a conversation, and a medley reading of my books, with Carla Spataro

Yesterday, as part of this week-long teaching at the Rosemont College Writers & Readers Retreat, Carla Spataro asked me questions about themes (and food) and then invited me to read. I chose to share what I think of as postcards from my books—the opening words from stories—Small Damages, Going Over, One Thing Stolen, This Is the Story of You, Flow—that take place around the world.

The video captures some of that. I am grateful for the conversation.

Read more...

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.

Read more...

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.

Read more...

An Upcoming Medley Read at Arcadia, Free and Open to the Public

On June 27th, I'll be joining Gretchen Haertsch at Arcadia University in Glenside, PA, as part of the Creative Writing Summer Weekend. I'll be conducting a private master class for the participants. I'll also be doing a public reading—a medley that will begin with some thoughts about the empathetic imagination and then move into four brief illustrative readings from Small Damages, Going Over, One Thing Stolen, and This Is the Story of You, the book that will launch next spring from Chronicle (and that I am page proofing this very weekend).

The doors are open to all of you. The reading is free. The facts below. Would love to see you there.

June 27, 2015

3 PM

Arcadia University

Beth Kephart Medley Reading

450 South Easton Road

Glenside, PA 19038

Read more...

Estela of Small Damages arrives in the mail, in the form of an antique bookmark

I write YA books; that is true. But I never write strictly and only of teens. I care about the sweep of generations. I think generations are relevant. Some of my very favorite characters are women even older (believe it!) than me. My Mud Angel and physician Katherine of One Thing Stolen. Stefan's East Berlin grandmother in Going Over. Old Carmen, the rugged beachcomber, of This Is the Story of You (due out next spring). And, of course, my Estela, the old Spanish cook in Small Damages—a character I lived with for a decade before she found herself inside that gorgeous cover.

But now look at the silver wing near the right upper edge of that cover. That is Estela herself, who came to me this afternoon by way of my husband's cousin, Myra. Estela in real life was my husband's father's mother—a loved, buoyant, life-affirming General Counsel in the United States who had also served as the Philippine ambassador to Portugal. I wear her ring as my engagement ring. I hear stories. And today I received this bookmark, which once clipped the pages of the books Estela read.

Myra's words (in impeccable handwriting):

This is an antique silver bookmark from El Salvador my grandmother Estela picked up—probably 50 years ago.... I decided it was time to send you this now. I always thought this should go to you—since you are the writer in the family and it came from William's home country.

 I am so in love with this gift. This piece of then. A bookmark shaped like a coffee bean that might as easily mark my third memoir about my marriage to this Salvadoran man, Still Love in Strange Places.

I thank you, Myra.

Read more...

does the entire book lie within its first two sentences? Herman Koch and a Kephart experiment

The only thing benign about Herman Koch's The Dinner is the title—which, like almost everything else about the story, is designed to throw the reader off. "My Dinner with Andre" this is not. Politics, culture, morality, and childrens' lives are at stake (only the first three were at stake in the movie). The questions: What would we do to protect a child who has committed a heinous act? What would we do if we had somehow (implicitly, explicitly) encouraged or modeled or genetically produced an evil creature? Who do we love and why do we love them and what does familial happiness look like? At what cost, secrets?

All this unfolds over the course of a meal in an expensive restaurant. Two brothers and their wives have come to High Civility to discuss a horrific, seamy event. Paul, whose jealousy and creepiness are transparent from the start, tells us the story. He tells us who he is, even as he repeatedly cautions that many parts of the tale are not our business.

It's a brutal, brilliant book (compared to Gone Girl, I think it greatly supersedes it). It's not the kind of book I typically read, it oozes with contemptible people and scenes, but I was riveted by Koch's ability to see his vision through—so entirely relentlessly. And then I got to the paperback's extra matter and an essay by Koch himself called "The First Sentence."

For me, a book is already finished once I've come up with the first sentence. Or rather: the first two sentences. Those first two sentences contain everything I need to know about the book. I sometimes call them the book's "DNA." As long as every sentence that comes afterward contains that same DNA, everything is fine.

Koch's first two sentences, in case you are wondering, are: "We were going out to dinner. I won't say which restaurant, because next time it might be full of people who've come to see whether we're there." And absolutely, yes. The entire book is bracketed within them.

