Beth Kephart's Blog, page 229

Fusion Communications: where the end is not the end

Several months ago, a change in one of my key corporate accounts left me wondering just what my future would be.  It was a rocky few days, and I had a choice—to succumb to panic or to choose to believe in myself. 



Surprising things happened because I believed.  Determined and maybe a tad feisty, I worked with my design partner (who is as well my husband) on a new web presence, then sent out a few notes here and there.  Within weeks (it seemed quite sudden)—in one of the hottest summers on record, in one of the most uncertain economic times I can remember—new work roared in. Former clients returning with new dreams.  Existing clients seeking new vehicles.  Absolutely-new clients with large-scale projects that demand, of their writer, a love for history and a passion for interviewing true experts. Re-branding projects. Book projects. Think papers. Employee magazines. Client publications.  The chance to sell of our photographs. This and more opened itself to our boutique marketing company, Fusion Communications, and we at Fusion opened ourselves to it.



What had seemed like a threat in the end set us free, and this, I think, is the way of things, my reason for this post.  Endings are only purely endings if we allow them to be.  Choose, as if you can, to see that seeming end as the space ahead of the new, more wonderful next thing.

I'm setting my mind to sail

I'm going to see where it takes me.

The Dangerous Neighbors Prequel: Let the illustration journey begin

My husband, a visual artist, has never been a reader of my books.  That is just how it is.



But every once in a while, I'll create a story or a project that reels him in.  There was, for example, my co-authored (with Vertex CEO Matt Emmens) corporate fable, Zenobia, which William illustrated with whimsical black-and-white line drawings and which was beautifully reviewed, I just this moment discovered, here.  There was also Ghosts in the Garden, my collection of mid-life musings, which William supplemented with gorgeous black and white photos (though they morphed into pinkish and grayish images once the book was translated in South Korea).



Lately, as many of you know, I have been at work on a new book, a prequel to my Centennial Philadelphia novel, Dangerous Neighbors (Egmont USA).  If this sudden split of quiet time holds, I'll be two-thirds or so through the first draft by weekend's end.  Enough story, in other words, for William to get working on what will be (thanks to the recent purchase of some very intriguing animation software and flash lighting systems) some extraordinary 3-D illustration work. 



This means that William will have to read at least some of this tale which stars (no accident there) a young man named William.  This means as well that I'm writing my heart out.  Because if I only get my husband's literary attention every once in a blue book, I sure as heck want to make it worth his while.

Read it for yourself: "The printed word is alive and well."

Julie Bosman of the New York Times brings us this good news today—the publishing industry has grown over the past three years, according to a recent BookStats survey.  From her news story:

"We're seeing a resurgence, and we're seeing it across all markets — trade, academic, professional," said Tina Jordan, the vice president of the Association of American Publishers. "In each category we're seeing growth. The printed word is alive and well whether it takes a paper delivery or digital delivery." 

Let us take a moment, then, in these darkened times, to celebrate the good news and to congratulate so many of us for never giving up hope in the first place.  The important thing, I think (and this indeed fueled my recent post about historical fiction), is never to panic when it comes to purported book trends.  We are human beings.  Stories feed us.

TEDx: Let the Next Generation Speak

The news is not good.  We Americans have done so much wrong—borrowed and buried; abnegated and abrogated, failed—and today, as stocks crumble and foreign markets waver, as our pilloried economy once more retreats, blame takes center stage.  It's their fault.  It's his fault.  It's them.



I say we step aside, then, if we can't agree to find a cure.  I say let us give the next generation the stage—those big dreams, those bigger hearts, the power of that knowing.  Do you want to know what that looks like?  Do you want some good news for this day?  Then visit Allegro, where you will learn about TEDxRedmond and the work that Maya, her sister, Priya, and so many more are doing on behalf of hope, on behalf of this world.  They are calling their conference "The Spark in All of Us."  See what that means to them.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children/Ransom Riggs: Reflections

Yesterday, in a post ruminating about the strong hold historical fiction still has on readers, I mentioned that I had begun to read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a book that has been on the New York Times bestseller list since it debuted in early June (and, indeed, was sold as a film property before it even hit the light of bookselling day).



