Beth Kephart's Blog, page 293

Walking on water

How is it, here, that the water barely floats above the sand, and that one walks and walks (two young men walk) forever into the sea?

And isn't this what it is to write a novel?  To float and to float and to float until the story is finally known?

It can take years until the story is known.

Attitudinal adjustments

My son, he says:  Always assume that you are going to have a good time.

Then find a way.

The Glass Room/Simon Mawer: Reflections

As a kid, I rustled around in my great uncle's studio—the trunk of drawings, the crinkle of yellow trace, the endless stubs of pencils and color, the proof of his work as an architect of the Waldorf Astoria, the Pierre, so many other buildings.  As a new graduate of Penn, with a degree in the history of science, I went to work for an architectural firm—anything, I thought then, to get me close to those who shape and color space.  As a young woman, I fell in love with, I married, an architect....

Present Palpable Intimate

James Wood, the critic, in his New Yorker appraisal (July 5, 2010) of David Mitchell ("The Floating Library:  What can't the novelist David Mitchell do?") quotes Henry James:

"If Conrad's great master, Henry James, was right when he said that the novel should press down on "the present palpable intimate" (he used the triad to distinguish the role of the living novel from that of the historical novel), then Mitchell's new book...."

(read to find out)

The point for me, right now, is Present Palpab...

YALSA Coffee Klatch: photos from a certain someone's phone

There were the authors.  There were the librarians.  We made a circle.  I won't forget it.

Thank you, J.L.

Atlantic City, Dawn

June 29, 2010. 

I know I should have big things to say, to validate my choice of blog photo.  This is it, though.  This is all.  Big clouds.  Big life.  As it is.  As it will be.

In which Elizabeth Law snaps a photo

My friend, hipwritermama, just informed me, the un-twitterer (but I might get there, I might still) of this photo floating around, hot off the Elizabeth Law press.  So.  That's Elizabeth Law (queen of all things, but especially of Egmont USA) behind the camera; Laura Geringer, fantastic-fabulous editor to the left of the frame; James Lecesne holding up his number 33 for the YALSA coffee klatch, and me, with my un-matching jewelry, being held up by James (in all ways).

Wherever Elizabeth goes, ...

The YALSA Coffee Klatch

On Sunday morning, in a gigantic room at the very beautiful Washington, DC convention center, YALSA conducted its much-anticipated coffee klatch (in which authors are given but a few minutes at each librarian-stoked table to discuss his or her books)—and I, as I have already posted, was a very privileged author participant.

I could say many things—about the kindness of many toward this first time "speed dater," about the dearness of Laura Geringer and Elizabeth Law, who stayed by my side.  But...

The Literary List

Early in the Rutgers-Camden workshop we reflected on the auguring power of literary lists—what they can tell us about a story not-yet-unfolded, what they teach us about voice.  We used, as our exemplars, the opening pages of Colum McCann's Dancer, the extraordinary yield in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and the evocative early pages of Rahna Reiko Rizzuto's Hiroshima in the Morning.  We heard:

What was flung onstage during his first season in Paris:
ten one-hundred-franc bills held...

Pictures of You/Caroline Leavitt: Reflections

Lisa Zeidner is not just a beloved writer and essential, smart critic; she's a teacher who has created, at Rutgers-Camden, a place for aspiring writers to burrow in and learn.  I had the pleasure of spending this past Friday with her and among the students of her summer writers' festival; we dug in deep.  Among the many questions that surfaced over our time together was:  How is writerly intimacy achieved by way of the third-person voice?

Saturday evening, alone at DC neighborhood bar where po...