Beth Kephart's Blog, page 300

The Heart is Not a Size: responding to a reviewer's gentle prod

In her generous review of The Heart is Not a Size, Jeannine Atkins, a professor of children's literature at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and the author, most recently, of the wondrous
It's the sort of prodding most writers need—that what if? question asked charitably from one with a kn...

Traveling Library

Over the next ten days, I'll be back and forth to New York City on behalf of a fundraiser for Penn, the BEA (thank you, Egmont, and can't wait to see any of you who may be there on Thursday, May 27th), and the Book Blogger Convention (thank you, Amy Riley).  Travel means time to read, and at the moment, I've got these books to choose from, thanks to some aggressive recent book buying:

On Whitman (Writers on Writers) by the extraordinary (in person and on the page) C.K. Williams

Old Friend from ...

Carolyn Forche: a poet still vested

Years ago, in Prague, I spent an afternoon with Carolyn Forche—a train ride away from the city where she had read, the night before, from one of my favorite poems ever written, a haunt of a poem in honor of Terrence des Pres.  I think her often—of her and the stories she told to those who had gathered there, in a Czech backyard.  Grandmother stories.  Oven stories.  Stories of war.

A few weeks ago, I was stopped by these lines in a new Carolyn Forche poem called "The Lightkeeper," which appear...

Japanese maple, adorned

The maple wearing its leaves like a dress of feathers.

St. John's Presbyterian Church

I boast about my church, St. John's, but why shouldn't I?  Some of the best people in the world are St. Johnsians—Juarez-traveling, El Salvador Shelter-supporting, inventive, investing, funny, dancing, kid-rearing, house-building souls.  And it is also the people of St. John's who threw this brunch today for a very special man who has interned with our church these past two years.  This is the way women and men who care send others on their way.  Grace.  Generosity.  The things I learn from m...

Is the work separate from the person, and does it matter?

[image error] "It is not the work that defines you," he says.  "It's not the work that ultimately matters.  The only thing that finally matters is who you are, right now, not what you've done or will do, not what you make."

"But aren't the work and the person bound up, part of one thing?"

"The work is what you do, not who you are."

"True.  And yet:  It matters.  It means something, suggests something, stands in for something."

"It matters to you.  That doesn't mean it can or should matter to other people.  Tha...

Altogether now

There are, it sometimes seems, not even six degrees of separation in the writing world.  Today, during Alumni Day at Kelly Writers House (University of Pennsylvania), I shared this moment with the tremendous KWH deputy in charge Al Filreis (I would take one of his extraordinary classes, but I'm afraid I'm not quite smart enough), Alice Elliott Dark (whose short story, "In the Gloaming," was selected by John Updike as one of the best of the last century, and who read from it beautifully today)...

Still Love

Two days ago, while in line at Whole Foods, a friend approached with some news. "I've fallen completely in love with your husband," she said.  And when I didn't say anything, she continued: "Head over heels."

It's not an uncommon line in my world; I've been told the same thing by any number of women who have been charmed by my husband's Latin bearing, unusual stories, and incredible talent for the samba.  But in this case, I wasn't even certain that my friend had met my husband, so when I aske...

Three Minutes from Home

Three minutes from home, I stopped by the side of the road and took this photo of the storm.  Sun, as I wrote yesterday, just over there.  Darkness descending on me.

The Sun Rain

Just now, coming home from a ballroom lesson with John (Where is the dance? I asked him; It's in the balance we create between each other, he said) I drove through sunlit rain.  Half the sky clear and the other full of gray shout. 

Like dance, I thought.

Like time.