Foley Artist, Doppler on Wheels, Celebrity Designer, Islamist Authority, Choreographer, Bestselling Author, Yale Scholar, Extraordinary Hero, Athlete, My Brother: The 2015 Radnor High Hall of Fame Inductees

Yesterday and now again today: the celebration of the Radnor High 2015 Hall of Famers.

I was privileged to attend yesterday's ceremony—to watch my brother teach a master class to exceptionally bright young mathematicians (and to see him reunite with his favorite high school math teacher, Mrs. Swanson), to listen to the appreciative crowd as the inductees were named in that glossy gymnasium, to see my classmate Josh Wurman after so many years, and to thank some of the many people who make these two days what they are.

This year's inductees are remarkable—Jeffrey Bilhuber, a top designer whose clients include David Bowie and Anna Wintour, the best-selling author Kelly Corrigan, the military hero Mark Gibbons, the essential world affairs analyst and Islamist expert Shadi Hamid, the charming, internationally acclaimed choreographer Austin Hartel, the Yale scholar Maria Rosa Menocal, the multiple Academy Award winning Foley Artist John Roesch (more than a dozen of the films he has worked on have won Academy Awards), the uber athlete Jenepher Shillingford, and the acclaimed scientist, meteorologist, and Discovery Channel storm chaser Josh Wurman.

But the Radnor High students are equally remarkable. Their eagerness to go into the thick of Pascal's Triangle, their respect for Shadi's knowledge, their roar when John's "Dark Knight" and "Frozen" were mentioned, their interest in process, their questions about careers.

Yesterday I asked Shadi if part of his felt responsibility was to offer hope in his analysis of ISIS and great discontent. The act of understanding, Shadi said, is a form of hope—a beautiful response in difficult days. But the students of Radnor High are also a form of hope—their connection to those who have gone before, their appreciation for a couple of hours spent with those who were once rising, questioning, wondering, too.

In a few hours, the second half of the program will commence. I'm dashing down to Penn to give a mini talk, then hurrying back to watch more greatness unfold.

A huge thank you to Mr Skip Shoemaker, Jeanne Lynam, Sharon Reardon, and the many others who create these immeasurable moments.

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the responsibility of now (and honoring Radnor High Hall of Famers)

Over the course of this week I have walked the glorious Victoriana streets of Frenchtown, NJ, taught memoir in a bar called the Rat, given an impromptu one-hour address to a gathering of New Jersey kids, encouraged the idea of urgency in 20 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors, listened to the stories of the fourth and fifth graders of West Philly, hung out at the Water Works with a drone and a camera crew, met with my Wall Street client, and spent time thinking about the arc of corporate strategies and the lives of patients. Later today I'll make the drive to Harleysville, where we will talk about LOVE and where I will listen to the tales of others. Tomorrow and Saturday I will return to my high school and watch my brother be inducted into the Radnor High Hall of Fame. Not just my brother, of course, but nine others who have done remarkable (and I do mean remarkable) things with their lives.

Here's a video, if you'd like to meet these souls (and my brother).



All of this seeing and living and talking and listening takes place against the backdrop of a bruised and battered world. Not just Paris, not just the Russian airliner, not just Lebanon, but the screech of stump speeches, the war over refugees, the stories that are not getting told because of the stories that must get told.

How do any of us maintain our perspective?

I'm not sure I know.

I'm just sure that I have made a commitment to try to stay informed, to read the objective reports, to take into consideration multiple points of view, to not condemn a group of people for the actions of a small minority, to still believe, as my hero Terrence des Pres believed, that goodness is bigger than badness and still entirely possible. Also—and this is critical—to admit when I am wrong, to be willing to adapt, to conclude newly, to advocate more gracefully.

I am sad. I admit that I am. But if I allow the sadness to eradicate my hope or my faith in people, then I have been defeated.

I don't wish to be defeated.

And so I go out, I talk to others, I listen to others, I ask for their stories. I remain open to the possibility of good.

That is our responsibility, in these times.

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Frenchtown Memoir Workshop, Harleysville Book Club, Radnor High Hall of Fame

I'm not sure I'll ever be very good at simply moving forward with my own life when I am vividly aware of the terrible loss and hurt that has utterly rearranged the lives of others.

It doesn't feel right. But it's the only choice we have. Keep living.

And so, this week, there will be (between pauses, within silence) moments of study, moments of reflection, moments of celebration, moments of friendship, many interesting corporate projects, one unexpected audition, and three hours with some wet clay.

You are welcome to join us for the public events:

Today, November 15, on behalf of The Book Garden in Frenchtown, NJ, I'll be teaching a three-hour memoir workshop. Details are here. There is room. You can join us.

Tomorrow, November 16, at the Delaware Valley Regional High School, I'll be talking about the writers' life to an assembly of students and then providing insights on crafting the college essay.

Tuesday, November 17, I'll return to my work with the fourth and fifth graders of West Philadelphia, who will be refining the essays they began writing last week.

Thursday, November 19, I'll be at the wonderful Harleysville Books for the November Book Club Happy Hour, talking about our city and the power of love, an especially important topic, I think, in these days. The details are here.

