TEDx: Let the Next Generation Speak

The news is not good.  We Americans have done so much wrong—borrowed and buried; abnegated and abrogated, failed—and today, as stocks crumble and foreign markets waver, as our pilloried economy once more retreats, blame takes center stage.  It's their fault.  It's his fault.  It's them.

I say we step aside, then, if we can't agree to find a cure.  I say let us give the next generation the stage—those big dreams, those bigger hearts, the power of that knowing.  Do you want to know what that looks like?  Do you want some good news for this day?  Then visit Allegro, where you will learn about TEDxRedmond and the work that Maya, her sister, Priya, and so many more are doing on behalf of hope, on behalf of this world.  They are calling their conference "The Spark in All of Us."  See what that means to them.

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Sisterly

This morning, the very dear and very smart Priya turns 15, and because her sister, Maya, adores her and hopes to surprise her and knows that we are out here wanting the same, she asked if we might post a little something in remembrance of this special day.

I had been wondering about what I might post, and then I had an idea that took me back into an old wooden photo album.  Perhaps, I thought, there is a photograph of me and my sister, something I might share.  I turned every page, didn't find the right shot.  I sifted through envelopes stuffed into the book's back pages.  It was in the very last envelope that I found this image, something I don't remember ever seeing before.  I must have been four here, my sister newborn.  Our mother more beautiful than one can say.

Happy Birthday, Priya, from one sister to another.

Love,

Beth

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HEART Day

A dear soul from a Colorado bookstore sent me this image yesterday—a gift of many proportions and a reminder that today The Heart is Not a Size is officially launched on the market.

Those who know far more than me—about how to share word of a book in a bookstore, about how to throw a book party, about how to create a Facebook fan page, about how to design a blog tour—are helping me in countless ways with this release, and I'll be forever grateful. Heart is my eleventh book. My second was the memoir, Into the Tangle of Friendship. Were I to return to Tangle after all these years, you better believe I'd be making room for a few new chapters.

Today the cover story for Heart is posted over at Melissa Walker's blog. Today Anna Lefler, that wild and crazy, smart one over at Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder informs us (which also means me) that there will be a Heart contest in her neck of the woods. Today I learn that there's a badge for Heart Facebook fans and a big blog tour planned. Last night I learned that Elizabeth Mosier has not just planned a Children's Book World party (in the Haverford book store, April 20, 7 PM), but like a party party. With watermelon juice and a pinata and salsa and Mexican chili-chocolate cookies (did you know there was such a thing?) and even a Beth Kephart trivia quiz as designed by her two brilliant actor/singer/writer daughters. (I hope I know at least two of the answers.)

Like I said, and I mean this:

I need to write a long addendum to Into the Tangle of Friendship. For now, this blog will have to serve as its proxy.

Additional thanks of the day to NomadReader, an aspiring writer and future librarian, for her review of Heart.

And even more thanks to Priya and the good souls of Readergirlz, for posting Priya's review today. Priya was one of the very first to read this book, and I will always be so grateful to her for her early words.

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What readergirlz sound like when readergirlz are talking

We readergirlz girlz tore up the keyboards last night talking everything from writerly schedules (thank you, Little Willow, for offering to make me breakfast); TV shows ("So You Think You Can Dance" rocks supreme); the joint appearance by Erin McIntosh and Melissa Walker in the newest six-word memoir book (oh, baby); certain showcase dance number videos that will never be aired (thank you, Mercy, for keeping our secret our secret); the emergence of Priya as a readergirlz street girl; favorite bands (yes, mine is still and will always be Bruce Springsteen); landscape as character (thank you, Nicole, for the question); favorite editors, past and present; how I stink at the samba (just ask Jean Paulovich); whether I will every write fantasy (thank you, Maya and Hipwriter Mama for your faith in my abilities); whether I've watched "Glee" (I'm so sorry, Lorie Anne); and why Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River was perhaps the most challenging and most rewarding book that I've yet published, though 2010 and beyond is filled with books and potential books that were probably even harder. All along Dia Calhoun and Holly Cupala were tossing out not just literary questions but riotously funny—and unexpected—images.

Which is all to say that if you haven't participated in a readergirlz chat, you really ought to. They happen twice a month or so. They will keep you at the edge of your fingertips.

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The Heart is Not a Size: A Priya Review

Magnificent Priya honored me with one of the very earliest reviews of Nothing but Ghosts, and she has honored me again this evening with this most exceptional review of The Heart is Not a Size, in which she found what I dared to hope (in my quiet, hopeful hours) a reader or two would find.

I shall say it again today; I shall say it, I am sure, tomorrow: It's a life of blessings.

Thank you, Priya.

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Sisterhood: Happy Birthday, Priya

Once there were two sisters—elegant and kind, smart but also (we suspect, we have been told) prone to giggles. One was two years younger than the other. She wrote a poem a day, sometimes two. The older one wrote beautiful poetry, too, and read deeply and wisely, and journeyed far to American Idol concerts and reported back with photos. She made so many friends in the blog universe that only she knew how to keep count.

The older sister, Priya, cherishes her younger sister, cherishes the poems she writes, makes it possible for her write them. She (we read in the preface to Maya Ganesan's Apologies to an Apple) "guards Maya's bike, she runs manuscript pages up the stairs from the printer and sometimes supplies piano accompaniment to our (poetry) lessons."

Not to be outdone, the younger sister, Maya, loves her sister, too—so much so that she has thrown her a surprise blog birthday party, inviting those of us who have grown to love these girls to welcome Priya into her fourteenth year.

Happy Birthday, Priya.

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Priya Ganesan and the first official review of Nothing but Ghosts

On a day when many a soul is out there celebrating a certain Saint's day, I'm here, post-dinner, celebrating Priya, a marvelous thirteen-year-old (thirteen!) who, like her sister, Maya, offers something quite unusual out there in the world—clear eyes, a good heart, that nothing-can-stop-it mind.

Priya e-mailed earlier in the day and asked if she might post a review of Nothing but Ghosts, a book she'd borrowed from Maya. Yours would be the first official review of NBG, I told her. I was eager to learn what she thought.

Well. Look. Besides the fact that she has written some of the kindest words I've ever read about a book of mine, Priya has written an adult-caliber review. For the quality of her mind I encourage you to visit the blog that she calls Book Crumbs.

Thank you, Priya.

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