Beth Kephart's Blog, page 320

You are supposed to go on with your thinking

"A poem doesn't do everything for you," this NYC step-stone reads (words first penned by Gwendolyn Brooks). "You are supposed to go on with your thinking."

I remembered these words yesterday, when talking with a friend that I call Rachel's Bill about what it is that I try to do with my work–and how for some it's too much (too much language!) and for some it's too little (too little plot!) and for some it's nothing (why, she's practically mediocre!) and for some it is the thing that does someho...

The Heart is Not a Size: Starred VOYA Review

"[Kephart:] has penned a faster paced novel that explores our inner selves...The writing is vivid. Readers will visualize Anapra's desolation and hope. They will feel the dust storms. They will relate to the teens.... Beth Kephart is a must read YA author."

The Girl with Glass Feet by Ali Shaw: Some Thoughts

I am not, by nature, a reader of fable, but I was sufficiently intrigued by recent reviews of Ali Shaw's The Girl with Glass Feet to go out and get myself a copy. This week, between too many things and in the midst of forceful weather, I read Girl through.

My experience reminded me of just how much room there is in the world for differing points of view. There's so much that is lovely about this book, particularly in the early pages when it doesn't matter, yet, whether things will coalesce; w...

Looking Ahead to the Book Blogger Convention

This is just to say that I am getting very excited about a certain Book Blogger Convention that will be taking place in New York City on May 28th. You won't be surprised to learn that the fine readers/writers behind My Friend Amy, Galleysmith, Maw Books, Linus's Blanket, MotherReader, The Book Lady's Blog, and Hey Lady! Watcha Readin' are masterminding this event, nor that some truly terrific book bloggers, agents, and authors are already registered. I'll be there, too, on a panel now being...

Resusified

I'd slipped yesterday's irises into a narrow glass cylinder and woke to them this morning; they were unfurling.

Near noon, however, I heard one stem bend (there was a sound to it) and then another, and I realized that yesterday's water was gone, and there was nothing to sustain them. I filled the vase again, had little hope.

This afternoon, when I returned to my office, I found the irises unfurled and upright. They had survived my neglect and my mood.

I had, too.

A Memory of Rescue, from long ago

One of the very first times I took a train alone, I was a kid, taking summer ice skating lessons at the Wissahickon Skating Club. My mother dropped me off at the Bryn Mawr station and I climbed on board among the business suits wearing my furry sweater and my thick nude tights; my skates, wrapped in an old pink towel, were safe in my plastic blue bag. It wasn't yet 90 degrees, for it was still the morning hour, but by the time my connecting train broke down, it was hot, and the business su...

Curing the Blues

Here's what you do when you're feeling blue:

1) You buy the flowers for which you've been yearning (I could write a story with the tips of these irises, couldn't you?).

2) You dance salsa, samba, rumba, fox trot, jive, and waltz with the masterful Jean Paulovich (throwing "Pulp Fiction" moves at one another when something goes wrong and not complaining, not for one second, when he throws you to the floor. "New move," he says. "Yeah, right," you answer.).

3) You pay attention to the frien...

Excerpt from a novel (long) in progress

The heat is less than it was. A breeze has blown in, and in Stella's kitchen I stand with a bowl of artichokes flicking off stems, lopping off tops, yanking the tough outer leaves, and now I set a pot of water to boil and toss the naked white meat in. It takes a while to tender the artichokes with heat—that's how Stella says it, tender with heat—so I wait, and when the artichokes are boiled and drained and cooled, I slice them thin, and with a smaller knife remove each...

But then again...

Sometimes you want things, and they don't quite happen, and you cry a little over the meal you've made, and then you think:

But maybe there's a reason.

That was my day today.

That is my life, as an author.

The World Going By (on an Amtrak train, with a migraine)

By the time I left New York City yesterday, I wasn't well—a massive migraine had set in and all the dizziness that accompanies the condition. I clung to the pole of the subway for dear life, stood against the wall of Penn Station hoping not to fall, crept carefully down the station steps to the train. I chose the left side of the first car. Could not read. Could not talk. Could only look at whatever was flying past the panes.

The storm had broken. The sun knocking against the wet world y...