on invoking and developing characters, at Arcadia's Creative Writing Summer Session

Yesterday, thanks to the generous invitation of Gretchen Haertsch, I spent time with the talented writers of Arcadia University's Creative Writing Summer Weekend in the sensational "castle" illustrated above. I taught a master class. I then reflected on the empathetic imagination as I read from my four Tamra Tuller novels—Small Damages, Going Over, One Thing Stolen, and the upcoming This Is the Story of You.

(Thank you, my friends, for coming to see me. Thank you, Soup and Aimee, for the fireside chat.)

In the master class I was focused on the osmotic process I alluded to here. We undertook linked exercises designed to help the writers diagnose their strengths and fears and to help them locate new wellsprings of ideas and possibilities. One element in the lesson plan involved character development. I presented the writers with a number of character-invoking questions. I invited them to add to the question list. We next considered which three or four questions sparked the respective imaginations of each writer. Characters and creatures emerged.

I was asked if I might share the list of provoking questions and so I do, below. Perhaps a handful will inspire you.

Character Invokers

How does it interact with reality?
In what kind of weather does it thrive?
What kinds of arguments does it have?
What secrets has it shared with no one?
What questions does it chase?
What is its shoe size?
How does it deal with crisis?
Where does it find peace or solace?
How does it exercise its curiosity?
How does it greet or ignore the skies?
What does it miss?
What will it stand up for?
What would it change about itself?
Who are its heroes?
Does it dance, and if it does, to what music?
What songs was it sung when it was young?
Does it seek to be rooted in or to escape?
Does it crave lonesomeness?
Does it have faith in another day?
If it were colorblind would it be heartbroken?
What is its favorite word?
Who and what does it trust?

And from the writers:

What haunts it?
What is its least favorite vegetable?
What sense would it most not like to lose?
What does it value more than its own life?
How far would it go to achieve its goal?
Who or what gives it meaning?
Where would it like to travel?
Is it experiencing an existential crisis?
Is it afraid of crowds?
What makes it hopeful?
Does it like water?
What superpower does it wish for?
Where is it from?
How was it raised?
Does it long for the past or dream of the future?
Did it sleep last night?
What is its greatest fear?
What does it fear of the future?
What is its favorite color?

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Branded incapable, she made exquisite art

There's a very special young woman at Chronicle Books (I think I've mentioned this) named Taylor Norman. Has books—and kindness (and smarts)—in her blood. Is out there reading our manuscripts, tweeting our stories, talking about our books, talking us off cliffs if, indeed, we find ourselves standing on cliffs.

A few days ago, Taylor, who, read One Thing Stolen, my novel about Florence, Italy, art, obsession, and mental wellness, when it wasn't much of a book at all (oh, poor Tamra, and oh, poor Taylor), sent this link from The New Yorker. It tells the tale of an exquisite fiber artist, Judith Scott, whose work involved the making of secrets—embedding umbrellas and tree branches and other found objects within weaves and knots.

But that is not all of who Judith was. Judith was a twin sister, born with Down syndrome, whose profound deafness went undiagnosed while she lived out her years in an institution. Here is the story, in the words of New Yorker writer Andrea K. Scott:

Scott died in 2005, at the age of sixty-one, and didn’t start making art until her mid-forties. She was born with Down syndrome, went deaf as a child, and never learned how to speak. Languishing in an institution in her native Ohio for more than three decades with her deafness undiagnosed, Scott was considered so beyond help that she wasn’t allowed to use crayons. In 1986, her fraternal twin, Joyce, brought Scott to San Francisco and enrolled her in Creative Growth, a community art center for disabled adults. At first, Scott dabbled in drawings. A smattering are in the show, but they’re no match for the radical beauty that followed, when Scott took a textile workshop and had a breakthrough, loosely binding sticks into an uncanny totemic cluster. As her work gained complexity, the Bay Area began to take note; by 2001, Scott had been the subject of major shows in Switzerland, Japan, and New York.

So much about this story sears. And yes, Taylor, this reminds me, in so many ways, of Nadia Cara, my character, whose art is also a secret as well as a compulsion coming from a secret place.

Judith Scott's work is now on display at the Brooklyn Museum. I intend to see it.

