Beth Kephart's Blog, page 33

oh, those creative, hospitable, restorative indies: thank you

Lately I've had cause (again) to celebrate the independent bookstores. That they exist. That their owners and their colleagues work so very hard. That they know books. That they believe in culture, literature, and ideas.

That they are endlessly innovative, funky, fun.

In and out of the shops I've gone. Toward the events they have supported. No single event has been like any other event. Every single store is its own vibrant cluster of possibility.

And so today, a photo thank you to the stores that stand at the heart of our communities. To Ann of The Spiral Bookcase, who lugged all those books out to those very special events at the Ambler Theater and Laurel Hill. To Heather of Children's Book World, who sent One Thing Stolen to our Philadelphia/Florence party at Radnor Memorial Library (where I learned that the book was in its second, newly colorized printing). To Cathy and Anmiryam of Main Point Books, where we had the nicest Sunday afternoon. To Ashley at Penn Book Center, who placed LOVE in the window and talked to me for a long time one afternoon. To Michael at Joseph Fox Books, who supported the Free Library launch. To the glorious Bank Street Bookstore, which sold Small Damages to this beautiful reader during that be-all-end-all conference. To Caroline of Frenchtown's Book Garden, who organized our memoir retreat at the Rat (where James Agee once wrote) as well as my morning at the art-filled Delaware Valley Regional High School. And to Stephanie of Harleysville Books, who brought out a crowd on a rainy night and who invited the great baker Ann to share her special treats (pretzel brittle, in honor of Philadelphia!).

I'll be visiting a few more bookstores—both the incredibly hospitable Barnes and Nobles and two more indies, Chester County Books and Big Blue Marble Books—in December, the dates below.

It's restorative, being around people who care about holding the world close and safe.

December 3, 2015, 7 PM
LOVE signing
Chester County Books
West Chester, PA

December 5, 2015, noon
LOVE signing
Barnes and Noble
Devon, PA

December 10, 2015, 12 - 2PM
Barnes & Noble signing
Rittenhouse Square
Philadelphia, PA

December 12, 2015, 2 PM
In-store signing
LOVE, etc.
Big Blue Marble Bookstore
551 Carpenter Lane
Philadelphia, PA

the responsibility of now (and honoring Radnor High Hall of Famers)

Over the course of this week I have walked the glorious Victoriana streets of Frenchtown, NJ, taught memoir in a bar called the Rat, given an impromptu one-hour address to a gathering of New Jersey kids, encouraged the idea of urgency in 20 high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors, listened to the stories of the fourth and fifth graders of West Philly, hung out at the Water Works with a drone and a camera crew, met with my Wall Street client, and spent time thinking about the arc of corporate strategies and the lives of patients. Later today I'll make the drive to Harleysville, where we will talk about LOVE and where I will listen to the tales of others. Tomorrow and Saturday I will return to my high school and watch my brother be inducted into the Radnor High Hall of Fame. Not just my brother, of course, but nine others who have done remarkable (and I do mean remarkable) things with their lives.

Here's a video, if you'd like to meet these souls (and my brother).



All of this seeing and living and talking and listening takes place against the backdrop of a bruised and battered world. Not just Paris, not just the Russian airliner, not just Lebanon, but the screech of stump speeches, the war over refugees, the stories that are not getting told because of the stories that must get told.

How do any of us maintain our perspective?

I'm not sure I know.

I'm just sure that I have made a commitment to try to stay informed, to read the objective reports, to take into consideration multiple points of view, to not condemn a group of people for the actions of a small minority, to still believe, as my hero Terrence des Pres believed, that goodness is bigger than badness and still entirely possible. Also—and this is critical—to admit when I am wrong, to be willing to adapt, to conclude newly, to advocate more gracefully.

I am sad. I admit that I am. But if I allow the sadness to eradicate my hope or my faith in people, then I have been defeated.

I don't wish to be defeated.

And so I go out, I talk to others, I listen to others, I ask for their stories. I remain open to the possibility of good.

That is our responsibility, in these times.

my wide-ranging conversation with Buzz Bissinger, at Kelly Writers House

On Homecoming Saturday, in the Kelly Writers House on the Penn campus, I spent 75 minutes in conversation with Buzz Bissinger. It was a dialogue of many dimensions and much quiet—and authentic—self reflection.

That conversation can now be watched in its entirety here.

Frenchtown Memoir Workshop, Harleysville Book Club, Radnor High Hall of Fame

I'm not sure I'll ever be very good at simply moving forward with my own life when I am vividly aware of the terrible loss and hurt that has utterly rearranged the lives of others.

It doesn't feel right. But it's the only choice we have. Keep living.

And so, this week, there will be (between pauses, within silence) moments of study, moments of reflection, moments of celebration, moments of friendship, many interesting corporate projects, one unexpected audition, and three hours with some wet clay.

You are welcome to join us for the public events:

Today, November 15, on behalf of The Book Garden in Frenchtown, NJ, I'll be teaching a three-hour memoir workshop. Details are here. There is room. You can join us.

Tomorrow, November 16, at the Delaware Valley Regional High School, I'll be talking about the writers' life to an assembly of students and then providing insights on crafting the college essay.

Tuesday, November 17, I'll return to my work with the fourth and fifth graders of West Philadelphia, who will be refining the essays they began writing last week.

Thursday, November 19, I'll be at the wonderful Harleysville Books for the November Book Club Happy Hour, talking about our city and the power of love, an especially important topic, I think, in these days. The details are here.

On Friday and Saturday I will be at Radnor High School, joining my brother for his Radnor High Hall of Fame induction ceremony. We are, I believe, the first brother-sister pairing on that wall. I am over the moon for Jeff and grateful to all those on the committee who recognized his contributions to
Finally, the paperback of Going Over , my Berlin Wall novel, is being launched this month, and in celebration there are currently ten copies being offered in this Goodreads giveaway. 