I believe in the power of first sentences, too. I think about them as setters of mood and tone. I wondered, though, whether I could say, about any of my novels, that the entire story rests within the first two sentences. I decided to conduct a mini-experiment. I grabbed a few books from my shelf. Opened to page one. Conducted a self-interview and assessment. I had to cheat in one place only (Dr. Radway), where more than two sentences were required. Otherwise, I'm thinking Koch is onto something here. (And if it is true for my books, I suspect it is true for yours, too.)

From within the fissure I rise, old as anything. The gravel beneath me slides. — Flow

Once I saw a vixen and a dog fox dancing. It was on the other side of the cul-de-sac, past the Gunns' place, through the trees, where the stream draws a wet line in spring. — Undercover

In the summer my mother grew zinnias in her window boxes and let fireflies hum through our back door. She kept basil alive in ruby-colored glasses and potatoes sprouting tentacles on the sills. — House of Dance

There are the things that have been and the things that haven't happened yet. There is the squiggle of a line between, which is the color of caution, the color of the bird that comes to my window every morning, rattling me awake with the hammer of its beak. — Nothing but Ghosts

What I remember now is the bunch of them running: from the tins, which were their houses. Up the white streets, which were the color of bone. — The Heart Is Not a Size

 From up high, everything seems to spill from itself. Everything is shadowed. — Dangerous Neighbors

My house is a storybook house. A huff-and-a-puff-and-they'll-blow-it-down house. — You Are My Only

The streets of Seville are the size of sidewalks, and there are alleys leaking off from the streets. In the back of the cab, where I sit by myself, I watch the past rushing by. — Small Damages

There was a story Francis told about two best friends gone swimming, round about Beiderman's Point, back of Petty's Island, along the crooked Delaware. "Fred Spowhouse," he'd say, his breath smelling like oysters and hay. "Alfred Edwards." The two friends found drowned and buckled together, Spowhouse clutched up tight inside Edwards's feckless arms. — Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent

We live with ghosts. We live with thugs, dodgers, punkers, needle ladies, pork knuckle. — Going Over

If you could see me. If you were near. — One Thing Stolen

Sidenote: In every case, the first two sentences of my books existed within the book in draft one. Sometimes they weren't posted right up front in early drafts. But they always eventually got there.

Read more...

I don't know what it says, but I like it (Undercover, in the Netherlands)

It is possible to feel affection to people far away, in other countries—never met, never seen. This morning I am grateful to Callenbach, the Dutch publishing house that beautifully reproduced Small Damages not long ago and today shares Undercover, the first young adult novel I ever dared to write (1997), seems like centuries ago.

And get a load of that pink!

Thank you, Callenbach.

Read more...

a teen reader speaks about Small Damages

and because I so appreciate her taking the time to read and to record her thoughts, I post her video here.

Read more...

My conversation about the making of books, with Editor Tamra Tuller

A few days ago, Tamra Tuller and I got to talking over email, and then we kind of couldn't stop. Well, Tamra, being my editor, gently told me when it was time to stop. Otherwise, I'd have just kept going, I like this Tamra so very much.

Today our conversation is posted on the Chronicle Books Blog. It starts like this, below—

What role does an editor play in the development of a book? How does the relationship between writer and editor shape the story that emerges? Here, Chronicle editor Tamra Tuller and Going Over author Beth Kephart sit down to chat about the challenges, rewards, and often years-long process of creating a work of fiction together. 

Beth Kephart: For ten years, before I met you, I had been writing a novel called Small Damages. It had been many things. It had nearly found a publishing home. But looking back now, it was clear: It was always waiting for you. You would be the one to read, to embrace, to understand this story of southern Spain. How did I get so lucky to have you come into my life—to turn the first page of Small Damages, and then the second one?

Tamra Tuller: Well, Beth, first of all I think I am the lucky one. For me it was a no-brainer. I fell in love with your writing! It was impossible not to keep turning the pages. And it didn’t hurt that I had a love for Spain and had traveled there as a teenager. I think one of the things that makes us such a great team is that we love to travel! We also both fell in love with Berlin. Do you remember the amazing conversations we had after we had both visited?

BK: Do I remember the amazing conversations we had about Berlin? Um. Yeah. I remember all of our amazing conversations. You are one of my very favorite people to talk to, and I would say that whether we had started to create these books together or not. Sometimes I think I’m still writing books for the sole reason (also the soul reason) of continuing our conversation.

and then continues here.

