Beth Kephart's Blog, page 205
January 8, 2012
CRACKED: The K.M. Walton Book Launch
I love book launch parties, and last night's party for K.M. Walton (at the Chester County Book & Music Company) was nothing short of spectacular. I believe the entire state of Pennsylvania showed up, and then some. I know there was love in the room. You would have thought we were attending a basketball game, given all the whooping going on, the whistling and cheering. It takes a long time to write a book, a long time to sell it, and then there's that stretch of awful lonesome when you don't know who will care about what you've done, or if anyone will buy it.
If you don't stop to celebrate, then you've missed the best part of the deal. With a CRACKED cake and cupcakes, with a buffet table and street teams, with signature hunters lined up for miles, and with that sunshine smile on her lovely face, K.M. Walton celebrated in style.
And here we are—just a few of the thousands—celebrating with her. You've got Kathye Fetsko Petrie, Ilene Wong, A.S. King, and yours truly in the mix. You've also got one of the nicest gestures I've seen at a book launch party—a table celebrating the books of K.M. Walton's friends.
Here's to a long life for CRACKED. Happy First Book Week, Kate.
January 7, 2012
Atlantic City Self-portrait
[image error]
January 6, 2012
Florinda's Kindness. Best of Graces. K.M. Walton. DeWitt Henry. And the beach in winter.
I have been sitting here since four this morning, when it was all dark and all cold. At one point I looked up, and there was blue within the black. And then, a little while on, I looked and saw the float of pillowed pink.
Just ahead of the pinking, I went to my favorite blogs list and clicked onto the 3 R's Blog to see what Florinda has cooking. Oh, good, I thought. Her best of year list. With great interest, I read. The Warmth of Other Suns—a fabulous choice. Tina Fey's Bossypants—absolutely; that book made me laugh when I needed a laugh. Just Kids by Patti Smith, one of my all-time favorite memoirs. The Girls of Murder City.
It was when I got to the fiction list that I did a double take, for there was You Are My Only, alongside Faith, Girl in Translation, and Fathermucker. My little book beside some very big books. Florinda's goodness forever transparent.
Why are there always 3,000 miles between me and the people that I want to hug? I'm hoping Florinda can feel my hug today. I am hoping there is pink in her sky.
Florinda, you deserve some major pink in your sky. Thank you. For everything.
My deep affection for the bloggers who have been so kind to You Are My Only is well-established. I am so surprised and so moved by all of you who named You Are My Only at year's end (listing alphabetically):
Caribousmom/Short List for Fiction
Caribousmom/Buzz Books Which Did Not Disappoint
Dear Author
My Friend Amy
On a Southern Breeze
The 3 R's Blog
Two Heads Together
Washington, D.C. Literature/Examiner.com
Tonight I'm going lift a glass in your honor in Atlantic City, where I'll be with my boys, doing that winter-at-the-beach thing we do.
I'll come home in time to lift another glass to K.M. Walton (though I promise not to arrive already tripping), who is launching her first book, Cracked, at the Chester County Book Company on Saturday night. There's going to be a gonzo crowd. Be there, I say.
On Sunday, I'm off to celebrate Little Miss Eva's birthday. Of course there will be photos; there always are.
And then on Tuesday, I'll be in the company of my good friends, Elizabeth Mosier, Chris Mills, Kelly Simmons, and Pam Sedor as we toast DeWitt Henry, writer, founding editor of Ploughshares, and former Chair of Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College, who is returning to his childhood haunts on the Main Line with an evening talk at the Radnor Memorial Library. I'll repeat myself, because I can:
Be there.[image error]
January 5, 2012
A little of Berlin. A lot of YAMO thanks. And the beauty of writing slow.
When I went to Berlin this past summer I had no idea that I would someday soon be writing about this storied, divided, chaotic, rich, surprising city. I had gone for no other purpose but this: I had not been gone, in a real way, from my office/home for three years. I took photographs of what appealed to me, what intrigued me. I read a little, but not a lot, wandered, consulted maps, got lost, and managed to hike all the way to Little Istanbul on the wrong day, when the outdoor marketplace was closed, a not-so-pleased husband beside me.
