Beth Kephart's Blog, page 294
June 27, 2010
Egmont USA Rocks (and so does the ALA conference)
Just look, to begin with, at that gorgeous green-but-mostly-blue from which Egmont USA emerges. My favorite color when I was a kid, and my favorite color, still. Look at the books lined up on the ledge. Look at what Egmont does, and look at its fearless leaders.Consider this: In Washington, DC, at the ALA Annual Conference, I was an Egmont guest—signing books at the booth, talking about librarians (anyone who has read Nothing But Ghosts, which stars a sexy librarian, knows I love them) on...
June 24, 2010
On teaching voice
In preparing to teach at the Rutgers-Camden conference tomorrow, I think about voice. What makes for music, and why it matters. What yields momentum, and what strips it. We'll be looking, among other things, at authors whose work spans nonfiction, fiction, and perhaps poetry. What do they carry forward, in each genre? What do they own? How have they left their tonal mark?We must, as Robert Pinsky, says, learn "to hear language in a more conscious way."
If we can't, we are not writers. W...
June 23, 2010
When the wait begins
We do our work, as writers. We labor past ourselves. We beseech: Get it right, keep it interesting, write it better, change her name but not her purpose. At one point, it is not our decision anymore.
That is the then of waiting.
The walking of the garden.
Hydrangea in bloom.
U.S. of A. Advances
"We could either whine about it or we could keep going." Something like that, as spoken by Donovan the Man. This photo wasn't taken in South Africa. But it was taken in Philly, when Team USA won its final friendly match.
The sun streaming in
through my office just now. Six a.m. Some final small scenes to write before the boys start hollering throughout a critical World Cup Soccer Day.The robins are all in their nests, waiting.
June 21, 2010
The Heart Is Not a Size: The Washington Post Review
A dear friend is the one who whispered, this evening, that a very generous Mary Quattlebaum had penned these words about The Heart Is Not a Size in this past weekend's The Washington Post.Nuanced characterizations and lyrical writing distinguish Beth Kephart's oeuvre, including this third YA novel, The Heart Is Not a Size (HarperTeen, $16.99; ages 12 and up). Reliable Georgia and her artistic friend Riley volunteer through a GoodWorks building project to help a Mexican village. Being away...
Simply from Scratch/Alicia Bessette: Reflections
It was raining the day I took this photograph—raining, and yet the sun was dialed in full blast behind the tears. That's exactly the way I felt while reading Alicia Bessette's debut novel Simply from Scratch, due out in August from Dutton. For this is a story about losses, but it is also (very much) a story about gains. Zell has lost her husband to a terrible accident. Into the house next has moved a little girl, Ingrid, who never has known her mother. A quest to win the Desserts that Wa...
June 20, 2010
On the docket: the week ahead
I'll be around and about toward the end of this coming week. Should you find yourself somewhere in the vicinity (see below), I hope you'll find my funny face and say hello.Friday, June 25
Rutgers-Camden Summer Writer's Conference
Camden, NJ
12:00 - 1:00 Reading with Max Apple (open)
2:30 - 4:30 Workshop (closed)
Saturday, June 26
American Library Association Annual Conference
Washington, DC
3:30 - 4:30 Dangerous Neighbors Signing in the Egmont Booth
Sunday, June 27
American Library Association...
The Shame of What We Are/Sam Gridley: Reflections
Art Dennison (denizen: an inhabitant, a resident) sets out one day on a tricycle and discovers "an open space where a house ought to be, a swatch of dirt and weeds and strange other stuff" where "clumps of grass grew to his chest, dangling brown fluff at the ends." It's Camden, NJ, 1951, and Art is about to turn five; nonetheless, he may just have happened upon the wilds—an African tundra minus the menace of hyenas and sharp-toothed lions. He's hoping so, anyway, and though the missing-row...
