Beth Kephart's Blog, page 103

Serafina's Promise/Ann E. Burg: Reflections on a Novel in Verse

At NCTE 13, I sat on a panel with remarkable writers who have traveled the world — in their imaginations and quite literally — and returned with extraordinary stories.

One of those writers was Ann E. Burg, whose first novel, All the Broken Pieces, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults, an IRA Notable Book for a Global Society, and a Jefferson Cup Award Winner, among other honors. Serafina's Promise, Ann's new book, is a moving middle grade novel in verse exploring the life of a young girl living in Haiti during the flood and then the earthquake that reconfigured the country and brought so much pain to so many people whose names we'll never know.

Some writers market their books as novels in verse, but only because the lines sit short and condensed on the page. Others—Patricia McCormick, Thanhha Lai, Karen Hesse, Marilyn Nelson, Sharon Creech, Caroline Starr Rose,
Ann E. Burg stands (absolutely) among these true verse novelists—her images evocative, her details precisely chosen, her impact huge as we follow this young girl who wants, despite dire circumstances, an education and a chance to be a doctor. Serafina's days are filled with chores, but they are also filled with the hypnotic beauty of pink flowers in fields of dried grass, of the stories a grandmother tells, of the arrival of a baby brother who smiles up at her, of a fat caterpillar and, later, a butterfly winging away from a web.

Burg's evocations of domestic rural life, of big markets, of a murderous flood, of the terrifying earthquake are piercing and precise—poetry both shattering and graceful. I share this one page with you here. I hope you will buy the book for yourself and for someone you love. I have a niece who is about to get this stunning gift.

Where are the fence and path?
Where is the big white church
where we pray on Sundays,
or the supermarket
where Papa sells mangoes,
sweet milk, and rice?

Nothing looks the same.

I keep walking.

In every ash-covered face
I search for someone
who is searching for me.

Talking about memoirs and memoirists loved (and this is just a few of the books on my long list) on Biographile

I'll never be good at choosing favorites. I've never much excelled at making lists. But today, on that wonderful site, Biographile, I'm talking about memoirs and memoirists I've loved—a handful, really, of a very long list. If only for the pleasure of getting to know Biographile for yourself, I hope you will check it out.

And — I just received this photograph taken by Jen Cleary a few weeks ago, as part of the First Person Arts Festival. Since that is the one and only Dani Shapiro up there (who is listed in my Biographile story), I thought it appropriate to use the photo here. She was extremely generous to come to Philadelphia and talk with us.

The piece begins like this, below:

That word favorite? It does me in. Arrests me.

My favorite husband is my only husband. My favorite child is my only child. My favorite condition is alive. Beyond that, I have too many favorite foods to count, and my favorite color depends on the day, and my favorite flower is anything that somehow manages to survive my gardening ways, and I like pinot noir most, much of the time, except when there’s also a malbec around or a really fine cabernet.

And concludes here.

snow haiku, on behalf of Penguin Random House and City Harvest

Tree nooks like baskets.Snow in the hushing halfway.White held in suspense.
Today I'm participating in the Penguin Random House #HolidayHaiku Tweet, which is on behalf of a wonderful cause—a $1 donation per tweet (up to $2,000) to City Harvest, which helps feed hungry New Yorkers during the holidays.

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.

the view from here

It's the official You Are My Only paperback release day!

With great thanks to Egmont USA for believing in a book that means so much to me. And to Alison Weiss, for her beautiful note. I'll be joining Margaret Coffee, Michelle Bayuk and the Egmont team at ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia on Sunday, January 26, 3 PM, for an official first signing.

Many thanks to everyone who helped make this book—and to the glorious dozens upon dozens who cared so much when the hardback debuted. I will never forget you. Amy Riley and Pamela van Hylckama Vlieg—Look what happens when you read that small type very carefully!

Little Flower High School is having a HUGE Teen Writers' Festival—and here's a commercial to prove it.....

Post by Little Flower Teen Writers Festival.
Have you been wondering who this life force named Sister Kim is? The one who assigned Undercover and House of Dance to her students? The one whose girls sent me gorgeous thank you letters?

Here's a quick look at our forever faithful Sister and her students, as they prepare for the upcoming Little Flower Writers Festival that will soon have the world talking. The wonderful writer K.M. Walton is playing a very big role in the making of this event as well.

Gotta love this.

Wide Awake. Every Day./Starla J. King: Reflections

Over Thanksgiving weekend I had the now-rare privilege of spending a handful of consecutive days with my son. A gonzo slice of heaven. He's always been one of the wisest people I know. He's always had plenty to say.

The conversation turned, at one point, to most desirable human traits, and on the quick top of his list was positivity. I want to be around people who see the good in things first, he said. People who don't make themselves feel smarter by constantly finding fault in others.

I know what you mean, I said.

Starla J. King, a life coach with bright eyes and a pretty impressive smile, knows, too. We met atmospherically on Twitter, as people do, but we met for real during a First Person Arts event that brought Dani Shapiro and me together on a conversational stage. Starla sat right up there in the first row, beaming positivity, embracing the dialogue, and allowing her slender body and her many tiny earrings to take it all in.

A few weeks later, Starla sent me her own new book, Wide Awake. Every Day., wrapped in blue tissue and a red bow. This is her gift to the world, her hope played out, page after page, that we'll all stop for a bit in this harried life  to see, to feel, to love, to know, to hold a cat in our arms as we watch the birds. Infused with personal stories, gently nudging us toward a more fulfilling state of being, this lovely book is organized in day by day fashion. A calendar of positive possibilities. It is utterly Starla—bright eyed, hopeful, brimming with love.

So here is something for you on this December 10th, where (here, at least) it snows soft snow.

Starla's word for this day is Re-new.

Her wisdom is this:

"Re-new is to make new again—we can choose it at any time by letting the old slip through our grasp as we open our hands to receive the new." What, Starla wants to know, can you do to "let go of the old...?"

Today, December 10, I plan to go take a walk in the renewing white with my eyes wide open and my camera around my neck.

What about you?

straight from the kiln

One is a pitcher. One is a honey pot. It's alls I gots, for now.

elements of a perfect day:

* All 72 Friday emails answered by 7:23 AM Saturday morning

* A definite "we're going" to the Annual Philadelphia Writers Party, concocted by Stephen Fried and Diane Ayres and populated by Philly writers, editors, photographers, designers "and others who eke out a living in the world of words and images or the teaching thereof." Do you see yourself in that description? Join us on Monday at Bliss, starting at 5:30 PM.

* Body Combat with Teresa at Club La Maison at 8:00 AM (we killed it)

* Clean house by 10:18 AM

* Hair by Cole Wellness, done by noon

* Andra Bell is in the house by 12:30, and off we (my husband with us) go, to see "Philomena," which is to say Judi Dench in all her glory, at Bryn Mawr Film Institute. 

* A quick trip to the Wayne Art Center, with Andra, to share with her that glorious space and its two new exhibits. One of the exhibits features the award-winning glass work of Madeline Rile, a sensational artist and the second daughter of my good friend, Karen Rile. Madeline, when we were there, three patrons were exulting in your talents. I boasted about knowing you. It's gorgeous work! Congratulations!

* My two glaze pieces are ready at the Center, and I'm happy with them. (That doesn't often happen.) And I've got a bisque piece to paint as well.

* Home to an email from The Great Jen Doll, whose first book, a memoir called Save the Date, has a smashing cover and is set for a May release. We. Can't. Wait. To. Read. I called it first.