I had been intrigued by the origins and making of this book—by the Deborah Netburn story I'd read in the LA Times that explained its genesis this way.  "The book came about when (author Ransom) Riggs started collecting found photography at flea markets and swap meets about three years ago.  He kept coming across strange creepy pictures of kids and felt like he wanted to some thing with them....  Riggs had just completed his first book, 'The Sherlock Holmes Handbook' for Quirk Books and asked his editor what he would do with the photos.  The editor suggested the pictures might inform a novel."



What we have here, in other words, is an author's reverence for odd photographic history, an editor's willingness to listen and to suggest, and a publishing house's embrace of the not-exactly-known.  The result?  A gothic, haunted, time-tripping tale that doesn't neatly fit any categories and so has been launched as an illustrated (by those very inspiration-laden vintage photographs) YA book that has people of all ages reading and talking.



We all love success stories, but I think this is a particularly special one—laden, as it is, with exceptional antecedents and peopled by risk takers.  More power, then, to Ransom Riggs and Quirk Books, to Miss Peregrine and all her peculiars, to our hero Jacob and his courageous grandfather, and to that island off the coast of Wales, where time either does or does not stand still.

"Historical fiction is struggling,"

I was told in an ever-so-brief e-mail yesterday.  Strangely, the note didn't do a thing to discourage me from the work I am doing to tell William's story in a Dangerous Neighbors prequel.  Most importantly, perhaps, because I just love this book—the guy-oriented nature of it, the pretty fascinating history behind it, and the way it visits me, late at night (my characters inside my dreams, my dreams beginning alongside a mess of noisy railroad tracks, in the clamor of a newsroom, in the rescue of a red heifer).  But also because when I look around I see books I've loved—historical novels for young adults—that are absolutely thriving.



Let's consider Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Ransom Riggs), a Quirk publication, now in its seventh week on the New York Times bestseller list (I'm 70 pages in and loving the mix of image and story; expect a full report tomorrow).  Let's talk about Ruta Sepetys' Between Shades of Gray , a book that led me to the marvelous Tamra Tuller of Philomel, and which, in its very first week, debuted on the New York Times list.  Let's talk about The Book Thief, one of my favorite books of all time, still number one on the list, or, for that matter, the award-winning, bestselling The Good Thief, still generating much enthusiasm.  Libba Bray didn't do too badly with The Sweet Far Thing or A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rita Williams-Garcia was deservedly rewarded for her basically perfect One Crazy Summer, and I recall—do you as well?—a certain series of historical novels featuring glamorously clad society heroines that rocked the lists for a very long time.  (I'm also thinking of the big recent award winners like The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and about the up and coming May B. by Caroline Starr Rose.)



Then there are those adult books, historical novels all, with which we are so familiar—Devil in the White City, The Help, Water for Elephants, The Paris Wife, Loving Frank, so many others—that locked in their places in book clubs and on lists. Struggle isn't a word that I would apply to them. 



I believe, in other words, that there is room for those of us out here who have fallen in love with a time and place and have a story to tell.  I've been barely able to breathe under a load of corporate work lately.  But the first chance I get, I'm returning to William.  I left him in a saloon down on Broad Street named Norris House.  He's been hankering for some dinner. I've got ideas about a multi-media launch.  And this kind of fun is worth having.

Some birds run when they see me; others don't.

(and a special thank you to all of you who were so kind in your notes of late. your know who you are.)



Does anyone know the name of the red-billed bird?  He (?) surprised me.

From inside the twenty-hour day, a voice or two

The days, oh—they have been something.  Yesterday, for example, began at 3 AM and ended at 11 PM, and included work on a bit of promotional poetry, a stint of science writing, a sudden and intense advertising copy session, a design review of a new think paper, and some finalizing touches on a complex technical magazine story for my Singapore client/friends. 



My hummingbird came near and stayed.



Miss M., my young and so talented dancing friend, sent a note I'll never forget.



My son invited me to dance with him.



I talked to a friend.



I think of all I did not do—the people I failed, the blogs I didn't visit, the messages I still owe, the questions I've not answered, the research I didn't do, the books I neither advanced nor read.





I am, I am afraid, perpetually begging forgiveness.

My hummingbird gives me, at last, the photos I've hoping for

click on each photo for a larger view :)