Touching the Surface, S&S)                  
Tiffany Schmidt  (Send Me a Sign, Bloomsbury)

3:15-4:00                   
Victoria Schwab  (The Archived, Hyperion) 
Jeri Smith-Ready  (Shine, S&S)
Amy Spalding  (The Reece Malcolm List, Entangled)                      
Stephanie Strohm  (Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink, HMH)                     
Nova Ren Suma  (17 & Gone, Penguin)                    
Greg Takoudes  (When We Wuz Famous, Macmillan)         
Mary Thompson  (Wuftoom, HMH) 
Jess Verdi  (My Life After Now, Sourcebooks)                                            
K.M. Walton  (Empty, S&S) 
Suzanne Weyn  (Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters, Scholastic)                         
Kathryn Williams  (Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous, Macmillan)                   
  

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thoughts on the new year: the bounty of friendship, the dearness of Caribousmom

We celebrated New Years Eve with truly beloved friends, as we now do each year.  We choose a restaurant halfway between our homes, in a town called Skippack.  We talk students, dance, Hollywood, art, travels, books, life as it is and was.

The bounty of friendship.

In so many ways the year now gone terrified those of us who love this country and care about the rising class of dreamers.  I am vulnerable and incapable, often.  I have not learned what I can do in the face of national and personal tragedies, congressional cacophony and faulty machines.  I have lost my faith in the sanctity of theaters and classrooms.  I have worried about weather.  I have felt sickened by conversations that stopped far short of anybody actually listening.

I have wanted to make room.  I have asked myself how.  I have asked myself questions.

Why are we screaming so much at one another?  What is the payoff of cruelty?  How can we push a man into the path of an oncoming train?  How can we survive the gunning down of children, of teachers, of people watching Batman?  What can we do for the friend who has lost a brother far too soon?  What can we say when illness happens, and when it returns, when jobs are lost, when everything is so preposterously uncertain, when the storms sweep in?  When we don't know and we need to know?  When there are people relying on us?

We can, I think, be kinder to one another.  We can be more trustworthy.  Less self-indulgent with our anger or our needs.  Less quick to correct or accuse, humiliate or shame.  More aware of the connections between people and things, and how easily—pushed too far, intruded upon—they're broken.  We can surround ourselves with the bounty of friendship, and it is this bounty, and the love in my own family, that sustains me, that shows me how.  It is this bounty that I am particularly grateful for, on this first day of this new year. 

Earlier this year, Wendy Robards, a daughter, a sister, a wife, a caretaker, one of the smartest readers of books anywhere, a quilter, read an early copy of Small Damages and began to make a quilt that captured the colors in the story.  When it arrived I was astonished.  Since it arrived, I have shown it to every single person who comes, sometimes I show them twice.  It is symbolic, this quilt—bright, particular, personal, and made and given out of love.

Today Wendy has posted her favorite books of the year, and, Wendy being Wendy, first provides incredible reviews of a truly stellar collection, then finally names Small Damages as her favorite read of the year.

A tree grows for you in my heart, Wendy.

Love to all of you in 2013.

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Invisibility: Andrea Cremer and David Levithan/Reflections

This is how it happens:  I write an adult book that Laura Geringer discovers and reads; she gets in touch.  For a year Laura and I talk about how ill-equipped I feel I am to write books for young adults.  A conversation in a Philadelphia restaurant changes everything; I am persuaded to try.  I write what will become several books for Laura, and in the midst of story development, copy editing, cover design, and publicity, I meet Jill Santopolo—utterly adorable, fashion savvy, super smart, wildly well-organized, and Laura's second in command at Laura Geringer Books/HarperTeen, where I will write four books, one of them (The Heart is Not a Size) being Jill's very own.  Then one day Jill calls to say that she is headed to Philomel to join a children's book empire carved out by a man named Michael Green.  I'd really like Michael, Jill says.  She hopes I'll eventually meet him.

(She is right.  And I do.  Facts made true in reverse order.)