Finally, finally, words of thanks to Chronicle Books and Junior Library Guild. This Is the Story of You has been selected for the Guild's Book Club.

so how DO we review a memoir (without judging another's life)? my thoughts in Chicago Tribune

As a veteran reviewer (veteran = old, in case you were wondering), I still think a lot (every single time) about the responsibilities of critics—particularly when it comes to memoir.

I thought my thoughts out loud this week, in the Chicago Tribune's special edition on memoir. The link to the story is here.

(For my Tribune thoughts on the new Mary-Louise Parker memoir, Dear Mr. You, go here.)

reviewing Mary-Louise Parker's memoir, in Chicago Tribune

Oh, I loved this risk-taking, let's think for ourselves, let's not bend to mere chronology memoir by the actress Mary-Louise Parker.

My thoughts about it, in the Chicago Tribune, here.

bulletproof windows, shaped like hearts, in last night's workshop with West Philly kids

She had been driven, with the other fourth and fifth graders, through rain and across the slick of leaves from West Philadelphia toward an old stone building in Bryn Mawr. She sat on the floor with a wide gold band on her head and a pencil in her hand. I was asking her (the others, too) to think about home—what it is. I was asking for specifics—the sounds in the streets, the light in the house, the color of the flowers in the pot. I was reading a little Julia Alvarez, a little Sandra Cisneros, a little Jacqueline Woodson, a little Charles Blow. Tell me what you are hearing, I said. Tell me which details make these memories of homes and houses particular for you.

Many hands up. Many questions. Many details.

Then, toward the end, I asked the children to imagine their someday house—where will you live when you are ten or fifteen years older than you are today? Some wrote a sentence. Some worked with their tutors to write more. This little girl with the golden hairband wrote, on her own, an entire page and a half.

She wanted to read it aloud.

I said yes. Quieted the room.

Her home of the future would have candy walls. It would have yellow, purple, orange, red, TVs, a place for everyone she loves. It would have (this was a final detail) bulletproof windows that were shaped like hearts.

Are you going to be a writer? I asked her. Oh, yes. She said. What do you read? I asked her. Junie B., she said, and (her favorite book of all) the dictionary.

Next week maybe I'll tell her that when I was her age I dreamed of being a writer, too. That being a writer is possible. That anyone who conjures candy walls and heart-shaped bulletproof windows is a heroine of mine. Next week, when she returns, with another story.

today's thinking about memoir looks like this

Over the past many days I've been building memoir workshops—the five-day, traveling, unusually unusual workshop that I will launch next year (if you are interested, leave your name here), an online program being developed with a radically effective book-coaching friend, a two-evening program for the fourth and fifth graders of North Philly, the syllabus for my 2016 memoir course at Penn, and the two workshops I'll be delivering next Sunday and Monday in Frenchtown, NJ—one for Book Garden (you can still register) and one for the local high school.

That building looks like this.

And it is far from done.

"My students and their fictitious doubles," in the Penn Gazette (One Thing Stolen)

Thank you, Trey Popp, for sharing this story about my students and the characters they inspire in the new as-ever-gorgeous edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette.

The focus of this particular essay is One Thing Stolen, a novel Chronicle Books released this past April. One Thing Stolen  takes place partly on the Penn campus and partly in Florence, Italy. Its  primary characters—Maggie Ercolani and Katie Goldrath—were named for students I loved (and love).

Meanwhile, in a forthcoming novel, This Is the Story of You, my Mira Banul, the star of that story, carries the last name of my student Sean Banul. Mira must be especially strong as a monster storm devastates her world. She has a cat that waves. Sean gave me both strength and a waving cat. He gave me willing use of his last name.

Some people wonder why I write so many books. The answer: Because so many people and places inspire me. Indeed, my most recent students are already transforming the landscape of my imagination.

An excerpt from the Gazette story is below. The entire piece can be read here.

To be a Penn student is a privilege, absolutely, but privilege isn’t necessarily or even primarily the natural domain of the young people I meet. They are emergent, they are bright, they are headed toward something, but few among them have had it easy. The students who gather around the table in that Victorian twin have lost siblings, parents, teachers, best friends, faith in the bedrock, parts of themselves. They have been diagnosed, they have been uprooted, they have stood in danger’s way, they have endured violence and prejudice. They are, at times, the first members of their family to matriculate in college. English is not always their first language. Home is a word they are still defining. I say that I teach at Penn, but that is a preposterous shorthand. I show up, and I’m profoundly educated.

I am inspired.

the librarians, Kiwanis, and community put on a show, in Ambler

We talked about LOVE—but also, mainly, love—in a gorgeous theater in downtown Ambler last night. I have Lauren Smyth, Cheri Fiory, Anne Frank, the Kiwanis Club of Ambler, the Upper Dublin and Wissahickon Valley Public Libraries, Kristine Weatherston, Kristine's Temple documentary film students, those Ambler-ites who shared their stories out loud, Ann Tetrault of Manayunk's The Spiral Bookcase, my husband, my father, and a wide community of others to thank for this evening in which a light mist accumulated outside and time unspooled within.

I believe, as a writer, in opening one's arms. In saying, This world belongs to all of us, and I want to hear your story, too. And oh—we heard their stories.

Ambler is a town worthy of the recognition it is now receiving—bakeries, upscale restaurants, family restaurants, two theaters, two libraries, kind people. I will always be grateful for the invitation that brought me there, and I do plan to return.

Don't think I'll ever see one of my book titles up on a marquee again. I'm keeping that memory.