Beth Kephart's Blog, page 16

I thought all publishing was behind me. Then this.

Last October, Danielle M. Smith, a friend and agent, picked up the phone and called me. My husband and I happened to be away, at a just-the-two-of-us retreat. It was raining. Outside, a river rose. I talked to Danielle for close to an hour.

About life, moose, cookies, hope. About what I was and was not writing. She asked the question. I said "not much." Finally, I confessed. There was this book, this very personal book, a book that I'd been writing. I wasn't sure I'd ever publish again. But the truth was, I couldn't stop myself from writing.

A few weeks later, I finished that book. I sent it to Danielle, a presumption. It isn't as if she'd asked for it. In fact, she actually had not. Danielle was busy building her new list with Red Fox Literary. She was selling story after story. I don't think she was in the market for another client. But there, with this book, I was.

She read right away. She had a hunch. A little while later, the book went to auction.

So, Danielle, this is for you. And this is for Caitlyn Dlouhy, editor extraordinaire, who said so much when we first talked that still resonates here, in my head and heart. And this is for the other really kind and smart editors who talked with me that week. Each of you a boon. Each unforgettable.

Sometimes, we give up on ourselves. Sometimes we're given (a gift) brand new chances.

I'm grateful for this one.

living this life new

More and more, I am becoming me.

It took me this long to get here.

Fewer and fewer things in this house. A miniature car, bright orange. No more of that corporate work that bound me to this desk from 3 AM, sometimes until 10 PM, sometimes, work that made me less than pleasant (but only sometimes, I think, I hope). Only the books I want to read twice or three times in the house, and the ones I buy now are the ones I want, not the ones I feel an obligation to.

The work I do is the work I want to do. Reading the middle-grade books that carry the grown-up wisdoms. Reading the memoirs that I will teach. Profiling the people and places that inspire me, like Elisabeth Agro, say, who has revolutionized crafts in my city. Talking to other writers in real ways about the real work we hope to do.

I lived decades measuring my life by what I thought of as "real work." I was, I boasted to myself, making the correct sacrifices. I am trying on something new. Living my life as measured by my passions. I don't know how far this will go. But I'd be so mad at me if I didn't try it.

oh, the places I'll go

Last evening, between storm surges and convention watching, Bill and I finished filming the sixth video in our memoir series ( see our introductory video here ). We put the finishing touches on the packet we're about to send to the first dozen writers (we love them all already) who will be joining us for our five-day workshop on the old farm in September. We looked, again, ahead.

Here's where I'll be (when not in this house reading and writing memoir) over the next few months:

On August 4th, I'll be at the Stone Harbor Yacht Club in Stone Harbor, NJ, sharing my Jersey Shore novel, This Is the Story of You and reading some of the Jersey Shore pieces I've written over time (a chapter in Small Damages, a chapter in Love: A Philadelphia Affair). We'll also have some memoir writing fun. The event begins at 3:30.

On September 4, I'll be in Decatur, GA, for that most amazing AJC Decatur Book Festival, sharing a panel (at 2:00) with young adult writers Alexandra Sirowy and Ami Allen-Vath.

On September 11, I'll be on a farm with the incredible memoirists who have said yes to the inaugural Juncture Workshop series.

On October 15, I'll be joining fiction writers Angela Flournoy and Toni Jensen, poets Robin Coste Lewis and Chloe Honum, YA fantasy writer Brenna Yovanoff, mystery writer Will Thomas, and romance author Sherry Thomas at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma for the Nimrod Conference Readers and Writers.

On November 1, I'll be in Cape May, NJ, for the second Juncture Workshop.

On November 8, I'll be conducting training for the T/E School District.

introducing the Juncture video shorts: lessons on memoir for readers and writers

Over the past several weeks I've been here in my pretty little house reading and re-reading some of the world's great memoirists as I prepared for a series of six video shorts that will soon go live on Udemy. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alison Bechdel, Maggie Nelson, E.B. White, Abigail Thomas, Sy Montgomery, Angela Palm, James Baldwin, Helen Macdonald, Ta-Nehesi Coates, Chang-Rae Lee, Annie Dillard, and a variety of others all showing up for the same party. I'm hosting that party.