A few years later, I see Jill again, this time at an ALA event, where she slips me a copy of Between Shades of Gray and whispers two words in my ear:  Tamra Tuller.  Jill and Tamra are, by now, colleagues at Philomel, and Tamra edits the kind of books I like to write.  Jill, looking trademark gorgeous, encourages me to read Ruta Sepetys' international bestseller of a debut novel as proof.  I do.  Again, I am persuaded.  Not long afterwards, I have the great privilege of joining the Philomel family when Tamra reads a book I've been working on for ten years and believes that it has merit. Jill has opened her new home to me, and I am grateful.

What happens next is that Tamra moves to Chronicle and I, with a book dedicated to her because I do love her that much, move to Chronicle, too.  What happens next is Jill and I remain friends (Jill and I and Michael and Jessica, too (not to mention Laura)).  Which is all a very long way of saying how happy I was to receive two of Jill's newest creations just a few weeks ago.  Last night and early this morning I read the first of them.  It's called Invisibility, it's due out in May, and it is co-authored by Jill's fabulously successful Philomel author, Andrea Cremer (The Nightshade Series) and the big-hearted author/editor/sensation/Lover's Dictionary Guru David Levithan.

I hear David Levithan—his soulfulness, his tenderness, his yearning, his love—when I read this book. I hear Andrea Cremer—her careful and credible world building, her necessary specificity, her other-worldly imagination.  It's a potent combination in a story about a Manhattan boy whom no one in the world can see.  No one, that is, except for the girl who has moved in down the hall—a girl who has escaped Minnesota with a brother she deeply loves and a mother who cares for them both, but must work long hours to keep her transplanted family afloat.  Cremer and Levithan's Manhattan is tactile, navigable, stewing with smells and scenes.  Their fantasy world—spellcraft, curses, witches, magic—is equally cinematic and engaging.  The love between the invisible boy and the seeing (and, as it turns out, magically gifted) girl feels enduring, and then there's that other kind of love—between Elizabeth and her brother—that gives this story even greater depth and meaning.  The parents aren't nearly bad either (not at all).

What it is to be invisible.  What it is to see and be seen.  What it is to know there is evil in the world and that any strike against it will scar and (indeed) age those who take a stand.  Invisibility is a fantasy story, but it is more than that, too.  It's a growing-up story in which courage, truth-telling, sacrifice, and vulnerability figure large, and in which love of every kind makes a difference. 

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Tomorrow: A Day so Full, so Rich

5:26 AM Train to Philadelphia

6:30 AM Train to NYC

8:30 AM Pre-conference conversations with my dear friends Jennifer Brown (our nation's ambassador for children's books), Laura Geringer (editor of five of my YA books), Rahna Reiko Rizzuto (a very dear friend with whom I have strolled so much of New York (and Central Park)), and Melissa Sarno (the fab blogger at This, Too, and the brain child behind the title of Handling the Truth). I'll also have the great pleasure of seeing, again, Ed Nawotka and Dennis Abrams of Publishing Perspectives and, later, Eliot Schrefer. 

9:30 AM Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers:  Tomorrow's YA/
Publishing Perspectives Conference, Keynote Address, Scholastic Building, New York City

10:30 AM: Drawing the Line: What's the Difference Between a YA and an Adult Book?/
Publishing Perspectives Conference Panel, with Andrew Losowsky, Books Editor, Huffington Post, Aimee Friedman, Senior Editor, Scholastic Trade, Elizabeth Perle, Editor, Huffington Post Youth Network, and Dan Weiss, Editor-at-large, St. Martin's Press

2:00 PM  Marketing meeting with the very good people of Gotham/Penguin (launching Handling the Truth next August)

3:15ish PM  Grabbing a hug from the one and only Jessica Shoffel of Philomel/Penguin (who took such good care of Small Damages)

4:40 PM Train from NYC to Philly, second train from Philly to Bryn Mawr in time to see...

7:30 PM  Anne Lamott, speaking at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, where I will be joined by Deacon Supreme, my own father, Horace Kephart

I will do nothing on Thursday, or almost nothing.  But tomorrow, I will leap, headlong.