Join us?

P.S.: This same Tamra Tuller, who began her literary career at Scholastic Books, wrote yesterday to say that Scholastic has bought Going Over to share with its young readers.

Read more...

Lessons in Publishing Longevity: Undercover Sells to the Dutch House, Callenbach

Yesterday, it became official: Callenbach, the glorious Dutch publishing house that released a gorgeous, translated Small Damages two years ago, has purchased Dutch translation rights to Undercover, the first young adult novel I ever wrote and published.

Like Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River, Undercover first appeared in 2007 and taught me several things about risks worth taking. Like The Heart Is Not a Size, Undercover is vaguely autobiographical—a Cyrano story of a teen who cannot see her own beauty and who relies on words to bridge her to the world. My Elisa writes poems. She has an English teacher who cares. She skates secretly on a frozen pond. She meets a boy named Theo. Her words, she soon discovers, have power. But so, perhaps, does she.

It is moving to think of vestiges of my own Radnor High and adolescence being transported to the Netherlands, under the auspices of a publishing house established in 1854. It is also telling, and hopeful—a sign of optimism for all of us—that books written years ago still live on, somehow. This idea about longevity is perhaps the lesson for me of this year, as Flow, seven years later, emerges as an affordable paperback, and as Undercover begins the process of finding a new audience in the Netherlands, as it has also found in China.

My thanks to Alpha Wong of HarperTeen for negotiating the agreement, and to Amy Rennert, my agent, for letting me know.

Read more...

Diane Keaton and Around the World: Small Damages and Going Over on the Barnes and Noble Book Blog

Yesterday, while I watched the rain pound the world around me (and awaited the watery launch of Going Over at Radnor Memorial Library), a note rose up on Twitter, alerting me to this great gift from Dahlia Adler on the Barnes & Noble Book Blog.

The title of the post: Around the World in Eight YA Novels. Dahlia, amazingly, noted both Small Damages and Going Over:

Small Damages, by Beth Kephart
One of my favorite literary writers of YA, Kephart has beautifully re-created the Spanish countryside for this contemporary novel about a teenage girl who’s exiled from her American home in order to hide the secret of her pregnancy. She leaves no sensation unexperienced, from the feel of the earth to the scent of oranges, and it’s hard to imagine getting any closer to Seville without a passport. (Kephart’s newest, Going Over, which alternates between East and West Germany, is another excellent candidate for this list.)

Incredible words, and I am so grateful.

I am also grateful this morning to that clay artist, Karen Bernstein, who not only graced the table last evening with her amazing Berlin vessel, but who carried a copy of Handling the Truth to New York City, where Diane Keaton was in the 92nd Street Y House. Keaton's memoir Then Again is featured in Handling. I'd always wanted the great actress to have a copy. Last night Karen made that happen. "Signed. Sealed. Delivered.," Karen wrote at the end of her day. This morning, Karen wrote again to say that Diane Keaton had used the word "honored" when Karen gave that bright orange memoir book to her.

One last very cool thing, and then I'm off to read and celebrate the books of others. My agent, Amy Rennert, called a few days ago with the exceptional news that Rich Green, an esteemed film agent who has represented Jonathan Franzen, Matthew Quick, Anne Rice, Andrea Creamer, and others, has agreed to represent Going Over.

A good day. A good life.

Read more...

Speaking to my son in the French I never knew I could write

Read more...

Small Damages arrives, all dressed up like a Parisian! And Teenreads takes you on a tour of Berlin. It's all global today.

From the French publisher La Martiniere and the translator Corinne Julve comes Small Damages, renamed Gipsy Song: Le choix de Kenzie.

Oh my gosh. I love this.

Meanwhile, over at Teenreads, we've got a tour of Beth's Berlin going on. And a Going Over giveaway! Check it out here.

Read more...

The Flyleaf Review, the book that almost didn't happen, jaw to the floor

Many moons and books ago, someone sent me a link to The Flyleaf Review. Read this, the linker said. Words about Small Damages. Words about Spain. Words by this exquisite reader/writer.

Oh. My.

Sometimes, when I was writing Going Over, I would think about this Heather of Flyleaf. Wonder what she would think of this Berlin story. Wonder if I would disappoint her. Wonder. Publishing a book is, in the end, such a personal thing. It is only, ever, reader by reader.