Bill, meanwhile, has been building (yes, building) a teleprompter, fixing the lights, turning on the camera and the voice recording equipment, and not making too much fun of me when I falter and we have to begin all again.

(I make him cookies. He forgives.)

This video tells you more about what this series is. I'll be reporting back when it is officially available. But if you have any interest and want us to send you an email when the whole series is fully live, just send us your address through the Juncture Workshop site (here) and we'll get back to you.

in the Philadelphia Inquirer: my morning with the incredible Elisabeth Agro

Several Fridays ago I had the extreme pleasure of spending a morning with Elisabeth Agro, the Nancy M. McNeil Associate Curator of American Modern and Contemporary Crafts and Decorative Arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

She inspired, educated, danced. She was alive, passionate, smart. She was breeze on a summer day. I adored her.

And so I wrote about Elisabeth for the Philadelphia Inquirer in this weekend edition that extends an open welcome to politicians, delegates, media, and conventioneers. Why not take a break from the balloons and debates and slip in among the art? Why not go to a quiet, thoughtful place and ponder the future of us?

A link to the story will go live on Sunday.

Meanwhile, those of you arriving or departing from Terminal D at the Philadelphia International Airport will perhaps notice the LOVE display that was unveiled a few months ago, in anticipation of this week. Based on the essays and photos in my book Love: A Philadelphia Affair, that mural, too, celebrates the museum as part of a broader celebration of our region.

We hope for peace and intelligent conversation this week. We hope to be a city well received and well remembered.

in Chicago Tribune: the inherent wisdom of middle-grade books

Several few months ago, I sat on the couch in my family room reading and re-reading middle-grade books. I had reached an end of sorts with young-adult fiction—had grown concerned about the divisions, the animosities, even, that festered among some YA camps and were splitting writers from writers from (ultimately) readers.

I read the most beloved of the new middle-grade stories to be alive again to pure story itself. I read in search of binding patterns. I read, and I thought.

This essay, now published in Printers Row/Chicago Tribune, reports back on some of the thoughts I had. What makes a middle-grade story lasting? What gives a middle-grade tale wisdom of the transcendent, inarguable sort?

All the Wonders: a conversation (and some news)

Sometimes everything falls into place. A dear friend becomes an agent. She sells (she does!) a book (two books). She forges a link to another special person. A conversation begins.

Who hasn't listened to an All the Wonders podcast and thought, Oh, my. What intelligent questions. What a happy dialogue. What a voice that Matthew Winner has. Who hasn't secretly hoped for the chance to be a guest?

Thanks to my agent, Danielle Smith, thanks to the sale of that book (those books), thanks to her generous linking of me to Matthew Winner (a writer, librarian, husband, dad, and All the Wonders wonder), I had my secret hope answered. I'm episode 272, and during our conversation I talk about the making of sentences, the intrusion of the writerly impulse, the story called THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU, and, well, my new news. Matthew reads from my book. So do I.

All of that is here.

Thank you infinitely, Mr. Winner and, of course, the remarkable Ms. Danielle Smith.

my father's house, settled, and in such very good hands

A few weeks ago, my last day at my father's house, I took this photograph.

An empty house. An empty room.

A journey ended.

This afternoon my father and I joined our beautiful realtor, and my friend, Marie, in an office down the road. We were handing over the keys to my father's house. A lovely young family is moving in. They will make this home their own.

A journey begun.

Thanks to all of you who have joined me on this journey of deep discovery, sometimes frustration, and, today, peace. So much is wrong with the world. The sale of this house to this family is not one of those things.

my Radnor High commencement speech: a video

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Juncture Workshops takes yet another step forward

When I left the vagaries and (often) cruelties of corporate America behind this past May, I wasn't only leaving something. I was stepping toward something new. We've called it Juncture Workshops. You know what it is—an intense focus on memoir and how it might be taught in ways that radically reinvent both community and self knowledge, literature and the single sentence.

Over the past few days we've been laying the groundwork for a new Juncture element—a series of brief video interludes that introduce (in Series 1) paired memoiristic essays (unexpected pairings, pairings that delight me, pairings I've not taught before) that reveal both the inner workings of memoir and the essential eruptions of memory.

We're filming our first one tomorrow. We'll be releasing the whole as a set on a teaching platform toward summer's end. I post this now because it's exciting to me—to discover these connections, and to share them.