Beth Kephart's Blog, page 111

love. so many years ago.

Yesterday afternoon I went on an expedition at my father's house—through the one box in the attic marked "Beth," into a single manilla enveloped claiming to contain the worldly letters I received during my junior year at Penn.



I would say this broke my heart.



Where, I wondered, had these old friends gone? These writers of letters (real letters, oh, real letters) sent to me from France, Peru, California, South Carolina, northern Pennsylvania, Boston; slipped beneath a dorm-room door. These smart, funny, sly, forgiving souls. These moments of angst. This precious raw stuff of real life.



They are coming to see me, they write. They remember me, they write. They don't actually hate me, they tell me. There's a book I must read, they implore. Did you really just say that? they ask me, and I wonder, What? What did I just say? All these years ago, what did I just say?



There is a boy who will only call me Bellen. There is a boy, indeed there are two, proposing marriage. There is someone who thanks me for words I wrote to her in our high school yearbook. "They saved my life," she says, and I want to find her now, make sure she's all right now, make sure her story turned out okay in the end.



These letters are devastating, beautiful, actual, true. They have been living, all these years, inside an envelope inside a box inside an attic. The only reason I found them yesterday is because a certain niece asked me to help her with a school project and I (worried about overwhelm) said a grudging yes.



But we had fun, didn't we, Julia? And you gave me back all these years. 

outtakes from my day behind the scenes with the Pennsylvania Ballet's Julie Diana and Zachary Hench

Gorgeous dancers.

Even more gorgeous people.

Rehearsing Diamonds, from the ballet Jewels, by George Balanchine.

Tickets on sale now for five performances beginning October 17.

Second Nature: Feathers, Finery, Fur in this weekend's Inquirer

 





In this weekend's Philadelphia Inquirer, I'm writing about the feather and fur artist Beth Beverly, who does her work in the Martha Street Hatchatory in East Kensington, near the Frankford Avenue Arts Corridor. Beth and I met in the height of the summer at a Philadelphia Business Journal event—found each other in a crowded room. Her story intrigued me, and so I went to find out more. My story appears during a Philadelphia Open Studio Tours weekend—one of the largest such events in the nation. Go take a walk. Find out what Philadelphia artists are up to.



My story on Beth begins like this. The whole can be found at the Inquirer, with a link going live tomorrow.

They are in the wind and in the faces of the
rivers. On the rooftops and in tree nooks, in the green of the squares, on the
lips of the fountains, on the library steps, on the rim of William Penn’s hat.
They were here before the city was, before the Lenni Lenapes, even, and they
(the peregrines and hawks, the finches, pigeons, chickadees) are, today, our
urban warriors — on guard, in transit, adaptive, dialing up the volume on their
songs. They fly according to no grid. They sing when they want to.



In her early twenties, Beth Beverly — a young jewelry maker — found herself
obsessed with the beauty and plight of Philadelphia’s birds. She was dressing
windows for Daffy’s at the time. She would hear the tragic thump of a bird
against a window, and it would, she says, “crush” her. “There was this
beautiful creature,” she explains, “suddenly still on the sidewalk, beneath the
feet of crowds, being pushed toward a gutter.” They were birds in need of some
kind of rescue, and she made herself responsible.

when a CEO friend speaks the language of the soul.

I am, by nature, by upbringing, generous, but lately I can't be all I wish to be. I push against every sleeve of every hour and there's still not time enough, there are still people I disappoint—many people, daily, it seems to me just now.



(I do see you. I do hear you. I am sorry.)



This morning, an old friend, one of those dear CEOs I've been privileged to know, wrote to me in response to a note I'd written him. I've known this man for a very long time. He knows who I am at my best times; he has seen me at my worst. He knows what it is to have the world tug at you, deplete you; he heard depletion in my note.



He wrote this:



Fatigue causes all kinds of problems because it affects your immune system - infections, cancer, etc.  Do something - you need a fundamental change in your life.  I do not know what that is, but you might.  At some point it will become too late.  Write a letter to yourself - don't state what is wrong, say what you want.  Read it a few times and then write another one giving yourself advice of how to get what you want.  Then do it. 






I was sitting forward in my chair when the note came in. I sat back after I'd read it through. Some tension in my whole soul lifted.


Yes, I thought. I will write this letter. I will write this second letter. I will do it.


I share my friend's beautiful words with you, because there is something here for all of us.



Thank you, M.E.

if you are in need of love today: Julie Diana and Zachary Hench Dance

Tomorrow I will have the great privilege of watching these two artists and others from the corps of the Pennsylvania Ballet prepare for the opening of the company's Fiftieth Season.



A deepest honor.

And her eyes are closed. She is dreaming.

I found her in Asheville.



She hangs on my wall.



A bird on her head, the stuff of nests in her pocket.



When I am all out of everything I lift my eyes and find her and she says, Peace.



And she says, Go outside.



And she says, May the wings find you, may the currents stir.



I do not know how to make something as lovely as her. Cannot dance a dance that is as lovely as her. Cannot throw a pot that is as lovely as her. Cannot cook a meal that is as lovely as her. Cannot write a book that is as lovely as her.



But she is here. I am in the company of her loveliness.



And her eyes are closed. She is dreaming.

An amazing vista for writers and teachers at the Bank Street Mini-Conference: Please Join Us

I would be posting this event even if I had not already said yes to participating many months ago.