Weeks ago, Heather surprised me with a Twitter link. She'd read Going Over. She'd found this most amazing Wall-Love photo. She'd had thoughts. She'd shared them. She had taken so much time and care in assembling those thoughts, and she had so deeply moved me, and then she said, But wait. Come April, there will be more.

How do these bloggers—all of these incredibly generous bloggers—find or make the time to be so thoughtful about books, to share so many ideas, to join the writer in the process of going back in time, or deep into a story?

I do not know. But today Heather teaches me many things about Berlin, showcases new images of the Wall, posts the fabulous Chronicle links, offers a giveaway, and shares a small piece of writing that I did about the book that nearly wasn't.

It's all here. And I'm in awe.

Read more...

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.

Read more...

Book kindnesses at the end of 2013; looking peacefully toward the year ahead

I send a big surging thank you to Wendy Robards and Serena Agusto-Cox, who generously featured Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir on their Best of the Year lists. These two young women (and they will always be young women, because of the depth of their souls) read books, know books, support books, and all of us out here are made better people by the tireless reading and writing they do.

The link to all their favorite books of the year (worth reading!), on their very wonderful blogs, are here (Wendy at Caribousmom) and here (Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit).

Also, a very big thanks to the blog known as wordchasing, which shared these beautiful thoughts about Small Damages, published this year by Penguin as a paperback.

To all of those who were so kind throughout this year—to Dr. Radway's Sarsparilla Resolvent, to Handling the Truth, to the paperback editions of Small Damages and You Are My Only—thank you. I am looking forward to the release of Going Over (Chronicle Books) in April and to the release of my mini-memoir, Nests. Flight. Sky., by Shebooks in a few weeks. I am at work, this week, on the very final edits of that Florence novel that consumed so much of me this year, and is, thanks to a trusted relationship with Tamra Tuller, rising to its full potential.

My life is easing, in other words. And my mind begins to spin new stories.

Slowly.

I am grateful to all of you who make this writing life possible, and I wish you peace and happiness from the bottom of my heart.

Read more...

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."

Read more...

the Jen Doll/Hairpin/Handling conversation and (wow) First Person Arts

If you're looking for a new entertainment channel, you can't do much better than Jen Doll, whose essays, opinions, and reviews appear in all the most important places (New York Times Book Review, New York Magazine, Village Voice, The Atlantic, Vulture) and whose Twitter Feed is my personal go-to late night/early morning/any time of day First Aid Kit. Jen made my last year when she reviewed Small Damages for the NYTBR. She made my 2013 BEA when we met for the first time. And she made my yesterday train ride when she sent word that a conversation we'd had about memoir (Jen has her own due out next year and it sounds a — Ma — Zing) was now up and running at The Hairpin.

I am not an inherently cool dude-ess, but chilling with Jen makes me feel as if I am. And either she was typing uber fast when we were having our phone conversation a few weeks ago, or she has perfect handwriting/perfect recall, because I've never seen my own words transcribed with such precision.

So here. Meet Jen Doll, if you haven't already, by following this link to our conversation.

You'll find that she's a tad addictive.

And on another topic entirely: Did my fellow WXPNers/First Person Arts performers knock it out of the park at Kelly Writers House last night, or what? We'd gathered to give Philadelphia a taste of what is to come at the First Person Arts Festival, which launches November 6 and features an incredible line-up of storytellers, humorists, performance artists, and writers (Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Rita Dove, Ana Castillo, and Dani Shapiro among them). Supremely seductive stories got told. I encourage you to tune in on November 4, 8 PM at WXPN 88.5 to hear these hip hopping storytellers for yourself.

(And another round of hugs to Angela and Chang, for being my personal cheering section.)

Thanks to Karina Kacala, who organized the event, and thanks to Becca Jennings and Alli Katz, for holding our hands, and thanks to Andrew Panebianco, Katie Samson, Raphael Xavier, Yaba Blay, fellow artists, and thanks to Michaela Majoun and her inimitable radio ways. And come see us at First Person Arts. I'm on stage with Dani Shapiro on November 10 at 4 o'clock at Christ Church Neighborhood House. And then I return on November 16, 11 o'clock, for a two-hour memoir workshop called The Spices of Life. Registration is required.

