Beth Kephart's Blog, page 331

readergirlz writing contest (4): writing from life

Today I post the final readergirlz writing contest—a challenge that asks you to look at something familiar and transform it into the unexpected. Check out the video posted here. Send your best work to kephartblogATcomcastDOTnet. The winner will receive an advanced reading copy of The Heart is Not a Size (which is due out in March from HarperTeen). The winning work will be posted on this site. Our deadline is December 30, 2009.

I would say, Give it your all, but I know I don't have to.

readergirlz writing contest (3): then and now: The Winner

For the third Readergirlz contest, writers were asked to choose a photograph of themselves at a turning point in time. They were then to write of that moment in present tense. They were next to take that moment and recast it in past tense. Finally, they were to reflect on what each tense made room for in terms of storytelling.



Our winner is Kiera Ingalls, 17, of Wayne, PA, who did a masterful job of twice telling a wild turkey story and reflecting on what the exercise...

Reading The Help

For one hour this afternoon, the house will be quiet, and I won't be cooking and I won't be cleaning and my gorgeous son will be off at his job.

The plan, then, is this: I'm going to sneak away and read a little deeper into Kathryn Stockett's The Help, a book, Motoko Rich reported in the New York Times, that was "at first rejected by nearly 50 agents" before it was "scooped up by an imprint of Penguin and pushed aggressively to booksellers, who fell in love with it.... Amid blockbusters fro...

Zumba Joy on Thanksgiving Morning

For many of us (and I am most assuredly part of that us), these past many months have changed the way we go about our business. With less to spend, we think harder when we spend. With fewer options, we "shop" in our own closets. We light candles at our meals, as if ambiance were itself a savory something. We find great joy in the simple things—in dreams shared over tea, in walks among the falling leaves, in books long in our possession.

This morning, at Club La Maison, I found that joy, ag...

Where My Imagination Goes

My imagination has lived, these past many months, within the agitation of conflicting eras and places.

There were the three rounds of copy edits for The Heart is Not a Size, returning me again and again (in my mind's eye) to a squatters village in Juarez. There was all the final shaping of Dangerous Neighbors, so that there I was, walking (feeling as if I were walking) the crowded streets of 1876 Philadelphia. There were the first and second drafts of my novel for adults, which dreamed me t...

Thanksgiving

He is home.  My boy is home.  Taller than he was just three weeks ago.  Broader.  A whole new raft of stories to tell.  I'd had his room painted versions of chocolate and vanilla.  I'd left a chocolate turkey on his pillow.  I said, "So, hey.  What do you think?" when he came downstairs.
"Looking good," he said.  "So glad to be here."
Myself?  My gladness is boundless.
What do I want for each of you?  This kind of joy.  This kind of wholeness.

Christmas in November: Two Nothing but Ghosts Reviews, an Interview, and a Contest

So here I am, scrubbing bathrooms, dusting shelves, sweeping floors, arranging flowers, buying the ingredients for butternut squash soup, citrus salad, cranberry sauce, my mother's brownies, and thinking: Oh, Thanksgiving. Soon my son will be home.

But friends out there have conspired to make this an even greater holiday (Christmas in November) by yielding space and time to Nothing but Ghosts. Sara of the very sophisticated YA book site, The Hiding Spot, has adorned Ghosts with beautiful...

English 145 (9): Stationing the Mind, Readying the Heart

We saved Terrence Des Pres for last in English 145—"Writing into the World" and "Accident and its Scene: Reflections on the Death of John Gardner." He had so much to teach us, Des Pres. So much integrity as a scholar and witness. So much urgency toward imagining the truth:

"Transcendence, art for art's sake, writing for the ages—these take care of themselves. Good writing will always survive. Meanwhile, the prose of witness responds to the world, finds its work in the occasions that call...

Well Groomed

I have been out of my home more than I should be of late—at meetings, at conferences, at gatherings. I have not found the time simply to be. Last night, as I walked through the dusk of my city, Philadelphia, toward the ALAN cocktail hour at the NCTE event, I felt a floating disassociation from myself. I counted the things in my head that I should be doing, the things that would never get done.

That welling was countered almost at once by the embrace of HarperTeen's own Laura Lutz (who is a ...

Alphabetical Exotica

The question is, Which of these have you tried? Which would you, if indeed you would?