Beth Kephart's Blog, page 138
March 23, 2013
Calling all New Yorkers: Come Meet us Tomorrow at Books of Wonder
Our No-Foolin’ Mega-Signing
Books of Wonder
18 West 18th Street
New York, New York
You want books?
You want fine?
You want signatures?
You want to meet me and some of my friends?
Join us.
1-1:45:
Jessica Brody (Unremembered, Macmillan)
Marisa Calin (Between You and Me, Bloomsbury)
Jen Calonita (The Grass is Always Greener, LB)
Sharon Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, Scholastic)
Caela Carter (Me, Him, Them, and It, Bloomsbury)
Crissa Chappell (Narc, Flux)
Susane Colasanti (Keep Holding On, Penguin)
Zoraida Cordova (The Vicious Deep, Sourcebooks)
Gina Damico (Scorch, HMH)
Jocelyn Davies (A Fractured Light, HC)
Sarah Beth Durst (Vessel, S&S)
Gayle Forman (Just One Day, Penguin)
Elizabeth Scott (Miracle, S&S)
1:45-2:30
T. M. Goeglein (Cold Fury, Penguin)
Hilary Weisman Graham (Reunited, S&S)
Alissa Grosso (Ferocity Summer, Flux)
Aaron Hartzler (Rapture Practice, LB)
Deborah Heiligman (Intentions, RH)
Leanna Renee Hieber (The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart, Sourcebooks)
Jeff Hirsch (Magisterium, Scholastic)
J. J. Howard (That Time I Joined the Circus, Scholastic)
Alaya Johnson (The Summer Prince, Scholastic)
Beth Kephart (Small Damages, Penguin)
Kody Keplinger (A Midsummer’s Nightmare, LB)
2:30-3:15
A.S. King (Ask the Passengers, LB)
Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14, Macmillan)
David Levithan (Every Day, RH)
Barry Lyga (Yesterday Again, Scholastic)
Brian Meehl (Suck it Up and Die, RH)
Alexandra Monir (Timekeeper, RH)
Michael Northrop (Rotten, Scholastic)
Diana Peterfreund (For Darkness Shows the Stars, HC)
Lindsay Ribar (The Art of Wishing, Penguin)
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park, St. Martin’s)
Kimberly Sabatini (Touching the Surface, S&S)
Tiffany Schmidt (Send Me a Sign, Bloomsbury)
3:15-4:00
Victoria Schwab (The Archived, Hyperion)
Jeri Smith-Ready (Shine, S&S)
Amy Spalding (The Reece Malcolm List, Entangled)
Stephanie Strohm (Pilgrims Don’t Wear Pink, HMH)
Nova Ren Suma (17 & Gone, Penguin)
Greg Takoudes (When We Wuz Famous, Macmillan)
Mary Thompson (Wuftoom, HMH)
Jess Verdi (My Life After Now, Sourcebooks)
K.M. Walton (Empty, S&S)
Suzanne Weyn (Dr. Frankenstein’s Daughters, Scholastic)
Kathryn Williams (Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous, Macmillan)
because we all write bad, at least sometimes: some advice
You want to hold onto those words. They took so much of your time—time you didn't have, time you stole—and besides, you liked them once. You were proud of them. You thought they did the trick.
Newsflash: They don't. And also: The story doesn't work. And also: Where were your ears? Were they not hearing your poor patterns, your stiff prose? Sure you have excuses (didn't you just say you had no time?), but nobody who reads your bad book will care. Nobody saw you sweating for time.
Do not think a little fix here or there will suffice. Do not count the hours you've already spent. The only thing that matters is the book you finally share.
Make it one you love because that's the only shot you have of somebody else loving it, too.
Do not compromise.
Start again.
This week, Beth Kephart started again.
March 22, 2013
apologizing in advance (rethinking the blog)
I have always had the utmost respect for the true book blogger—for all of you exceedingly generous souls who make so much time for books and the book community. I imagine that your houses are built out of bindings and glue. That your lamps stay on well into the dark. That you might wish to fly a kite or dig a hydrangea into the ground, but kindly turn pages instead.
When I started this blog six years ago, I imagined it to be a place where I would muse out loud about the world, its words, its images. I'd write about my friends and my communities. I'd provide updates on my journeys. I'd share news about books I'd somehow stumbled upon. I'd have fun.