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Elena Vanishing/Hope and Other Luxuries/Elena and Clare B. Dunkle (Chronicle Books): Reflections

A few years ago, in a novel called The Heart Is Not a Size, I wrote of Juarez, of a squatter's village, and of two best friends, Georgia and Riley, each of them navigating this foreign terrain while also navigating secrets. Georgia was privately negotiating anxiety attacks. Riley was declaring to anyone who asked (and Georgia, seemingly unwisely, had begun to ask) that she did not—absolutely did not—have an eating disorder, that she was not starving herself.

I wrote the book and created the characters because I understood both conditions all too well.

This coming spring, Chronicle Books will publish two companion books—true mother-daughter stories—about a young woman's struggle to stop hearing the hectoring internal voices that left her body starving, her heart working too hard, and her future imperiled. Calories were Elena's enemies. A bite of toast was a grave mistake. Numbers were everything. And Elena Dunkle was, in too many terrible ways, dying.

In and out of hospitals. In and out of rehab. In and out of conversations with the family who loved her and the specialists who seemed incapable of hushing the terrible voices. Elena Vanishing is grounded in extraordinary medical records, journals, and conversations. It is told in a high-velocity, present-tense voice. We see Elena's world. We hear the voices in her head. We rush headlong into an illness that may have a name but still remains, for every person afflicted, a mystery. Where does anorexia begin? How is it finally controlled? Where is the key that fits the lock, that stops time from running out?

You will read, your heart pounding. You will remember a version of someone you were, or someone you loved, or love still.

Ultimately, as Clare reminds the reader in an introductory letter, "this isn't the story of anorexia nervosa. It's the story of a person. It's the story of Elena Dunkle, a remarkable young woman who fights her demons with grit and determination. It's the story of her battle to overcome trauma, to overcome prejudice, but most of all, to overcome that powerful destructive force, the inner critic who whispers to us about our greatest fears."

There is depth, beauty, horror, and beauty again in Elena Vanishing. You'll read it, as I did, in a single day. You will think not just about the story that got made, but the story as it was being made—this mother, this daughter, remembering together, writing together, reaching out to the world together.

And when you are done there is a book called Hope and Other Luxuries to turn to—Clare Dunkle's memoir about loving this vanishing daughter of hers. Both books are being released by Chronicle next May. Both were edited by Ginee Seo, who poured her heart into these true stories and, once again (in Chronicle fashion), broke new ground by deciding to publish both sides of a story about an illness that affects millions of people around the world.

I own, it seems, the first two signed ARCs of both books, for I met Clare and Elena at the Chronicle booth at NCTE yesterday morning. I would like to thank Chronicle, as I close this blog, for including me at this event, for making such a home for me, for extending your friendship so warmly. Ginee Seo, Sally Kim, Jaime Wong—you threw one heck of a party, you look so good surrounded by Chronicle blue, and I am so proud to be a Chronicle author (and a Tamra Tuller writer).

Deepest thanks to those who stopped by to say hello, who stood in line for One Thing Stolen, who came and surprised, who spoke with me over a delicious meal. Twenty-four hours at the National Harbor. Not to be forgotten. Nor are these two books, by a mother and daughter.

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One Thing Stolen: the cover reveal

So much love and thought and artistry has gone into the cover for the Florence novel that will be released next April from Chronicle Books. My deep thanks to everyone who read this story, who cared about its characters, who thought out loud about every option, and who put their art and magical way of seeing on the page. Particular thanks to Kristine Brogno of Chronicle Books, whose work is so wholly representative of the story itself, described below. And thanks, as ever, to Tamra Tuller, my editor, who saw this project through with conviction and heart. Thanks, finally, to my Penn students—Katie Goldrath and Maggie Ercolani—who inspired two primary characters in this novel, and who inspire me, still, and to Gregory Djanikian, who is in these pages, too.

Something is not right with Nadia Cara.

She’s become a thief. She has secrets. And when she tries to speak, the words seem far away. After her professor father brings her family to live in Florence, Italy, Nadia finds herself trapped by her own obsessions and following the trail of an elusive Italian boy whom no one but herself has seen. While her father researches a 1966 flood that nearly destroyed Florence, Nadia wonders if she herself can be rescued—or if she will disappear.

Set against the backdrop of a glimmering city, One Thing Stolen is an exploration of obsession, art, and a rare neurological disorder. It is about language and beauty, imagining and knowing, and the deep salvation of love.

