Beth Kephart's Blog, page 316

Family Portrait

My cousin Libby gave my brother the gift of family photographs years ago—slides, mostly, taken by my father's father, which my brother systematically recovered and scanned. This is the mystery photo in the bunch. My father's father and mother to the left. My Uncle Lloyd (architect of the Waldorf Astoria and other grand buildings) and Aunt Anne beside them. The gorgeous Marilyn Monroe-like creature and the woman behind her (we don't know who they are).

And then the child—dressed so finely i...

And then there was one

(we had been so taken in by the storm; we had thought the quiet would remain, the stillness.)
(but.)
(sun negates snow)

Nearer to Spring than we were

We took a drive (a very long one) to see our son, and we returned the following day. This day.

When we left, it was gray—nearly purple gray, the skies all fiercely February, and foreboding.

When we returned, it was sun, nearer to spring than to winter.

That kid has a way of changing the seasons.

Dangerous Neighbors: Some Words of Thanks to You and to Laura Geringer

How can I thank all of you who have stopped by this blog these past few days, turning my own private party into an actual, peopled party? Those of you participating in the House of Dance paperback contest. Those of you who share my joy regarding the designation of The Heart is Not a Size on the Indiebound list. Those of you who were there with me, when Dangerous Neighbors entered this house as ARCs. I have often pictured us together in a room, and that is one of the many, many reasons I'm...

Dangerous Neighbors ARCs arrive

Oh my gosh.

I was on the phone with a client. I was working. I was on the computer and the phone with a client. I was working. I noticed that there was sun outside, but I noticed nothing else, and so the UPS man surprised me today. He doesn't often, but today he did. Only now, opening the front door to gauge the weather do I discover this:

Dangerous Neighbors has arrived, in immaculate Advanced Reading Copy form.

Have I mentioned how much I love this Neil Swaab cover? And you should see th...

Writing like Dancing

I have, as some of you know, been working on the same novel for the past decade—one that takes place in southern Spain. It's never been about getting the landscape right, the details. It's always been about the plot. Were I to speak now of all the transmutations that plot has gone through, you'd think that was the story itself.

But it's not, and at long last, the book is in hand. It is altogether, in one place, and here then, here now, is my favorite part of writing: the calm that comes f...

The Heart is Not a Size is IndieBound!

Okay, so I just had to remove a few exclamation points up there in the title, so as to appear more my age, but: I cannot even begin to say how happy this news makes me. The Heart is Not a Size joins 11 other teen titles such as Carolyn Mackler's Tangled, Jennifer Hubbard's The Secret Year, and Swati Avasthi's Split on the American Booksellers Association's Spring 2010 Children's Indie Next List.

Here's what makes me feel even more blessed. Heart was nominated for this huge honor by none ot...

House of Dance: A Paperback Contest

In a few short weeks, House of Dance, my second novel for young adults, will be out as a paperback with a slightly revamped cover.

Those of you who know me a little know this: I love the freedom that dance affords me—the freedom to be my somewhat zany self, the freedom from the mind-bend of at-the-desk problem solving, the freedom of movement. House of Dance, which received a number of starred reviews and has begun to show up on state lists, takes place in a version of Dancesport Academy of...

We'd Gone Fishing

(my younger sister, my older brother, and me,
the Jersey Shore, years ago)

Dangerous Neighbors Excerpt

It is February, 1876, an unusually warm year in Philadelphia. The Schuylkill has at last frozen over. The skaters are out:

From where they stand, the sisters see a game being played out on the river—two groups of boys whooshing a silver pail between them with sticks. The girls and women tend to hover near the river's shore, or drift out farther, west and north. One girl in a gray-blue coat is sailing out and fast away on a diagonal, her coattails lifting up and flapping...