I didn't imagine that a blog could become so pressing. That it could become more overwhelming than any job.
But indeed it has. For longer than I can remember now I've been crushed beneath the weight of requests, queries, books sent my way for blog review or blurbs. Yesterday in the space of a single half hour, five requests came in. In the morning there were two. A typical day in blog land.
The thing is: I want to make everybody happy. I want to make each day a gift. I want to read these books and write about them, but I have run out of time. Even sleeping three hours at night I'm behind. Even setting my own work to the side most days, which I have been doing forever now in an attempt to get square with the requests.
It occurs to me that I can't catch up. That as beautiful as so many of these books undoubtedly are, as deserving, I'll never be able to cover them all. Even if I never again stepped foot outside. Or did my day job. Or taught my students. Or washed my hair. Or paid my taxes.
And so, going forward, I'll have to say no to many things I wish I didn't have to say no to. And I will hope all of you understand. And I hope, too, that you will know how grateful I've been for the care you've given my own work. Certainly I'll still be covering books here—books I've bought, books I've requested, books by true dear friends. But I'll have to rearrange the piles in order to finally get clear.
In the meantime, I will always be grateful to people like Keertana, the creator of Ivy Book Bindings. She, like so many book bloggers, does this work far better than I can. Recently, for example, she found her way to Small Damages and kindly asked me to share something of its history as well as my own recommendations for recent historical/literary reads. She has woven all that together beautifully here. Her blog is well worth linking to.
March 21, 2013
We Could Be Heroes: Patricia McCormick, Ruta Sepetys, and kindness
I found this little girl in Berlin. She was mesmerized by the magic of bubbles. I left her city mesmerized as well, and then one day began to write a novel for it. I called that book We Could Be Heroes. I dedicated it to my editor, Tamra Tuller. It will be launched by Chronicle Books sometime next year, and I've held my breath, as I always do, hoping that it might find its right readers.
I cannot imagine being any more blessed than I am right now, today, by the kindness of two extraordinary readers—two young adult writers who have done so much on the page, done so much for others, done so much to elevate this genre, to prove its power. Thank you, Patricia McCormick and Ruta Sepetys for your words about We Could Be Heroes.
“Beth Kephart is one of my heroes. She’s spun gold out of the language of longing and has shown us how to make room for miracles. We Could Be Heroes –about a boy and girl separated by the cruelest of fates–will inspire any reader to make the leap for love.”
–Patricia McCormick, author of National Book Award Finalists Sold and Never Fall Down
“An unforgettable portrayal of life and love divided. Kephart captures the beauty and desperation of 1980's Berlin with prose both gripping and graceful.”
--Ruta Sepetys, New York Times bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray and Out of the Easy
headed to California and other bookish events
Friends of this blog know how much I love California—the sun, the ocean cliffs, the people. I was so happy, therefore, to be invited to conduct a memoir workshop at the great BookPassage in Corte Madera. I'll be out there in early September, and I'd love to see you there. The details are here, below, along with a few other events that have cropped up in the meantime—events that will touch on everything from Small Damages, Dangerous Neighbors, and Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent to memoir writing, Philadelphia, and the boutique marketing communications firm I run.
Please join us if you can.
March 22, 2013, 5 - 7 PMPost-Penn Perspectives Panel
Sweeten Alumni House
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
March 24, 2013, 1 - 4
No-Foolin' Mega-Signing At Books of Wonder
New York, New York
For Details click here.
April 10, 2013, 7 PM
Feature Author Book Club Dinner
Harleysville Books
Harleysville, PA
May 22, 2013, 2 PM
Strange and Familiar Places in YA Fiction (a panel)
Drexel University Week of Writing
Philadelphia, PA
July 27, 2013, 3:30 - 5:00 PM
Launching Small Damages paperback/Memoir Workshop
with Debbie Levy
Hooray for Books
Old Town Alexandria, VA
August 6, 2013
Launching Handling the Truth
with a memoir workshop
Free Library of Philadelphia
(details to come)
Philadelphia, PA
September 7, 2013, 10 AM - noon
BookPassage Memoir Workshop
51 Tamal Vista Blvd.
Corte Madera, CA 94925
October 20, 2013
Talking Memoir with Linda Joy Myers @
Rosemont College
(details to come)
March 20, 2013
Janet Malcolm: journalist and visual artist
Yesterday at Kelly Writers House I spoke briefly with Janet Malcolm, who had spent two days with the students and faculty of Penn. She was being hosted by Al Filreis, that brilliant teacher and interviewer who knows a frightening amount about a chosen writer's work—and closes in on a surprising number of mysteries. My conversation with Janet quickly turned to passions, and where we find them—how we stay urgent with our work. Janet began to talk about her collage work, her forays into the visual arts, the way the mind works when hands are busy making. It was a lovely, unforgettable moment in time.