One Thing Stolen was born of Beth Kephart’s obsession with birds, nests, rivers, and floods, as well as her deep curiosity about the mysteries of the human mind. It was in Florence, Italy, among winding streets and fearless artisans, that she learned the truth about the devastating flood of 1966, met a few of the Mud Angels who helped restore the city fifty years ago, and began to follow the trail of a story about tragedy and hope.

Beth is the award-winning author of nineteen books for readers of all ages, including You Are My Only, Small Damages, Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, and Going Over. She also teaches creative nonfiction at the University of Pennsylvania.

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every story we write is a gigantic leap of faith

It is possible to write nearly an entire novel and not know precisely who that mysterious character is until the last late night before the novel is due.

I know that. I'm living proof.

There this character has been all along, a mystery to the others in the story, too, but, hey—she's not supposed to be a mystery to you. You created her, after all. You put her down on the page. You fell in love with her, just a little bit.

Shouldn't you know who she is?

Late last night, which was really early this morning, which is to say 3:30 AM, however you'd like to classify that, the final piece of the novel I've been writing came into view, and I seized it. I said, Yes. I let a small tear fall, maybe another tear, what did it matter? No one was watching.

Every story we write is a gigantic leap of faith. Every sentence is up for rearrangement. But you know a book, even a novel, is true when it surprises you, when the surprise makes you cry, when you think that, at last, you've earned a night of sleep again.

Maybe you can stop obsessing because you know something now. Something new. You know it, and it belongs to you.

Tamra Tuller.

Tamra Tuller.

Thank you for reading so quickly.

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One Thing Stolen: First Galley Page

Chronicle Books and Tamra Tuller: They produce a beautiful book.

I didn't allow myself to start reading the galleys of my Florence novel until I pushed passed 35,000 words on my novel-in-progress.

Now I breathe. And soon I'll read.

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"taking the coward's way out leads to bad art": words from Philipp Meyer

First: The writing of every book feels, to me, like the writing of a very first book. Plain and simple.

Second: Here on my desktop sit the galley pages of One Thing Stolen, a book that took enormous risks and with which I struggled until I finally stopped struggling, finally found what I think is the novel's core. Still, I am afraid to read what I have wrought. I am required to do that. Soon. Especially since Tamra recently shared news about this novel's cover. My goodness. This novel has to live up to the artist commissioned for its cover. (You'll see, in time.)

Third: I am halfway through the writing of a new novel for Tamra. I've had one hell of a good time with these first 130 pages. But now I'm veering into the truly hard stuff. Once again, I'm taking risks. I'm scared.

It is the combined impact of first/second/third that has prompted me to share, this week, a few small notes on my writerly process—(Note 1. Note 2.)—as well as this conversation with Tamra. Nothing huge in any of this. Just, I hope, helpful.

I was all set to write another post in this vein when I came upon these words by Philipp Meyer, Pulitzer Prize nominated author of American Rust and The Son. He's a featured author in this BarnesandNobleReview.com interview (with the equally interesting Smith Henderson). And he has something to say about writing to the edge.

I share his risk-taking sentiments wholeheartedly (risk-taking was to be my theme of the day). He speaks them better than I could. A brief excerpt below. The entire conversation runs here.

In terms of society's ignorance, there is a very common sentiment which is basically along the lines of: "don't put everything you know into your first book." This could not be more wrong. You have to put EVERYTHING you know into EVERY book. Of course this will slow down the process. Of course this will make the time between finishing books much longer. But we're never quite as smart as we think we are, and usually the one thing you leave out will be the thing that lifts the book from average to good, or from good to great.

On top of that, all artists have some inclination, to greater or lesser degrees, to play it safe. I occasionally fight this feeling in myself, and I will be the first to admit that it's cowardice, pure and simple. You think, well, if I don't entirely commit, I can't entirely fail. If I hold something back, I am protecting myself (if/when other people don't like it). This is literally the opposite of the truth. When you hold things back, when you don't commit completely to your ideas and trust completely in your own instincts, you are guaranteeing your own failure—even if you end up having commercial success. You have got to trust yourself and only yourself, and while of course you have to trust your intellect, you have got to trust your instincts even more, which are always more artistically pure than your conscious thoughts. Of course, the vast majority of artists do not do this at all. They say the same shit everyone else does, they write what's fashionable, they write what they know will be approved of (even if it looks "experimental" on the surface). In short, they let themselves be lead by their critics and by their contemporaries.... Succeeding at this, or at any art, is about the hardest thing a human can do. But taking the coward's way out not only leads to bad art; it's habit forming. It becomes the way you approach life.

