Beth Kephart's Blog, page 355

Reflected Out

Her kind of beauty I could live with. The wide open canvas of her eyes, the words she already holds to herself, the liberal adornments of pink: I am a girl, I am to be seen, I will not tell you everything. Earrings in a drawer somewhere, or hanging on a tree. The polishing of soul.

An hour ago, at the dance studio, I became too aware of mirrors, of me in mirrors, of life passing. I became too aware, and I stopped—unable, really, to keep on dancing, to make a pretense of it. I wanted more tha

Girl Detectives

Yesterday was a high and low day—a business meeting that left me feeling hollow, a blog-world embrace that I will never forget. There is no sap in the kind of blog goodness that was sent my way yesterday. There is only strength.

There is also only strength in conversation, and there's a very intriguing conversation currently ongoing at Chasing Ray. The overarching theme, as you know, is What a Girl Wants. Today's conversation is called The Girl Detective Edition. Colleen Mondor, who hosts th

Headed for Perfection (or at least pointed that way)

Those of you who are in the middle of writing something are also, inevitably, in the middle of revising something.

Over at Brimstone Soup, Holly Cupala, a young adult author (and a Readergirlz marvel), has been shining light on the revisionary path with a program called Summer Revision Smackdown. I've learned a lot in previous posts, and today Holly is hosting me, as I think out loud about my own revisionary patterns, and instincts. Check it out, if you have a chance.

Also, Kathye Fetsko Petrie,

Stunned: A Nothing but Ghosts Surprise Party

I don't have words for today.

That's it, I don't.

My Friend Amy (her blog name, her world self) wrote to me a week or so ago and suggested that we have a Nothing but Ghosts party. I said, "Thank you. Of course. That would be lovely." I said, "Yes, of course, I'll be in a chat (thank you for the invitation)", and "Yes, of course, I'll do a reading (let me fix my hair)", but in truth, I had no idea—zero—what she was planning.

This is what she and Lenore have been planning. My Friend Amy plus Pres

Nothing but Ghosts/Book Page Review and Contest Winner

Beth Kephart’s dazzling new novel is wise and wonderful, certain to be a revelation for young adult readers. As Katie makes a few necessary discoveries, she begins to let love in once again. In doing so, she honors an important promise, “a daughter’s promise: to live my life with my eyes wide open. To honor exuberance, and color.”

Excerpted from Book Page review, Ellen Trachtenberg

A few days ago, I asked how you might paint regret, a question that arises in Nothing but Ghosts. I was stunned—tru

The Trick

The trick, I think, is to remain calm in the face of the work that you have done, and to believe, always believe, that something greater yet lies within.

I don't want writing to be over.

I don't want to think that I am done.

Nothing but Ghosts, An Excerpt on Launch Week

...I finally found them down where a wedding was going on, or had already happened, my mother sitting on a bench, my dad beside her, both of them watching this bride and her groom at the edge of a pond where the water was so still I could have sworn it was a mirror. I saw my mom pull a flower straight out of a tree. I saw her stand, take the flower to the bride, and bow her head. I saw her go back to the bench and sit down with my dad and ask him, "Would you marry me again, Jimmy? Would you?"

"The Longest Distance": A Video Excerpt

I have been hearing from some of you about a short story that I wrote for the HarperTeen anthology, No Such Thing as the Real World. Earlier today, I created and posted onto YouTube a three-minute vlog that tells some of the story behind this story and features a page or two from the book.

Eureka, Gamma Waves, and Colum McCann

Joseph Dorazio, a poet and friend, alerted me to a recent Wall Street Journal article titled "A Wandering Mind Heads Straight Toward Insight" (Robert Lee Holz, Science Journal, June 19, 2009). There's an emerging science of epiphany, apparently. There's proof that daydreaming matters.

"Sudden insights," Holz tells us, "are the culmination of an intense and complex series of brain states that require more neural resources than methodical reasoning. People who solve problems through insight gener

Loving Out Loud

A review of Cristina Nehring's A Vindication of Love in this weekend's New York Times Book Review led me to an excerpt that I wish to share with you:

To be respected as a thinker in our world, a woman must cease to be a lover. To pass for an intellectual of any distinction, she must either renounce romantic love altogether or box it into a space so small in her life that it attracts no attention. If a man, as William Butler Yeats once claimed, "is forced to choose/Perfection of the life or of t