See you then?

Say yes.

Read more...

with the world rushing by—a memoir summit, a long drive with A.S. King, Carolyn W. Field, PA Librarians

The day before, I'd stood and talked memoir at Rosemont College. A beautiful young woman took this photo. She sent it to me. I treasure it.

(Thank you for the photo, Kelly. Thank you for the summit, Carla.)

The day of, I left in the early dark, drove an hour and change to a turnpike exchange, parked at a hotel, then waited for an already infamous rented Chevy Impala (gray) to find me. Behind the wheel? The marvelous A.S. King. Our plan? To get caught up after too much time apart, each of us moving in our own whirlish circles for months now, months and days.

We were headed west together—way west—through a state we both love, through the bellies of mountains with names like Blue and Kittatinny, past cornfields, barns, longhorns, Angus's ammo shop. King was receiving the Carolyn W. Field Award for Ask the Passengers from the Pennsylvania librarians. I was a grateful honoree for Small Damages. King (like the true sportsters we are, we long ago stopped calling each other by our first names) and I had stuff to say, secrets to share, worries to fluff out, appeasements to offer. We did all that, and then we arrived, found our way through hallways, found our way to K.M. Walton and Eugene Myers and Kit Grindstaff and Karl R and Chris Caputo, found our way to lunch, and then King gave her fantastic talk, and then I hollered "King!" and we signed some books, and we were back on the road again, and now the day was starting to get pink. And the sky was incredibly blue. And I kept trying to take photographs while King drove (and a fine driver she is), but mostly I got blur.

"Blur's good," King said.

And I guess, for both of us right now, it is.

Read more...

The week that was, the events that will be, an A.S. King road trip, and thank you, Library Matters (and Serena)

It has been a remarkable week of sun, then clouds, now storm. In the midst of it all I traveled to Rosemont College to meet with Anne Willkomm's class to talk about the making of Dangerous Neighbors, my centennial Philadelphia novel. (Bonus: I got to see the program's fearless leader, Carla Spataro.)

On Tuesday evening I was at Villanova University, at a program honoring the memory of my mother. (Bonus, Colum McCann was in the house.)

Yesterday morning, I had the great privilege and fun of joining my dear friend Elizabeth Mosier in her Bryn Mawr College classroom to talk about both Dangerous Neighbors and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent. (Bonus: Any time spent with Elizabeth Mosier is a bonus.)

Yesterday, I was also featured on Book Country, in a discussion about researching memoir.

Tomorrow I'll be at Rosemont College for the Push to Publish event, joining friends on a memoir panel. We encourage you to join us.

Next weekend, two great things are happening: On Saturday, October 19, I'm reading with Liz Rosenberg at the Big Blue Marble Bookstore, in Mount Airy, PA. The event begins at 5 PM. All thanks to Minter Krozer for making that possible. Liz will read from The Laws of Gravity. I will read from—well, I'm still figuring that out. But Handling the Truth will definitely be part of my story. I may debut Going Over, my Berlin novel, just for the fun of it as well.

On Sunday, October, 20, I'm participating in the Memoir Summit at Rosemont College with Linda Joy Meyers, Robert Waxler, and Jerry Waxler. This event, featuring four free workshops, is free and open to the public, and according to Fearless Carla Spataro, registrations are coming in from all up and down the east coast.

Finally, on Monday, October 21, the amazing A.S. King and I are taking a road trip to western Pennsylvania, where we will have a chance to meet with the wonderful librarians of Pennsylvania. Amy won the Carolyn W. Field Award for her fantastic Ask the Passengers. My Small Damages was named an Honor Award recipient.

There's a client trip in the middle of all this—a chance to learn about a part of the world I've never seen. Think of my hair blowing in the wind.

Finally, today, I am heartened by these words in the Library Matters, in the Greene County Record, about Handling the Truth. Serena Agusto-Cox let me know. What a fine friend she is.

If you’ve ever thought of telling your life story but aren’t sure where to start, pick up a copy of Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, by noted author Beth Kephart.

This beautifully written volume offers advice on finding your voice, framing your story and developing themes. Kephart, a National Book Award finalist for her first memoir ... and a teacher in the University of Pennsylvania’s creative writing program, is a capable guide on the challenging path to finding your truth.

 

Read more...