Beth Kephart's Blog, page 308

24th Annual Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers' Conference

The exceedingly smart novelist-poet-critic-teacher Lisa Zeidner has invited me to join an exquisite cast of writers for the 24th Annual Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers' Conference. Running from June 21 through June 30th of this year and designed to be taken for either undergraduate or graduate credit (or a non-credit certificate), it features the writers Jewell Parker Rhodes, Brenda Shaughnessey, Daniel Bergner, Lisa Tracy, Stephen Dunn, Jonathan Dee, David Shields, Max Apple, Paul Lisicky, Ma...

Forgive Me...

while I burrow in, while I stay where I am, with this novel. This adult novel that has in fact found its way, that has opened itself to me, then opened again, thanks to a recent conversation with an oh-so-smart editor. I am in the final third of remaking it. I have eight chapters to write; I am obsessed. I had planned to apply this Sunday to real life—to weeding my garden, to trying a new recipe, to folding the clothes, to checking in with all of you—but: there are five women, two eras, ...

Camera Ready, Travel Prepared

I have a new camera—something sweet, small, and hot pink. Portable, plane-able, willing to travel with me. It's a Sony, because I'm loyal to Sony, and it's all charged, plugged in, and awaiting: Barnes and Noble Educator's Day, Fox Cities Book Festival, Philadelphia Book Festival, Children's Book World (thank you, Libby Mosier), Book Expo (unveiling Dangerous Neighbors!), Book Bloggers Convention (meeting so many of you), Rutgers-Camden Summer Writers' Conference (I'm teaching fiction), th...

My Three Girls

(lifted by force of air, by hope, by kite, balloons, umbrella)

Ghosts in the Garden, an excerpt

One day I took my mother to the garden. It was a warmish day, just us. She made her way slowly down the gentlest decline (holding my arm, sometimes touching tree branches), then chose a bench beneath a tree inside the woods. I sat beside her, and between us fell a triangle of sun. A gardener was at work across the path; people walked by. We sat there peacefully, my mother and I, a wedge of yellow sun between us, but otherwise in shadow. We talked of nothing much, and it...

Rocking the Zumba with Sarah, Brenda, and Peggy

Sarah started it in Zumba today. It was her fault, I know that it was. Walking in late looking like a movie star, then saying her honey southern hello, then collecting her rivers of hair, then smiling with her eyes, both so blue. She's just too cute, and what could I do, there beside her, and there behind Brenda, and there, nearby, Peggy, newly home from Guatemala.

So we kicked the samba merry. So we went full pivot with our hips. So I bounced my head and Sarah bounced hers harder, and wh...

Love Her

I found her at Chanticleer, and of course I fell in love (yes, yes, it's true: on a daily basis I fall harmlessly in love). She was afraid of nothing (you see that in her eyes, and in the cock of her inventive hat). She was willing to trust the warming weather. She opened her hand as if to say, Let me show you the way, and when I saw her next, down by the big pond, she was delineating the orange-backed koi from the blue. Knowledgeably, with stylish forewarning.

Last night, a young friend ...

Reading Dangerous Neighbors, as a book, book

Yesterday I sat down for the first time and read Dangerous Neighbors, cover to cover, inside its covers. I remembered, as I read, the many iterations this book went through. Three voices had, at first, told this story, and one of those voices was a fire. Countless Centennial scenes were painstakingly researched and written and then excised, so that the story might move at a more rapid pace. 1876 Cape May once had a cameo role; now it reveals itself across pages. The young man named Willi...

Philadelphia Book Festival: The Details

Many of you know that I'll be appearing at the Philadelphia Book Festival (my friend Sy Montgomery will be there, too, with her new book about birds!). I am honored today to tell you that my co-panelists that Sunday afternoon will be Catherine Gilbert Murdock and Rita Williams-Garcia.

The event takes place on Sunday, April 18, 2010, at the Performance Stage at Shakespeare Park. Details can be found here. We hope for beautiful weather, and for your presence.

Sam Strike of Main Line Media News Catches Up with Me at Chanticleer

Sam Strike, one of my very favorite local reporters, caught up with me and Magdalena Piekarz during our walk through Chanticleer last Thursday. Here's what I had to say.