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when in writing doubt: tip of the week number two

A few days ago, I wrote here of what is gained when we, mid-course into a new book, return to its beginning. How, when we dwell with what has already been written, when we don't rush toward the climax, the close, the I'm done!, we discover the true heart of the story. We find all that will propel us to a meaningful end.

Plus, it's really fun.

Today, again, I offer simple advice, on the theory that it's the simple stuff that we tend to overlook when we find ourselves in the heat of writerly angst.

That advice: Take out a pen. Take out a notebook. Write the story by hand.

There are a few reasons for this. One, obviously, away from the computer, you are, hopefully, away from the tempting distractions that electronically creep in. But even more importantly, as this Maria Konnikova story in the New York Times suggests, writing something down, using our own hands, pressing into the page beneath us, does something to our brains. It activates neural networks that are key to the making of stories:

The effect goes well beyond letter recognition. In a study that followed children in grades two through five, Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at the University of Washington, demonstrated that printing, cursive writing, and typing on a keyboard are all associated with distinct and separate brain patterns — and each results in a distinct end product. When the children composed text by hand, they not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on a keyboard, but expressed more ideas. And brain imaging in the oldest subjects suggested that the connection between writing and idea generation went even further. When these children were asked to come up with ideas for a composition, the ones with better handwriting exhibited greater neural activation in areas associated with working memory — and increased overall activation in the reading and writing networks.

I always write by hand. The first draft of everything is a mess of ink on scattered journals. It is my head working, my hand trailing behind, nothing much, until it becomes something very much. I'll sneak back the computer when I have a few pages. I'll type a vague resemblance of the handwritten material there—clean it up, straighten it, do some logic tests. But then, again, I print those computer pages and I'm back on the couch, scratching out most everything, writing in the margins. Back and forth, this is the process.

The best stuff—the best details, dialogue chains, discoveries—is always the result of a pen in hand.

And only after I've done this many times, do I share the work with my editor, Tamra Tuller. Our conversation about how we work after that is here.

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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.

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some publishing news

As reported in PW Children's Bookshelf, April 28, 2014:

Tamra Tuller at Chronicle has acquired two books by NBA-nominated author Beth Kephart. Set in Florence, Italy, One Thing Stolen follows Nadia Cara as she mysteriously begins to change. She's become a thief, she has secrets she can't tell, and when she tries to speak, the words seem far away.This Is the Story of You takes place in an island beach town in the aftermath of a super storm; Mira, a year-rounder stranded for weeks without power, hopes to return storm-tossed treasures to their rightful owners, and restore some sense of order to an unrecognizable world. Publication is scheduled for spring 2015 and spring 2016; Amy Rennert of the Amy Rennert Agency did the deal for world rights.

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from my garden to my table, on Tamra's birthday

This isn't just Easter weekend. There isn't just sun out there, and my radiant son upstairs, asleep. This is the birthday of editor supreme and dear friend, Tamra Tuller.

How can a girl like me, so full of gladness for a friendship like ours, say, You are really special?

I went outside. Tiptoed through dew. Brought the brightest daffodils in.

Happy birthday, Tamra!

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That Florence, Italy, novel: the title, the synopsis

Next spring, Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books will be releasing a novel set in Florence, Italy, and (to a lesser extent) West Philadelphia. It took me a long time, and many drafts, to get it right, and it is only recently that we have settled on a final title.

I share that here, with an early book description:

Something is just not right with Nadia Cara. She’s become a thief, for one thing. She has secrets she can’t tell. She knows what she thinks, but when she tries to speak, the words seem far away. Now in Florence, Italy, with a Master Chef wanna-be brother, a professor father, and a mother who specializes in at-risk teens, Nadia finds herself trapped by her own obsessions and following the trail of an elusive Italian boy—a flower thief—whom no one else has ever seen.  While her father tries to write the definitive history of the 1966 flood that threatened to destroy Florence, Nadia wonders if she herself will disappear—or if she can be rescued, too.