These days, between client calls, I reconstruct that journey, ask myself what I really saw, look for spires in the background of photographs. There, I think. That is the church. Here, I think: The canal that leads to the bridge that overlooks a view that once was barbed and different.
It all comes back, new and different. It comes back, not just as form and color, but as a rich and meaningful history, slowly understood. There are great pleasures in writing a book at a quiet pace, in writing toward the not easily known. You steep until the material owns you. You steep, you read, you keep consulting those maps, you watch those films, you listen to those people speaking their foreign tongues until they don't sound so foreign after all. And then one day you wake up, and you own it. One day it's not about what you are studying, but what you know. It takes time. It is—indisputably—one of my very happiest times. I have Tamra Tuller of Philomel to thank for the great privilege. For being there, and for caring, while I work these details through.
To add to my happiness there is this. Last night I discovered that that pretty spectacular reading/blogging/librarian team—Two Heads Together—cited You Are My Only as the top YA book of the year. What? You don't think that made me dance? Check out all their reads, and the intelligence with which they present their musings, here.
Thank you, Ed and Susan. (so much)
January 4, 2012
a moment from the past, two National Book Awards nights
I try not to look back too often—try always to press forward. But this morning, while looking for a photo of Alane Salierno Mason to accompany my Publishing Perspectives profile, I came across others that have, quite frankly, set me back today with memories.
From left to right, in the first photograph above, Yaffa Eliach, who was nominated in the nonfiction category with me for There Once Was a World; Patty Chang Anker, my publicist and still friend; Louise Brockett, the lead publicist for W.W. Norton; my agent, Amy Rennert; myself; and Alane.
The second photo, which makes me cry, really cry, when I look at it, is of Patty and me. There was so much emotion in that moment. There was so much that I did not know, and still don't.
There. I'll start looking ahead again, come tomorrow.[image error]
Profiling Alane Salierno Mason, my first editor, for Publishing Perspectives
My journey into the land of books began in the way that most things begin with me—by braving myself away from the margins. I had written in secret for years and without any "proper" literary education. I had not met my first real writer—Fae Myenne Ng—until I was already a mother. By the time I finally figured out what writing workshops were and what they might teach me, I couldn't enroll in any of them until I somehow wove them into family vacations. This I did, spending time with Rosellen Brown and Reginald Gibbons in Spoleto, Jayne Anne Phillips and William Gass in Prague, and Jayne Anne Phillips once more at Bread Loaf.
When I sent my unsolicited manuscript to Alane Salierno Mason at W.W. Norton—added it to what must have been a staggering slush pile—I had already been told that my work was too "literary," that it was unlikely to ever sell more than 3,000 copies, and that I should either look for something else to do or change my relationship to language. Alane didn't say those things to me. Instead, she called me on my birthday with the news that my first book, a memoir, would be edited by her.
Alane, then, was my introduction to book publishing. She walked me through the streets of New York City and made sure I made the train home on time. She introduced me to the Rose Room of the New York Public Library. She sat with me over the course of many meals, was there for me throughout the National Book Award reading and ceremony (pictured above), and bought two more of my books—a memoir about marriage and El Salvador, and a memoir that called out for parents everywhere to give children more time to dream out loud.
I have since read and reviewed many of Alane's books on this blog. I have watched her harness her passion for international literature into the widely respected publishing and education venture, Words Without Borders. I have read her own beautiful essays, and her reporting in Vanity Fair. I have cheered as one of her books, The Swerve, went on to win the National Book Award.
A few weeks ago, I had an e-mail conversation with Alane about her life in books, and about the state of international publishing. That story has gone live today at Publishing Perspectives and can be found here.
To read my other profiles for Publishing Perspectives, please follow these links:
Transforming Children's Book Coverage at the New York Times: My conversation with Pamela Paul
Success is when the world returns your faith: My conversation with editor Lauren Wein
Between Shades of Gray: The Making of an International Bestseller
January 3, 2012
in which Matthew Quick's novel brings my ballroom dance friends to the silver screen
A few years ago, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto introduced me to Matthew Quick, a novelist whose The Silver Linings Playbook had recently been optioned for film. Many books get optioned; far fewer films get made. Far, far fewer films have director David Russell at the helm and Bradley Cooper, Julia Stiles, and Robert De Niro cast as leads.
