Beth Kephart's Blog, page 341

On the Aliveness of Place

Bright hue and sky. The strange pot hanging sideways, which is the sign. The virgin bird on the broken wall, and the quick flick of the camera's eye.

Take it home. Remember.

The Lore Kephart Distinguished Historians Lecture Series

My mother went to college after she had raised the three of us—choosing Villanova as her academic home and remaining an essential fixture on the campus long after she had graduated in the top of her class. She and my father sponsored aspiring historians and contributed to funds. They befriended Villanova scholars and dreams.

Shortly after my mother passed away, my father decided to make her presence at Villanova a permanent one by creating and endowing The Lore Kephart, '86, Distinguished H...

Way Cool Artsy Women

It was not easy to get a note from a friend from whom I haven't heard from awhile that said, I have been living with cancer. She is young, beautiful, a wife, a mother, talented, and she has been living with cancer. I read what she has written about her journey so far, and I think: This is not a journey that I would know how to go on, or know how to write of, or know how to endure, but there she is, in her own way comforting me, speaking of good doctors, a loving husband, the surround of fr...

The Seduction of the Unspoken

To keep the thoughts one has to oneself.

To sit, staring off into the near distance.

To force upon another questions, and in that way, to draw him near.

Empty Nest

Sometimes the quiet emanating from the second bedroom in this two-bedroom house is so percussive, aggressive that I have to stay away.

Sometimes the quiet is a peacefulness. I open the door, step in.

Why I Appreciate Book Bloggers

All week long, My Friend Amy and her most-amazing team have been gathering at their hearth the book bloggers of the world who have, in my humble opinion, rescued books from oblivion. I was a judge for one panel, I was a nominee in a different category, and I was also invited to write an essay about book bloggers, and why they matter. That essay was originally posted here, alongside a whole lot of good stuff from great bloggers. But just in case you haven't yet mosied over, I reprint it...

Letting the Book Show You the Way

I have found the time, after too much time, to look back over the 186 pages of the novel-in-progress I had been writing before edits of other books came in, and client work, and a mini-house makeover (paint, the excision of cob webs, the scrubbing of a deck, the lightening of closets). I sat there, yesterday and early today, on the living room couch, and I read.

The proper foundation, I have discovered, has been laid.

It is time to take the book forward, to see, as E.L. Doctorow in this wonder...

How We Live Our Lives Expecting

It's dark when I leave for Wednesday morning Zumba, and for a few deluded minutes I think of myself as the only one about. But when I arrive at the gym, the lights are on and the doors are open and the guy behind the desk is indeed there behind the desk, reliably amiable, asking: "You awake, yet? You ready?"

In the group exercise room, we are 20 or so rumple-haired, sleepy-eyed women only half-prepared to dance tango, flamenco, salsa, samba, Bollywood. We are women unknown to one another, ...

My Dad, My Day, Our Alma Mater

My father was a University of Pennsylvania student long before I was, and yesterday, while sitting along Locust Walk watching the parade of life and learning go by, I picked up the phone to call him. "Hey, Dad," I said, "guess where I am?"

"On the train," he wagered.

"Nope," I told him. "I'm out here, on Locust Walk."

"I'll tell you a story about Locust Walk," my father said, and he went on to describe an apartment building that he had long ago shared with a roommate. "He got the bed," my fa...

A rather exquisite Nothing but Ghosts giveaway

Today I came across a most exquisite Ghosts giveaway on the very-fine GalleySmith blog. If I said any more about it you might not be te...