Set against the backdrop of a glimmering city, ONE THING STOLEN is an exploration of obsession, art, and a rare neurological disorder. It is a story about the ferocious, gorgeous madness of rivers and birds. It is about surviving in a place that, fifty years ago, was rescued by uncommon heroes known as Mud Angels. It is about art and language, imagining and knowing, and the deep salvation of love written by an author who is herself obsessed with the beguiling and slippery seduction of both wings and words.  

My students Katie Goldrath, Maggie Ercolani, and Stephanie Cara inspired me as I wrote. Emily Sue Rosner and Mario Sulit helped me get the Italian right. Alyson Hagy, Amy Sarig King, and Kelly Simmons kept me going. Patty McCormick and Ruta Sepetys listened. Lori Waselchuk gave me her West Philadelphia. Wendy Robards gave so much of her time and heart during desperate days. And Tamra Tuller stood by.

Always grateful.

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That Florence novel is also a West Philly novel

That Florence novel of which I have so often spoken is also (I now confess) a West Philadelphia novel—infused with the fringe beyond the campus where I work. Yesterday, the air finally warming, I returned to those old haunts and photographed this plot of land, where a pivotal scene takes place.

That Florence novel is also, thanks to the great (loving) patience of editor Tamra Tuller and the impeccable copy editing and exceptional kindness of one Debbie DeFord Minerva, done. Oh my goodness, it is done. The hardest book I ever wrote. The fear that it would not be "good enough," finally ebbed in full this weekend, as I took one last crack at the pages that had resisted me for many months. In the midst of that work, a note (and then more notes) from Debbie filtered in.

Sometimes the impossible is not finally impossible.

And we are rarely alone.

It's almost spring, or should be soon. The hard husks inside the earth are softening. The nests are wanting eggs.

My Florence novel is also a West Philadelphia novel.

That novel is finally done.

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The Meaning of Maggie/Megan Jean Sovern: Reflections

Imagine this: A manuscript arrives on the desks of two exquisite editors at the same time. It is read through at once, loved at once. A tug here, a tug there, and it finds a home at Chronicle Books with Ginee Seo.

The other exquisite editor is named Tamra Tuller. Soon she will leave one coast to go to another to work at this same fine place called Chronicle. This book—this The Meaning of Maggie by Megan Jean Sovern—is now doubly loved in the same house by two editors who read it early on.

Since I'm lucky enough to know both Ginee and Tamra, I made it a point, not long ago, to snag a copy of this middle-grade novel for myself. What an absolute start-to-finish delight it is. This Maggie is going places—just ask her. She's the future president of the United States. She wins science fairs. She loves education so much that she calls those headed off to summer school the lucky ones and when her mother wants to take Maggie out of school for a special day, Maggie doesn't smile at the thought. She worries about what new knowledge she might miss.

What isn't lucky, though, and what can't easily be explained, is that Maggie's dad isn't well. His legs keep falling asleep. He has had to leave his job. He's supposed to be taking care of things at home while Maggie's mother works the laundry room at the local hotel. But sometimes Maggie's older sisters have to take care of Dad instead. And sometimes there are secrets that everyone refuses to tell. And sometimes things seem to falling apart, even though this eleven-year-old is pretty sure that if you're smart enough you can save the world.

Megan Jean Sovern's Maggie is indefatigable, footnote crazy, and memoir worthy, and this is her story of her quest to find out the name of her dad's condition and to find a way to fix it. It's a charming tale; it's a heartbreaking tale. It's the story of a mom, a dad, and three sisters who—nits and scrambles and sly comebacks aside—want desperately to take care of one another.  

The Meaning of Maggie is a book bound for glory. It was one of three books (including Stacey D'Erasmo's brilliant Wonderland and Beth Hoffman's gracious and moving Looking for Me) that I read throughout the recent storm. Intelligent, beautifully made books are often the best company we have. It's a fact from which I won't be dissuaded.

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Welcoming the nation's librarians to Philadelphia, and celebrating our own Free Library (and Chronicle Books)

Last evening, I hardly felt the cold as I walked from 30th Street Station to the Warwick Hotel. The nation's librarians have come to my very own city for ALA Midwinter. So has Chronicle Books. And there I was, headed off toward a Chronicle-librarian vortex, with my mother's coat keeping me warm.

