Beth Kephart's Blog, page 343

Book Blogger Appreciation Week (a surprised nominee)

Those of you who have been following Book Blogger Appreciation Week know just how much effort its creator and myriad (tireless) support persons have put into announcing, promoting, supporting, and delivering the 2009 BBAW Awards Shortlists, which have been announced today (because these good souls never rest, not even on Labor Day). More than 1,000 blogs have been sorted through, screened, and considered. Now that the shortlists are up, it's up to the rest of us to go visit those blogs that...

Ghosts in the Garden and the Rhetoric of Style

Kelsey Coons is family—the daughter of my cousin, Linda, and thus a Kephart by blood. Like her sister, Brianne, she is athletic, gorgeous, smart. Like her sister, she had a knack for making my mother smile. She always makes me smile, too, especially since we're also united by our love for dance (and for the show, So You Think You Can Dance).

Last fall Kelsey took a college class called Rhetoric of Style and chose the chapter "A Talent for Living" from my memoir Ghosts in the Garden as the su...

An Extravaganza of Becauses

Because I realize, now, that I can complete this Centennial book, and that it will be the book I hoped it would be, because I knocked a dozen things off my must-be-done-around-the-house list and placed a half dozen calls so as to fix the rest, because I won my war with the spider webs, at least for this hour, because I walked to Whole Foods and got the air in that way, because my son called and he is happy (and wise), because my father is coming for dinner, because I am using commas any which wa

Books I Think I Want, and an Undercover Review

It has been walking-and-sitting-outside weather, but I've been inside, piled high with work, feeling sunk beneath innumerable pressures. I'm in the final leg of a major edit of the Centennial novel, finishing up a client project, trying desperately to get the house in order, looking for time to get myself in order, too, before the academic year begins at Penn.

And I am missing books. I am missing easy strolls through bookstore aisles and time spent hovering over recommended reading tables. I a

Remain Vulnerable: The inaugural readergirlz vlog and writing contest

A few days ago, I wrote of my new role with readergirlz, as author in residence. Today readergirlz is rolling out my first writing vlog, which is titled Remain Vulnerable. Visit the readergirlz blog and watch the video. Then participate, if you choose, in the writing contest we outline there. The winner will receive a signed copy of Undercover.

A Winged Story

Sometimes the finches that play in the trees beyond my office window mistake the glass for air and knock their heads, and always I worry. I get up to see if the banged-up bird is okay; usually, thankfully, it is.

But today the finch that knocked hard into the window pane did not get up from the deck, where it had landed, and my heart sunk. It flipped itself to its feet, but its right wing had been made crooked with the collision. I crouched near and spoke encouraging words. I wished I knew so

On Becoming the readergirlz Author in Residence

Would you consider, author and readergirlz co-founder Lorie Ann Grover wrote to me last May, being our readergirlz Author in Residence from September through December? Writing a monthly blog about the writing life? Participating in readergirlz chats? Attending a live online party?

I did not have to think twice. This is readergirlz—perhaps the most esteemed site for young adult readers in the world. It's the brain child of Justina Chen Headley, Dia Calhoun, Holly Cupala, Melissa Walker, and L

In Which I Confess my Need of Super Powers

Tell me you don't need a suit like this one—all quilted up and caped. Don't need this mask, the set of this jaw, these fleet and fine rubber-toed shoes.

I know that I do. I seek strength beyond myself, strength being a word that I, just now, associate with calm.

The good things of this day: I survived the 5:45 AM Body Pump. I saw my friends at Shire. Someone told me a story. I talked to my dear niece, Miranda, on her very special birthday. And a nice guy at the front desk of a seaside hotel

Excess

The hardest thing, I think, is to identify excess in your own work.

The best sort of editor helps you see it.

I move through the revisions of this Centennial novel, trusting the instincts of my editor, Laura Geringer, learning from them. I move through it considering this third season of Mad Men, which seems in some ways thwarted by too many competing story lines. Something about the rhythm feels slightly off to me. Something about the places and things on which the directors choose to dwell.

Dangerous Neighbors

Yesterday, returning at last to the Centennial novel, I struggled to reclaim my footing—to go back in time to 1876. Nothing rushes writing. No short cuts can be taken. I had to sit again, settle in again, to the clatter on Broad Street, to the buildings, no longer there, to the strange interiors of spectacle buildings that turned Philadelphia into a near-circus for a year.

The vendors are out, roasting their chestnuts. There is a hawk with blood-colored feathers on the parapet of a slanted ro