Beth Kephart's Blog, page 311

The Jazz Loft Project and the future of books?

I love absolutely everything about this audio slide show, posted on the New York Times page, featuring photos by W. Eugene Smith from the Jazz Loft Project, a bit of history for which we might thank writer Sam Stephenson of Duke's Center for Documentary Studies.

I try to imagine myself in the midst of so much music making. I love, most, Smith's words, about how, if a composer was composing, the others would "try desperately not to play music to interfere with his composing; otherwise, any noi...

Juarez and Secret Angels

In a March 23rd article in the Christian Science Monitor, Sara Miller Llana wrote of a father named Adrian Cadena whose son was one of the 15 murdered in Juarez in January, while attending a birthday party. Adrian's son had hoped to play soccer, Llana writes, in college. Today his dad, living through his grief, "has put his energy into volunteering for the local team, cleaning parks, and raising money through barbecues and carwashes" in an attempt to help those who remain. "There are thous...

Guest Blogging at HipWriterMama's House

Today I'm guest blogging over at the fabulous HipWriterMama's house, another blogger and writer who entered my world early on and stayed. She asked me to write a bit about The Heart is Not a Size, and I did. Here's a small quote from a longer piece that I hope you will stop by and read.

(My photo today is of one of the truly beautiful young women with whom we traveled to Juarez. It was toward the end of the trip, when the wood frame of the community bathroom we'd pounded together was finall...

To Live a Poem...

I have blogged here in this modest space since October 2007—not always certain what I had to say, not always happy with the photos I had to say it with, and never sure who might visit or why.

Today I introduce one of the very first people who stopped by this blog. Her name is Grete. She lives an ocean away. She found me by listening to a Barbara DeMarco interview. Some of you have likely read her comments here. I've had the privilege of coming to know her off the blog, through her photos,...

More reviews of Heart (that so gladden this author's heart)

I wrote the first draft of The Heart is Not a Size several years ago, and then it sat, waiting for my imagination, which was teased into fuller life by both Laura Geringer and Jill Santopolo. Between now and then, I've waited for this story to be released to the world—tremulously, as I tend to do, but also with hope that I might shed some light on a part of the world, Juarez, that I came to love.

One writes a story. Others carry it forward for you. Today I wish to thank the ever-generous My...

WordLily Reviews The Heart is Not a Size

and my heart was pounding (will I ever get past the nerves of this business?) and then I held my breath and then I read.

I am beyond grateful.

Her words here.

My Dad and Me, Years Ago

You have read here, often, about my dad. The way he daily tends my mother's grave. The way he insists on goodness for each of his three children. The support he extends. The vacations he sends us on.

This past weekend, my dad gave me another, gigantic gift—an evening I will never forget. He shared as well the book of photos he's been making for me these past many weeks—an album of memories, from days long gone.

Here is one of those memories. My dad and me, on my eighteenth birthday. Ever...

Sunburst

I worked the garden yesterday. I spoke with friends. I did not work, on purpose.

Here is something I have learned: When you are holding on too tight, too tight, too tight to people or projects or things, ease up on your grip. Eliminate the force fit. Unwhiten your knuckles.

Blessed

There are no words for me today. None.

Just love in my heart for my family and friends.

Editing Thyself Part 2, and The Genius in All of Us

In reviewing The Genius in All of Us, the new David Shenk book subtitled Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong, Annie Murphy Paul gives us some tantalizing insights into a world of personal possibility. "That means there can be no guaranteed genetic windfalls, or fixed genetic limits, bestowed at the moment of conception," she writes in the New York Times Book Review. "Instead there is a continually unfolding interaction between our heredity and our world, ...