I came home with Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice in my bag and a great curiosity about Janet's art, which I showcase above. Perhaps you are interested, too, and if so, here's Casey Schwartz on Malcolm's art and Katie Rophie on Janet herself, a marvelous, Al Filreis-worthy Paris Review interview.
March 19, 2013
in which pottery doesn't reach its end
Yesterday was the final day in pottery class, and I realize how fond I have grown of these women who mold the earth with their hands. No pot alike. No glaze entirely predictable. Everything some degree of mystery to those who attempt to make.
And pottery people like books, as it turns out.
And pottery people laugh.
And pottery people share what they know, encourage whenever they can.
I'll be returning, with my artist husband, to this small crowd to see if I can do more and do better with the granular, tempestuous stuff.
March 18, 2013
the most stubborn writer alive
"You should just skip that part," my husband says.
"I can't. You know I can't. I'm not like that."
"You should try," he says, "because you're driving yourself crazy."
"I know," I say. "But I can't."
Why is it that I work this way, I wonder—incapable of writing forward when the scene I've been working on fails? Incapable of believing that I'll get it right some time. Now is the time, and now I am failing. The failure of the scene is the failure of the book until—unless—I get it right.
I'll be crazy between now and then.
March 17, 2013
have you ever learned anything about craft from reading a critic? AL Kennedy opines
I spent most of this weekend reading a hefty book for review, then running to catch up on corporate work and student papers. Then, for about a half hour, I calmed down and read The New York Times. I found the interview everyone else has likely read by now—the one in which A.L. Kennedy talks to John Williams about The Blue Book, and other such matters.
I found this particular exchange quite nicely juicy. I juxtapose it with a photo I took of my own classroom chalkboard, when I was prepping for the conversation my students and I were about to have about Caroline Knapp's memoir, Drinking: A Love Story.
You can teach reading. You can teach critique. But you should not, as Kennedy points out here, tell someone, especially an author, what to think.
Q.
Have you ever learned anything specific about your craft from reading a critic’s reaction to your work?
A.
From
a professional critic, no. I’ve never expected to. In the U.K., the
critical culture can be fairly moribund and dominated by an oddly
ill-informed set of academic assumptions. There’s less and less space or
money for serious criticism. From critics — which is to say, people who
look closely at my work and are true and wide-ranging readers — yes, I
have. But paying too much attention to external opinion — fashions,
theories, trends, friends — puts you a couple of years behind your own
timeline, because critics only ever follow. That whole scene can take
you away from your center and your voice, while making you
self-conscious. It’s a toxic combination. And an adult writer can’t
always be expecting this little fantasy undergraduate workshop to tell
them what to think. If you’re the author, it’s your decision to find out
what you think and what you want to say and then get on with it. If it
were a group effort, your name wouldn’t be the only one on the title.
March 16, 2013
Buzz Bissinger on HANDLING THE TRUTH
Among the many memoirs nested into Handling the Truth is Buzz Bissinger's own extraordinary fatherhood story, Father's Day. I wrote about it because I love it. I teach it because it matters.
Buzz's kindness to me through the years has been remarkable—his support of my work, his faith in my small books, his encouragement about my sentences. Buzz wrote the beautiful words on the jacket of Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia's Schuylkill River. And today he has these words for Handling the Truth:
Beth Kephart has done something extraordinary with this huge and messy thing called memoir—roping it into submission with her typically beautifully writing. There is authority here, scholarship, challenge. In this well-organized book, every example is a precious stone to turn over and to learn from, particularly in terms of crafting a voice and finding one's way in. Too many students think memoir just happens. Nothing ever just happens. Memoir is an academic field. This should become the seminal text.
Buzz Bissinger, author of Father's Day, A Prayer for the City, and Friday Night Lights
For more about Handling the Truth, please visit this page.
