Beth Kephart's Blog, page 26

On Articulate (WHYY) with the brilliant Jim Cotter, and his kind and gracious team

The glorious hours I spent in the company with Jim Cotter and his entire team have produced these minutes on film that I will always treasure.

Here are so many of the things I care about—Philadelphia, the Schuylkill, Penn, memoir, story, language—all in one place, all at one time.

I'm not beautiful, as I always say. But maybe it is enough if beautiful things live in my world.

You can watch the segment, which also features literary translation and tenor Stephen Costello, here.

Or watch this evening at 10:30, WHYY TV, or on Sunday at 1 PM.

Articulate—all of you—thank you.

Gary Kramer of Temple University Press: you have opened so many doors. Thank you.

Juncture Workshops announces (officially) its first five-day workshop, coming this September. Join us?

I've been alluding to our landscape-emboldened five-day memoir workshops for quite some time now.

We're rolling this thing out.

Here, at last, is more information about what we'll be doing, why we're doing it, and what those five days on a Central Pennsylvania farm (an hour from Harrisburg) will be like, come this September.

If you are interested in learning more, please send us a note through the contact form—or any other way that works for you.

All photos and web design are courtesy of my artistic husband and partner in this venture.

Read the full web site to find out how his artistry will be part of the program.

Reflecting on A.O. Scott's new book, BETTER LIVING, in the Chicago Tribune

Who doesn't love a good A.O. Scott film review? (Well, I mean, who besides those directors, writers, actors, costume designers, or dialect coaches A.O. Scott might not be loving at that review moment?)

And who didn't love A.O. Scott and David Carr during the era of the New York Times video segment, "The Sweet Spot"?

Last week I had the chance to read Scott's new book, Better Living Through Criticism, for the Chicago Tribune. In what often felt like a very meta experience (critiquing a book about critiquing), I had this to say.

Rising sea levels, and THIS IS THE STORY OF YOU

In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Bob Kopp, whose web page describes him as a "climate scientist, Earth historian, geobiologist, and energy policy wonk," reported, along with his collaborators at Rutgers, Tufts, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, York, Woods Hole, and Harvard, a sobering rise in sea levels.

Having examined the rising seas over the past 3,000 years, Kopp and his team demonstrated, with 95% probability, that sea levels began to rise at "historic" rates in the 19th century.

It's not that this is new news. Indeed, we've been watching islands disappear, shore lines erode, storms hit with devastating force. We've worried over the future of entire countries. We've read words like these (Nicholas Bakalar) in the New York Times :

A three-foot rise in sea level in Malibu, Calif., for example, would put many houses near Malibu Beach under water. In New York, most of Harlem River Drive and Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive south of 168th Street would be inundated, and Ellis Island would be about half its present size. In Florida, Tampa and Miami would lose large areas of land, and much of the Keys would disappear.

We've been watching our world get remade because we've been remaking our world.

I set out to write This Is the Story of You because I grew up loving the Jersey shore (sand castles, Dippy Don's ice cream, crab hunting, bird sanctuaries). Because I watched, along with every once else, the devastation of Storm Sandy. Because I worry, endlessly, about our planet. As I read the news that we all read, and as I think about the next generation and all the challenges placed before them, I hope, through Story, which takes place in the aftermath of a monster storm on a barrier island, to remind readers of all that is at stake—and of all we still owe to one another.

Love, Flow, Handling: all available for free thanks to WHYY's "Articulate." Enter like this.

My friends, the hour is soon. The chance to see if Beth is smarter than she ever manages to look on "Articulate," that glorious WHYY art show that Beth (still speaking of herself in the third person here) can hardly believe she'll soon be on.

(All thanks to Gary Kramer, by the way, for forging the bridge.)

As part of that program, three of my books will be offered to lucky giveaway winners on three separate social media platforms:

Love on Facebook
Flow on Twitter
Handling the Truth on Instagram 

Look for them and enter in, if having a free signed copy of one of these books is on your wish list.

Speaking of wishes: Wish me lots of luck. By which I mean: Wish me luck in surviving the panic that is slowly creeping in.

Show times on Philadelphia's WHYY:

Thursday, February 25, 2015, 10:30 PM
Sunday, February 28, 2015, 1:00 PM

Finally, can I just say, again and forever, how nice the entire "Articulate" staff is? And what fun it is to spend an hour talking to Jim Cotter. Even when you do just blow in from a storm. Sit down. And start speaking. Looking up minutes later to ask, Wait. Are those cameras actually on?

Home as Heart, and Hearth: Join my students and my writing friends for the Beltran evening, at Penn

I talk about my beloved Penn students. I boast about them, often. And sometimes I have the honor of introducing their work to to the world.

That's going to happen next week, March 1, 6 PM, at the Kelly Writers House, on the University of Pennsylvania campus, when we convene for the Beltran Family Teaching Award program. The event is free and open to the public, and we hope you'll join us.

The official blurb is below.

(Those of you who may be wondering about the provenance of the cover photo for the chapbook we've produced: that is a garden in Florence where my Nadia (of One Thing Stolen) slipped away to feel at peace.)

Join us for HOME AS HEART, AND HEARTH: STORIES AND IDEAS, a discussion on what exactly makes a home—how it’s built, how it’s found, and how it’s sustained. This year’s Beltran Teaching Award winner BETH KEPHART will lead a conversation featuring beloved Young Adult novelist A.S. KING, New York Times contributing writer and Young Adult novelist MARGO RABB, and National Book Circle Critics Finalist RAHNA REIKO RIZZUTO. Following the event, “home”-inspired work made by guests and Penn students will be bound together in a commemorative volume.