I found Chronicle's Ginee Seo, Lara Starr, Sally Kim, and my fabulous editor Tamra Tuller in the ballroom (note: these women are fashionistas!!). I also found Miss Adorable Herself, Lisa Morris-Wilkey, who made sure I would recognize her by the shimmer of that little pin she wears in her hair. The Grand Duke Walter was in the midst, as well as a librarian with a last name infinitely familiar to me—Novotny. It was a grand night as Chronicle's spring list was reviewed. I yearned to take every noted book home with me.

Asked to talk briefly about Going Over, I wanted to talk, most of all about Chronicle Books, which has been so extraordinarily generous to me. They keep placing surprises in my path. They keep thinking past me. I ask for nothing, and yet they appear with gifts. It is an extraordinary team. One example: Last week, a number of bloggers began to write to me, letting me know that Going Over ARCs had been sent their way. Facebook notes went up. Twitter feeds shimmered. And no one had ever said, Beth, we are going to do this for you, or, Beth, look what we did for you. It just got done.

So I am grateful to Chronicle Books, and I am grateful to Tamra Tuller, who brought me there and remains such a good friend, and I am grateful to the librarians who have come through this chilly weather to be in my city. I have written a love letter to a very particular Philadelphia library in this weekend's Inquirer—written my thanks to a program and to an individual, Andy Kahan, who makes sure that Philadelphians get their cultur-ating share of literature. But I hope that all librarians visiting my city today will know the love goes out to them, too.

I'll be back down in the city on Sunday, signing You Are My Only, now released as a paperback, for Egmont USA. Start time is 3 PM. I hope to see you, too.

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Mud Angels, the Florence novel, is copy-editing bound

Sometimes the books come easy. Sometimes the books come hard. It is necessary, in the end, to believe in them.

After 18 months of work on a novel called Mud Angels, I believe. I'm one final read away from relinquishing the book to copy editing. Tamra Tuller, my Chronicle Books editor, had to read this book many times. She had to find ways to tell me to return to the pages, had to wait, had to (I'm sure) hold her breath.

We're breathing now, both of us. Nadia Cara, my heroine, is finally fully alive and real. Her story—of battling a rare neurological disorder while living in a borrowed apartment off of Santa Croce in Florence, Italy—echoes through time, as stories must. Her secrets are rooted.

We don't give up because we can't give up. Because if we do, we will not learn all the lessons challenges set down for us. We will not know if we are big enough. We will not know if we are patient enough. We will not know what might have been. I learned the importance of persevering, again, with Mud Angels.

Chronicle Books will be releasing this novel in the spring of 2015.

I'm about to begin the writing of something new.

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this writing thing ain't easy: what I learned in writing a next book

If anyone is under the impression that writing gets easier with each book, I'd beg to differ. The first book is an open book—it has not yet been judged, branded, marketed, categorized. It comes from some pure, unfurnished room in the mind. It belongs, most truly, to you.

The second book is harder. You have whispers in your ear. You have that stuff that critics said. You have already used some of your favorite images, your most primal memories, and you have expectations now—those that originate within yourself and those that come from external forces. You move on, perhaps. Try a different genre or approach—a book with photographs, a corporate fairytale, a river talking, young adult novels for tweens, young adult novels for teens, young adult novels that you would rather not categorize, a book about the teaching you do. You keep redrawing the maps and raising the ante to somehow get yourself back into that place in which the writing can somehow feel brand new.

Yesterday, I sent Tamra Tuller, my editor, the final draft of a novel that has preoccupied me for eighteen months. I gave myself what seemed at the time to be the right degree of challenge—a foreign but not overly exotic setting, a condition no novelist (to my knowledge) has yet explored, an obsession that strikes at the core of me. I learned, in the making of the book, that I had set myself up for a long, long journey. I could get some parts right at the expense of others. I could be technically correct, but dull. I could deploy some tried and true strategies, but they felt like that—like strategies. I could go all out with a secondary character but miss the boat on the person whose story this was. It was like trying to manage a sine curve. The wrong things rose, the wrong things fell, I couldn't strike the balance.

I could write a book on the writing of this book. I could tell you how much Tamra has meant to me along the way—her truthfulness, her supportiveness, her ability to stop me from giving up on myself. "Think of how proud you will be when you get it right," she said, and I held onto that, through thick and thin, and a lot of the time it was thin.

