Beth Kephart's Blog, page 107

Meet me in Boston, at NCTE/ALAN

I am blessed that Tamra Tuller and Chronicle Books have generously invited me to NCTE/ALAN this year on behalf of GOING OVER. This is a team that believes in me and in this book, and for their brand of fervent faith I will always be grateful.



I'll be in Boston from November 22 (Friday evening) through Tuesday, November 25, and my schedule is here. I hope we find each other.



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

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."

at work on a keynote, and congratulating Cat Mosier-Mills, selected as a finalist for 2014 YoungArts

This morning I'm again at work on the keynote talk I'll be giving this weekend in New York City at the Bank Street Mini-Conference. I have something to say about the sideways process. I have something to learn from my fellow participants—Roger Sutton (The Horn Book), Vicky Smith (Kirkus Reviews), Luann Toth (School Library Journal), and Sarah Smith (children's editor of The New York Times Book Review), not to mention the show's creator, Jennifer Brown.



As I work, I am reflecting back on the students I've met along the way. The young people I have loved and who have taught me most of everything.



I share this photograph this morning, of a particular morning in Miami with the YoungArts writers, both because it reminds me of a very happy time and because a very special young woman—Cat Mosier-Mills—has just been named a writing finalist for 2014 YoungArts. Cat is the daughter of my friend, Elizabeth Mosier. She is a young person I had fervently hoped would have the opportunity to experience the wealth of talent in the multiple disciplines—cinematography, dance, voice, and many others—that YoungArts brings together. Cat is the perfect contributor to a world like this one, and she will, in her own poised, never blaring, always thoughtful way, shine her own bright light.



So today I am looking back and I am looking forward, and I am thinking sideways. I am thinking about gorgeous Cat, and the journey she's about to go on. I am grateful for organizations that care about our children and the talents that they have.



There's still time to register for the Bank Street Mini Conference. I hope to see you there.

Going Over: a sweet and surprising first mention in School Library Journal

After a long (good) day with a beloved client, I came home to the other parts of my life—to a wonderful call from my agent, Amy Rennert, to an unexpected Handling the Truth moment provided by George Kelley.org via Serena Agusto-Cox, and to these very kind words in School Library Journal, as shared with me by Lauren Strohecker.




It all made a very tired girl weepy—in a good way.



Thank you to everyone who makes my life so rich.



And thank you to Amy Cheney of SLJ, who wrote these words:

Yet Beth Kephart’s Going Over (April)
is the galley that I am most looking forward to reading. We learned
some interesting back story: editor Tamra Tuller visited Berlin for the
first time a few years ago; as she walked the graffiti-lined streets
from West to East Berlin, she thought about what it must have been like
to live in the city while the Berlin Wall was still up, and what it must
have been like to be entirely cut off from loved ones by it. About a
year later, Kephart visited Berlin and similarly fell in love. The two
compared notes and, within months, Kephart had completed the book.



Kephart’s story so exceeded Tuller’s expectations, she says, that she
cried when she first read it. Also of note is that the design of the
book is meant to bring the reader further into the experience: its cover
shows the actual Berlin Wall, and its endpapers show the different
layers of the wall: the watchtower, service barriers, signal, and
hinterland fence. Our immediate reaction? So cool!

A link to the entire preview is here .

"a style like this one has to fail some of the time"

I never lose my appreciation for deep intelligence on the page. I look, especially in the work of critics, for language that teaches about the art of living and the act of creation.



Recently, Dan Chiasson, pondering Lucie Brock-Broido's new collection, "Stay, Illusion," wrote this below in The New Yorker.



I pay attention, both to the style of Chiasson's own sentences—look, for example, at that second one—and to the considerable impact of the suggestion that some styles will inevitably find subjects that suit them badly.



Indeed. And so we work. And so we learn what we are capable of—and not.

But the poems in "Stay, Illusion" do not feel like the work of slow and steady accumulation. Instead, they have a blurted quality, as though long-roiling tumult finally blew off the stopper. The thrill of improvisation is precisely that it cannot be isolated from the risk of mere looniness or doodling. I don't like everything in Brock-Broido's work, but, to steer clear of tour de force, a style like this one has to fail some of the time; it has to find some subject that suits it badly.

The Hippocampus Interview, and a Cybils Nomination for Dr. Radway

I spent the early part of this day with my father, driving the corners of our city, preparing for a new essay for the Inquirer.


I returned home to news of this interview, beautifully conducted by Lori M. Myers and now published on Hippocampus Magazine (a magazine of "memorable creative nonfiction). (Thank you, Lori.)



And to news that Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, the little book that could, has been nominated for a Cybil's Award.



To the nominating angel, thank you.

Lessons I've learned during my revisionary quest (with thanks to Tamra Tuller)

I would say that the lessons I've learned over the past year of writing my Florence novel are hard ones—except that I would rather not see them that way. Instead, I would like to categorize these generative discoveries as essential, thrilling, character building. As proof that every single book is like the first book written.



They are lessons about not letting Idea trump Story. About getting out of the way of one's own fascinations. About giving each draft room to breathe. About not letting shame—about a poorly written passage or a badly conceived moment—intrude upon the revisionary quest.



I have moved from mess toward clarity and then away from excess rigor. I have moved from tunneling perspective toward a slightly softening lens. I have mixed things up, set things straight, then made room for blur. I have moved from characters who did the work of the tale toward characters inevitably impelled. I have gone as far as I thought I could go, then gathered my wits about me and gone after it again—scouring out the boring places where nothing happens, the language that is too pretty because nothing happens, the conversations that don't need to be transcribed because they can be imagined and besides, inside them not much happens. I have righted the ship, which is to say, I have worked on balance.



And I am working on it still.



I wish to thank Miss Tamra Tuller, whose Twitter handle reads "Thumb Wrestler, Whiskey Drinker, and Children's Book Editor at Chronicle Books" for sticking by me along the way.

The Dish and the Doll make my day

Someday, somewhere (on an escalator, in an elevator, at a sushi shop, on a subway), I will see The Dish (otherwise known as Andrew Sullivan).


And when I do, I will tell him: Thank you for this.



In the meantime—bubbles.

Happy Wedding Day to the Magnificent Kimberly Eisler and her Gareth (Bear)

A young couple that knows the real meaning of love.

Blessings to you both on this November day.

work in progress at the pottery studio

taking a picture of a pitcher—

for Karen Sacks

and the Queen of Wayne,

because sometimes you just have to be there.