Talking about the big "I", this week on WHYY's show, Articulate, with Jim Cotter

I do wish, often, that I had been born beautiful. I wish it especially at times like these, when given the extraordinary opportunity to speak with the brilliant Jim Cotter for his WHYY show, "Articulate."

Nonetheless, here I am. Grateful for all the care Jim's exceptional team took, grateful for the conversation, grateful, indeed, for the invitation. And hoping that I had something meaningful to say.

A link to the trailer is here.

And show times, on Philadelphia's WHYY:

Thursday, February 25, 2015, 10:30 PM
Sunday, February 28, 2015, 1:00 PM

Essential Earth: An upcoming show, and a gift, thanks to ceramicist Brett Thomas

Could you, I am often asked. Read a manuscript, forge a bridge, write something short, write something long, blog or blurb, write a script, step inside, make it quick, grab a headline, do. I run about, a circus act. Or I sit and try.

But every now and then, someone with great talent comes along with a dream, a hope, a possibility that needs to be whispered forward with words. That was the case a few weeks ago, when the beloved ceramicist and teacher, Brett Thomas, called to talk about an idea he's had for a long time now—an invitational exhibition, "Essential Earth," that would bring together the work of leading ceramic artists who, by creating outside categories, meld the power of vessels with the artistry of sculptural clay.

Brett is thinking of artists such as Chris Gustin, Dan Anderson, Gay Smith, Suze Lindsay, Fong Choo, Scott Ross, and Paul Eshelman. He's committed to bringing them together in April/May 2017 at the very gorgeous Wayne Art Center, in Wayne, PA, which has long been the site of renowned exhibitions, juried shows, and exceptional events, including "CraftForms," now in its 22nd year. All Brett really needed were a few words. I gladly helped him find them.

But then what rarely happens in my life happened; Brett said thank you with this gift, above. It's one of his own beautiful pieces—a trencher, as he calls them. Modeled after the vessels once used to feed the medieval poor, it opens like an oyster to the eye, or the ridge of a volcano. Brett took it from his own home so that I might have it here, in mine. A generosity I am not accustomed to. A gift I'll always treasure.

Essential Earth. Look for it next spring.

This is where life, for writers, lives

A few days ago I wrote here of my glorious mess—a novel I'd fought with and fought for over the stretch of a long time.

The first thing one has to do, when going back to a set-aside draft, is to set aside the shame one might feel at all that had been broken. The second thing one has to do is to dig in, to relish the process, to remember how much fun editing is. Not just minor line-by-line editing, mind you. But the upending of structure, the radical remaking of the voice(s), the ruthless deletions of scenes that had felt (be honest) soft when they first appeared on the page. Soft or obviously transitional. Soft or rather dull.

These past few days, plunged deeply in, I have discovered this: I had used the wrong tense in almost every instance. I had allowed the creeping in of an arch—and distant—voice (damn you, Beth Kephart, and your love for the lyric). I had buried the human story by focusing on the awesome technology that I had so proudly discovered and researched. I had allowed myself to go mythical when myths weren't actually needed. I had forgotten the power of a single, necessary kiss.

This is where life, for writers, lives, I think. Everything else—the tours, the fame, the sales—is secondary to being engaged with the story at hand. Secondary to pushing farther, going deeper, finding out what one is actually capable of. The writer remaking a story is the writer redefining not just the book, but herself.

All of which can happen only after we writers set a "finished" draft aside, and then return to it—vulnerable and humble—months or even years later.

"Be messy." — George Hodgman

Earlier this week, George Hodgman of Bettyville fame joined us via Skype at Penn. I have been teaching the idea of home this semester—what it is, how writers frame it, how every book ultimately, somehow, departs from or returns to a centering place.

(Speaking of which, please join us for the Beltran event at Penn's Kelly Writers House, March 1, 6:00 PM, when I will be joined by Reiko Rizzuto, A.S. King, and Margo Rabb—along with students past and present—to discuss this idea of home in literature.)

The winds and the rains were fierce. I had my Skype-technology jitters. My students were ready, and so were the students of dear Julia Bloch, who were joining us for the session. And, oh—George Hodgman was brilliant. He was: Looking back over Bettyville—how it began, how it evolved. Circling then pinning the definition of memoir. Speaking of his mother's love and his enduring felt need to make her proud. Pondering the nature of, and the blasting off, of personal and writerly inhibitions. Recalling the sound of conversation above the slap of flip flops.

Next George spoke about his life as an editor. The importance of stories that don't wait to get started, the importance of writers who are willing to work, the decision an editor must make, early on, about if and when to get tangled up inside a draft's sentences. And then George said this simple but remarkably important thing: Be messy (at first). The worst books are the clean, perfect books, he told us. The ones that feel safe.

Be messy.

For the past many years I've been at work (intermittently) on a book I feel could define me. It's a novel. It is a structural storytelling risk. I thought last year that I could publish this book as novel for adults. After a great disappointment, I pulled it back. Let it sit. Returned to it just this week, fear in my heart. Was it any good? Had I pumped it up in my own estimation, without any actual basis for pride?

Open the document, Beth.

Find out.

I finally did. And what I discovered was a book that was, indeed, messy. Too pretentious on some pages. Unnecessarily fantastical in covert corners. Too wishfully literary.

But. The story, the characters, the scenes—strip away the mess of the book, and, I discovered, there was a beating pulse. Despite all the mud I had slung on top of my tale, there was a glorious gleam.

I am taking this mess. I am turning it into something. I am grateful, deeply grateful, that I made such a horror in the first place. Inside these pages are complexity and promise. Inside them is my world.

I am reminded, once again, that this writing thing is, above all else, process. Clean first drafts are a constricting bore.