The work I've done over the past few weeks was almost like writing the whole book again, new. Into the substrate of what I had finally figured out as plot and theme I at last worked the intimacy and urgency that all novels, especially those written for young adults, need. Nearly every page of what I had thought, in November, was a near to final draft, ended up looking like that one above. Written over, written over again, crossed out, tossed, begun again.

Oh, I have said to Tamra, and I will say to you: What I have learned, in writing this book. Not to give up, for one thing. Humility, for another.

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The starred Booklist review of GOING OVER

Yesterday Tamra Tuller called with the first official words on GOING OVER, a starred review from Booklist. I had not had time to get nervous yet—hadn't imagined that there would be a review so early on for an April 1 release. My focus has been placed, entirely, on finishing the Florence novel, a book that has taught me many things about starting over, again and again.

And so the gift was a call from dear Tamra, an utterly unexpected review, and a reviewer who wholly understood what I sought to do with this Berlin book. The gift was that sense of being heard.

I am grateful and relieved.

“A stark reminder of the power of hope, courage, and love.”—Booklist, starred review

In the divided Berlin of the early 1980s, 16-year-old Ada waits for her lover, Stefan, to escape across the wall from East to West. But the odds are against Stefan making it over alive, and against graffiti-rebel Ada evading the notice of the authorities and the brutal punkers hiding in the alleyways. National Book Award Finalist Kephart has recreated the inexorable fear and tension, as well as the difficult living conditions, of Berliners on both sides of the wall, especially those suffering under the ruthless oppression of the dreaded East German Secret police, the Stassi. Ada and Stefan are representative of the families, friends, and lovers separated and destroyed by the wall; their grandmothers serve as poignant reminders of the toll World War II took on the European population. Subplots about the Turks recruited to help rebuild Berlin and the ignored danger to women in all parts of the city add complexity to an already difficult, seldom written about time in the world’s history. Going Over is a stark reminder of the power of hope, courage, and love to overcome the most taxing of human struggles: war, its aftermath, and captivity. 

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GOING OVER is a Junior Library Guild Selection

And I could not be happier.

Oh. Beth trembles here.

Thank you, Tamra Tuller, for sharing the news. Thank you, Chronicle Books, for all you are doing. And thank you—thank you—Junior Library Guild.

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Debuting GOING OVER at NCTE/ALAN 2013, in Boston

Before I would allow myself to return, in my mind, to Going Over, my Berlin novel due out from Chronicle in April 2014, I had many things to do. Memoir workshops to teach. Talks to give. Essays to write. A novel to finish. Reviews of new books to ponder and submit. And so many stories for my various corporate clients.

I am saying that I wasn't sure I'd ever get here.

But today, after submitting one final, before-Thanksgiving story to a beloved client, I sat again with Berlin. Reviewed the photographs I had taken during my June 2011 trip to that city. Watched the films again, read the news again, went through the dozens of books I had collected on the east, the west, the wall, graffiti, pink hair, the Turkish immigration question, escape mechanics and statistics, and the war two grandmothers might remember.

I sat and relived Berlin.

I am extremely blessed that Chronicle believes in this book. I am blessed, too, that Chronicle has invited me to NCTE/ALAN to meet with teachers of English and others. I've only been to NCTE/ALAN once before as a presenter, in support of Dangerous Neighbors, with Egmont. I recognize the investment that Chronicle has made, in so many ways, on behalf of this story about a boy and a girl divided by a wall. I am grateful.

You can find me in Boston at the events listed below, and I'll be walking the floor as well.

And here, if you haven't already seen it, is the astonishing Teacher's Guide that Rose Brock and the Chronicle team created for Going Over.

Meet me in Boston:

Saturday, November 23
11:30-12:30
NCTE Conference/GOING OVER Signing/Chronicle Books/Booth #1007

Saturday, November 23
1:00-2:00 PM
NCTE Conference/HANDLING THE TRUTH Signing/Penguin/Booth #933

Sunday, November 24
9:00-10:00
NCTE Conference/GOING OVER Signing/Anderson's Bookstore/Booth #1631

Sunday, November 24
5:00-7:00 PM
ALAN Reception

Tuesday, November 25
2:10-2:50 PM
ALAN Conference
Celebrating International Voices ALAN Panel:
Tara Sullivan, Sharon McKay, Eliot Schrefer, Ann Burg, Beth Kephart
Moderated by Karin Perry, ALAN Membership Secretary

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