On Friday and Saturday I will be at Radnor High School, joining my brother for his Radnor High Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We are, I believe, the first brother-sister pairing on that wall. I am over the moon for Jeff and grateful to all those on the committee who recognized his contributions to his rarefied world of engineering and mathematics.

Finally, the paperback of Going Over, my Berlin Wall novel, is being launched this month, and in celebration there are currently ten copies being offered in this Goodreads giveaway. 

Finally, finally, words of thanks to Chronicle Books and Junior Library Guild. This Is the Story of You has been selected for the Guild's Book Club.

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A Quick Moment at the Radnor High Hall of Fame Wall

Yesterday, prior to "Seussical," my father and I spent this moment along the Radnor High Hall of Fame wall. I don't think I'll ever win an honor that could mean as much as this one still means to me, and it was fun to share it with my dad.  (Thank you, Libby, for snapping the photo.)

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Eating our cake (too)

Last night, at the Radnor Memorial Library, I had the chance to look back over a lifetime of wanting and dreaming.  Opportunities such as that one don't come around too often, and they only exist because other people make them happen.  And so this morning I would like, first, to thank Pam and Molly, of the library, dear souls both, who set the chairs in perfect rows, ordered in a beautiful cake, mixed up a cranberry punch, and (mostly) put up with me and my projection nerves.  Thank you to Hannah of Children's Book World, who arrived with so many books in hand.  Thank you to Jim, who filmed the talk.  Thank you to my husband, Bill, whose tech know-how enables me to tell the stories I want to tell.  Thank you to my dad, who comes every time.  Thank you to my friends who kept the promises they'd made and trekked out in the rain.  Thank you to the Radnor community and to the teachers in neighboring districts and to the students who will be writers one day.

I worried the weather would keep you away.  Thank you for being brave.

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More Scenes (and a promise)

I have two new books to read this week—Dinaw Mengestu's How to Read the Air and my friend Susan Straight's Take One Candle Light a Room—and I am eager for those quiet hours, eager to escape into the worlds that others have created.  I'll be writing about those books here, as soon as I know just what to say.  

In the meantime, and finally (I promise), these last images from the Radnor High Hall of Fame weekend: 

In the first, my friend Ellen, who knew me in my years at Penn, stood beside me at my wedding, invited me to stand with her at hers, and has remained so dear.  In the second, "Precious" (and precious) filmmaker Lee Daniels, the extraordinary athlete Chris Sydnor (we ran track together, but let's just say he was a tad more talented in the speed department than I'd ever be), and yours truly, on four-inch, non-sprint-able heels.  In the third, my former English teacher, the inspiration for my fictional Dr. Charmin (Undercover);  she said she had hoped to write a perfect introduction, and oh, she did. Finally, it all begins with our parents, and here is my father, who I am so glad could spend the day with me.

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Representing: Radnor High Class of 1978

The magnificent, big-hearted, beautiful-eyed Lee Daniels, the mind and soul behind "Monster's Ball," "Precious," and so much else, brought us to tears with his remarks at the Radnor High Hall of Fame induction ceremony. 

I won't forget these past few days. 

Not. 

Ever.

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Radnor High Hall of Fame, an image from moments ago

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Radnor High Hall of Fame, Induction Day

Today I'll be inducted into the Radnor High Hall of Fame.

I type those words.  Sit back.  Wonder how that ever came to be.

I spent last evening in the home of Radnor graduates, parents, and administrators who are all working toward giving students the best education that can be gained.  I spent it talking to Nancy Carpenter Barnes, a fellow inductee, a well-known artist, the former president of the Barnes Foundation, and an Emmy-winning producer for public TV.  I'll spend today not just with Nancy, but with Lee Daniels, the film producer and director; John Galloway, the theologian; Christopher Goutman, the award-wining producer, director, and writer; Paul Michel, the federal judge who, among other things, served as an assistant prosecutor in the Watergate trial; Charles Ryan, the investment banker who created Russia's leading investment bank; and Chris Sydnor, the extraordinary athlete and coach.  The Egyptologist Henry George Fischer and the music writer and producer Andy Mark, both sadly deceased, will be remembered as well. 

The inductees will share this moment with the teachers and students of Radnor High, and I will be introduced by the very woman who inspired the smart, encouraging English teacher in my first young adult novel, Undercover.  She could not have been more than 25 back then.  She paired my reading of Juliet with a Romeo reading by my secret crush.  She read between weak, overwritten lines and saw the seeds of a writer.  I'll stand with her today.


There's more about this day here.  There is so much in my heart.  I don't even know who to thank.  But few honors have affected me in the way that today does.  I wish my mother were here to see this.

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From whence did this blog come?

In April 2005, following a tremendous bout of insomnia, I began, again, to write poems, a medium I had sidestepped for years.  Soon I was working visually with those sounds and songs of the lines and, with my husband's help, converting my photographs into washes of color that could frame and hold each poem.

It would have been nice to publish a book like that, but when it became clear that that wasn't to be, I began a blog—became a self-published poet/photographer, if you will, until the blog took on a life of its own.

Today I wish to thank Sam Strike, for her Radnor High Hall of Fame story in Mainline Media News.  I wish to thank Colleen Mondor, too, for including me in her most recent, and provocative, edition of What a Girl Wants.

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