Beth Kephart's Blog, page 336

Novel in Progress/An Excerpt (4)

Stories had saved Sophie, stories with their small acts of victorious aggression, their black words on white pages, their strikes against, their love affairs with deviations. There was snatch and thrum in stories. There was sway and influence, shatter and audacity, the glory yield of the road not taken; Sophie had gone her own way. She had set off with no sure understanding of where she had been or why she had been there ....

Pretty Kitty

This pretty kitty belongs to Kate Moses, whom I first met when writing for Salon.com. Kate (along with Camille Peri) went on to edit two anthologies on motherhood (I was lucky to have an essay in both volumes); to write Wintering, the Sylvia Plath novel; and, most recently, to complete a memoir called Cake Walk, which will be out next year. She is a dear and good friend, an impassioned hostess, an enthusiast, a seasoned romantic, and one of the only people in the world who has ever called m...

Tango: A Rehearsal Photograph

(courtesy of the brilliant photographer and wonderful friend, Mike Matthews)

Dangerous Neighbors/Parallel Reads

Yesterday I received an email from Laura Geringer regarding Dangerous Neighbors, my historical novel set in 1876 Philadelphia and due to be released from Egmont USA next fall. She had read the book through one final time. She was writing with her thoughts about the cover. Neighbors is in many ways a cinematic book, and as a visual artist, Laura has always brought this keen extra sensibility to the way books look—not only that, she opens the conversation to the author. Reading Laura's desc...

Miss Em Reviews The Heart is Not a Size

and the Phillies win in the bottom of the ninth. I think I'll always conflate these precious things in memory now. A gorgeous review, a favorite reviewer, a favorite team, one night.

Novel in Progress/An Excerpt (3)

She'd spent all those years behaving as if there were a line between the unhinged and the sane, the barmy and the everyday, the irrational and the compos mentis. There wasn't. There wasn't anyone who could rightly say if the life that Sophie had fashioned for herself was raving or judicious, if it wouldn't soon crumble. There wasn't any actual distance from the past, no shelter from secrets.

All right, so: here's the hair cut

The funny thing is, of course, that it only looks that different if you are looking at me from behind. Clearly, I take my risks in stages.

The Person I am Becoming

Maybe change is harder for me than it is for others, and maybe I've not taken risks—have not traveled on my own throughout, say, Morocco; have not sung for my living in subway stations; have not acted on behalf of tomorrow without first shoring up today. I run, I push, I fight, I dream, but there's framework about me, and ground.

Yesterday I decided to have my hair cut in a new way—to give up twenty-five years of looking essentially the same for a shot at looking like the person I suspect I h...

readergirlz writing contest (2): the story song

Only cold. Only wet. A lonesome feeling.

For a reminder about the second readergirlz writing contest—soliciting short poems or prose pieces that have been thoughtfully choreographed—please see my post on today's HarperTeen blog.

Taking Refuge with Librarians

Yesterday I went out in the cold, hard rain and drove to the Barnes and Noble down the road, where the perpetually bright-eyed Maureen had asked me to spend a few minutes speaking with local school librarians and teachers about young adult books. I had pictured the weather keeping most of these good people home (I'd have understood, honest), but when I got to the store I discovered not only my dear friend Joel (the elementary school librarian who had given my son such a wonderful start and h...