Because the Great Jennifer Brown (our children's book ambassador, as I always like to say, in honor of all she contributes to both Bank Street and Shelf Awareness and children's books in general) has assembled the cast.



Because the cast is exceptional.



Because those who say yes to this opportunity on November 9, 2013 in New York City will get to hear the thoughts of 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). They'll get to sit down and talk about Mo Willems, Margaret Wise Brown, Arnold Lobel, Judy Blume, J.K. Rowling, M.T. Anderson, Lois Duncan, Marcus Zusak, David Levithan, Elizabeth Wein, and so many others with working writers. They'll have a chance to participate in one-on-one manuscript and portfolio critiques with editors, agents, and art directors. And first thing in the morning, I will raise the great neon orange flag of Handling the Truth, in a talk about how we teach the things that matter.



Did I mention that the Great Jennifer Brown will be in the house?



Please check out all the details here. Please join us. And please do help us spread word.



Thank you.

when the government can't work, smart book people do: Maiden Lane Press and Shorefast Editions

On a day in which the U.S. Government (should I capitalize that?) can't seem to find a way to move forward, to lead, I am celebrating two new presses—Maiden Lane and Shorefast Editions—both created by friends of mine, both emblematic of what can happen when smart people take matters into their own hands.



Maiden Lane is the creation of Marly Rusoff, an agent who has worked with some of the most interesting writers of our time: Pat Conroy, Patricia Hampl, Arthur Phillips, Adam Langer, Meg Waite, Robert Clarke, Thrity Umrigar, Lisa Tucker, and Ron Rash, among them. I met Marly years ago, when she helped support the launch of my first book. I've stayed in touch, marveled at her eye and ear, applauded her literary moxie.



And so, when Marly told me about her brand new press—her desire to produce beautiful books that fully reflect on the author's work—I felt the pride I feel when cool people do cool things. Marly once bound books in her father's bindery. She cares about the case, the jacket, the design, and (of course) the words. And for her first foray into this publication effort she chose Moonrise by bestselling author Cassandra King. Moonrise has received much notice across the country and in the south, for the quality of its writing and story (a fresh haunting of du Maurier's Rebecca) and for the beauty of the book itself. It is doing spectacularly well—distributed widely, reviewed by the major trade publications, celebrated by many honors, and selling like hotcakes. A new press is born.



Colleen Mondor is another woman—writer, advocate, reviewer, blogger—for whom I hold much respect. Her beat is Alaska. Her memoir, The Map of My Dead Pilots, is featured in Handling the Truth and continues to sell well long after its publication.



But Colleen is always thinking beyond herself, and, together with Katrina Pearson, a bookseller and publicist in Alaska, she has created Shorefast Editions to help restore to print books that Colleen and Katrina feel are critical to the history of the land they love.



Their first effort in this regard is a reproduction (gorgeous!) of The Flying North, a book written by Jean Potter and originally published in 1945. Potter was a researcher who traveled across that snowy region interviewing the pilots who first flew north of the Arctic Circle, first landed on Mt. McKinley, and pioneered equipment that facilitated takeoffs and landings on sandbars, glaciers, and mudflats. Shorefast isn't just reproducing these historic titles in beautiful packages. It is making sure that bookstores have copies, that magazines are telling the story, that the book itself is being featured prominently at book festivals. They are, in other words, going all the way to make sure that books they believe in find their public.



We can have faith in people when our institutions fail us. We can keep on believing in books, because cool people keep inventing ways to keep this treasured industry alive.

talking with Kate Hopper about teaching, and a HANDLING gift.

This was me, years ago, teaching children at Chanticleer Garden. They'd come from all over the city and from around the near suburbs. It was our first day. We were working with panoramas. I was already in love—with the kids and with teaching.



Kate Hopper, who has been a dear presence in my life for many years, is a beautiful writer (you'll be reading about her brand-new memoir, Ready for Air, here on October 8), a teacher (she has an entire book her own teaching, Use Your Words), and a mother. We long for the day when we can sit with a bottle of wine and talk in person. For now, we have this conversation, posted today on Kate's magnificent blog, "Motherhood & Words." Kate and I talk about the teacherly life. She asks me questions no one has asked me. And she writes an introduction that made me cry.



Finally, courtesy of Gotham, there is an opportunity to win a free copy of Handling the Truth for those living in the lower 48 states.



Here, then. It all happens here.

Contemplating Iran: Announcing the 2013 Lore Kephart '86 Distinguished Historians Lecture Series Speaker

Readers of this blog know of the generosity of my father, and many of you know about the Distinguished Historians Lecture Series that he founded in my mother's name at Villanova University.



James McPherson gave the inaugural lecture in 2009, and two years ago Jill Lepore honored us with an early glimpse of her new book on Jane Franklin—a book that now sits on the long list of the National Book Awards.



This year, on October 8, starting at 7 PM, in the Villanova Room/Connelly Center (Villanova University), the series is hosting yet another extremely timely presentation: "Iran in Transition: US-Iran Relations in the Nuclear Age." Ray Takeyh, (Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, Council on Foreign Relations Professor, Center for Strategic Studies, Georgetown University) will be the speaker, and the presentation is free and open to the public.



Interested? You can register here.



Our family looks forward to hosting you for this conversation.