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the Philadelphia Inquirer review of Small Damages

When the Philadelphia Inquirer contacted me earlier in the week seeking a photograph for a planned review of Small Damages, I tried very hard not to panic.  I have been so extraordinarily blessed with this book—that it found the right home, that it introduced me to people I will always love, that it was sent out into the world with such care.  I'd felt lucky enough, felt as if I could, indeed, not hope for any more luck.

I thought I'd be brave enough not to look for the review.  But this morning, unable to work, my thoughts in knots, I (my heart pounding in my throat as it does) did.

And I have been graced with extraordinary goodness. Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans read and thought deeply.  She understood what it was that I'd hoped to achieve.  She wrote beautifully.

I am so grateful.  The review can be found here.

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Remembering Ghosts in the Garden (with a huge thank you to Ed Goldberg) and Small Damages

I had only just returned from Florence and was still adjusting to the hours and the lack of pasta when Ed Goldberg, now a long-time friend, read my fifth book, Ghosts in the Garden, and shared his thoughts on his blog, Two Heads Together.  Ed is the kind of guy who never shouts and will not boast and does not stomp his feet or pop his bubble gum to get attention.  Only yesterday did he whisper in my ear:  Beth, I read that book.

And so he did, reinvigorating for me, in his thoughtful, surprising way, a book I wrote when I fully believed I was writing my last.  Writing is hard on the psyche—not making the books (I am dangerously addicted to the making of books), but living with them when they are out in the world.  They're not going to please everyone, nor should they.  Some will say that kindly, some will say it cruelly, some may veer from the truth, some may hurt people you love. You have to live with that, when you write books, and in writing Ghosts, I felt myself fading, vanishing toward another life, searching for another art to believe in. 

That was too many books ago, but it was a time I remember well and a feeling to which I often return. Ghosts in the Garden is a wandering, wondering book. I remain a wanderer and a wonderer, never precisely sure.

Just as Ed whispered in my ear yesterday, Jessica Shoffel, my beloved Philomel publicist, wrote to share the news that The Repository, a newspaper out of Canton, OH, had celebrated Small Damages as a novel "Worth Your Time."  Michael Green, Philomel's head honcho, wrote something Michael-ishly funny, after that.  But we're not telling.  Not a chance.   

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Small Damages: The Bookslut Review

Colleen Mondor, author of the Alaskan wilds, fearless reviewer, and famed blogger, has been a constant source of kindness to my books, and on this November morning I am so happy to wake up to her beautiful thoughts on Small Damages, which appear in an article called "A Dose of Reality" in the November issue of Bookslut.

Her final paragraph on the book is this, below.  But I encourage you to read the entire column, which also features Dream School, Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality, Dora: A Headcase, Happy Families, and Baby's in Black.  Colleen, thank you.

Gracefully Kephart steers her protagonist through every emotion, every question and answer, and the conversations she has with her growing group of Spanish friends (notable for their wide range of age and circumstance) only make her journey that much more interesting. The Spanish setting, beautifully described throughout, adds an air of gentleness to the book's passages and makes this elegant title a novel of singular power. There are many books that treat teen pregnancy as a plot point, but Small Damages gives it the attention it deserves, and a character whose happily-ever-after is wonderful to watch unfold.

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on reading Small Damages through the eyes of an emerging critic

Earlier this afternoon I had the opportunity to sit and read an academic paper written by Jess Ferro, a young woman studying children's literature at the University of Florida who is also the voice behind Alice in Baker Street, a blog focused on books and art for the young.  Jess's paper—beautifully crafted and surprising at so many turns—took, as its central focus, voice, agency, and the use of the pronoun "I" in two young adult books.  One of those books was Judy Blume's Forever.  The other was my own Small Damages.

It is not my place here to share Jess's conclusions; they belong to her.  I would, however, like to take a moment on what is a gray and cold day in these parts to thank Jess for such a close and generous reading of Small Damages.  Teen years are complex; they are hard.  They are shaped by lonely convictions and accidental conversations, by fathers and friends.  I have made it my business, in the stories I write, to represent all the influences, good fortunes, mishaps, and genetic codes that generate character and precipitate both action.  Some novels move quickly.  Some take a little time—make room for back story, strip black and white to grey.  I'll err on the side of time taking each novel out.  It feels far more true to the life that I know.

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