The story is quirky, funny, and moving. It also features a crazy dance contest, and since the movie was being filmed locally, local dancers were invited to audition as extras.
My friend and dance teacher, Jan Paulovich (DanceSport Academy), and his partner, Lana Roosiparg, were among those who showed up for opportunity. They had, they say, no expectations, were simply hoping to have some fun. One month later, they were on the set with De Niro and others—not just dancing, but acting. They had been told two days of filming would be required. In the end, their dancing—and their charisma—changed David Russell's plans for the dance scene...and required five on-set days for Jan and Lana.
A few weeks ago, Jan asked me to write this story for a local ballroom dance publication. It gave me the excuse to get back in touch with Matthew Quick and to ask him how it has felt to watch his novel make its way to the silver screen (it will debut this November). Here's an extract from the story:
Raised in a blue-collar
neighborhood by stern—and conservative—Protestant parents, dance was never part
of (Matthew's) world; indeed, he said in a recent interview, "the thought of any man or
boy dancing—especially someone I knew personally—was absurd."
Thus, when Matthew first conjured the dance scene in his novel about a man just
released from a mental hospital and desperate to reconcile with his ex-wife, he
was, in his words "going for laughs."
"Pat (Peoples) dancing was my fish out of water," says Matthew. "Lots of jokes
were instantly born. The outfits Pat and Tiffany wear during the dance
competition and Tiffany's choreography are equally bizarre and over-the-top.
Hilarious, in a sad, quirky, and hopefully endearing way. But as I wrote the
scenes I began to see that dancing was not only healthy for Pat but
therapeutic. In many ways, the ridiculous way Pat felt while
dancing—expressing his emotions through movement—was akin to the way I felt
when I started writing seriously and telling people that I was a fiction
writer. Mostly I imagined Pat and Tiffany as emotionally vulnerable--maybe for
the first time--while dancing. Art saves!"
Dance, too, I keep learning, saves. And life is full of crazy, lovely collisions.[image error]
January 2, 2012
on female friendships
One of the great joys of having our son home (and there are many joys, believe me) is what happens over meals. We talk, and we talk deeply. We raise questions. We try to answer them.
This evening the talk turned to the nature of friendships—about why friendships between men seem better equipped to overcome small hitches, to get on with things, to move past disagreements. "I don't mean to stereotype women," my son said, "but wouldn't you say they are often less willing to confront issues head on? I mean, don't women often tend to say nothing when they should say something, until the smallest little thing makes the whole friendship explode?"
I had to agree, as the one woman at the table. I looked back, thought about relationships broken, relationships that carry forward. I thought about the times that I've tried to be direct—to speak honestly, to express concerns, to ask questions, to understand—and about how, at times, directness was both not wanted, nor productive. I thought about the ways that silence creeps in, then distance, then nothing. I thought about a lot of things while my son kept on talking.
Men, he was saying, can have fights, physical fights even, and wake up the next day and be friends. For women, however, continuity post betrayal or perceived betrayal, post selfish turn, post unkindness, seems harder.
Why do you think that is? he asked me.
I could not say for sure.[image error]
Small Damages, the opening lines
In honor of this new year, in honor of this generous post, the opening lines of Small Damages, due out from Philomel on July 19th.
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The streets of Seville are the size of sidewalks, and
there are alleys leaking off from the streets. In the back of the cab, where I
sit by myself, I watch the past rushing by. I roll the smeary window down,
stick out my arm. I run one finger against the crumble-down of walls. Touch
them for you: Hello, Seville.
At the , the old lady in
the vestibule is half my height, not even. She has thick elephant legs and
opaque stockings, and maybe the sun banged her awake when I opened the door, or
maybe the look of me disturbs her, but whatever it is, she's bothered. She puts
her hand out for my deposit, finds a key, and knocks it down on the table
between us. She thrusts her chin sky high, and I turn and take the marble
stairs, where there are so many smashed-in footsteps before mine. Smashed in
and empty and hollow.
