Beth Kephart's Blog, page 360

"Dare you,"

she said, with her eyes, and I took the dare; why not? I took it for who I haven't been and for who I might still be, took it for all the times that somebody said, What you are isn't right enough. What you want won't be yours. What you write is too small.

But puny can be outsized, too.

And small has meaning.[image error]

From a novel in progress

Alone in the house, before Vin had moved in, Sophie had found the evidence of earlier owners in the attic, under the sink, on shelves—drawings left behind by children, marbles trapped beneath the radiator cover, a single sweater in the closet, a collection of dried lady bugs, laid out like counting beads, upon the guest-room sill. She had studied the scratches on the floor and imagined the traffic of past lives, had acclimated herself to the idea of spirits and specters, phantasmagoria. She und

She was in blue

The horse was in white.[image error]

Dance with Me

Tonight, at the Devon Horse Show (or returning from the horse show) I see: Cammy, my high school friend, not to mention the mom of the whole, smart, never-once-betraying young lady who has always been an authentic friend to my son. I see George and Shirley, beloved neighbors (even if George says the words in my books are too big). I see the kids from my church, the husband of an old friend, the former chairman of the board of a favorite company.

I go out with my camera, and I return with my wo

Horse Show Season/The Heart is Not a Size

The Devon Horse Show is back in town, and last night, as the trainers and jockeys settled their mounts into the stables, I walked unnoticed with my camera. I visited the Horse Show most years as a child—driving an hour with my parents and siblings. When it came time for my own family to buy a new house of our own, we found one just two blocks from the fabled fairgrounds. On Sunday the old carriages will roll down my streets. All next week the Budweiser Clydesdales will be clopped by my garden

This photograph was taken by Jill's Blackberry

and signals the release of Nothing but Ghosts. It exists. It is. There's nothing that I can do to this book to make it any smarter, any righter, any more whole.[image error]

Jean and Iryna are Dancing: Beth Kephart Poem

And the music is.
And the music is
how Iryna hears it,
how she won’t let it down to the floor
on the power
of its own acquiesce.
How she says
the battering beat is my bones,
it is the affectation of want
over repose,
and by the way,
I will be late, and that will be song.
Take it apart.
Say it again.
The music is
how the one snow thread
of Iryna’s snow dress
snaps,
how it melts,
how it is always Jean’s,
alone.

(I did not take this photograph of this gorgeous and talented couple; it was taken of them at a recent compe

A Novel Response and a Question (to blog readers)

In a comment question yesterday, the wonderful Lilian Natel asked (among other things) whether I approach adult novels differently than, say, the novels I've written for young adults. The answer is no. I give as much, I ache as much, I confuse myself as much, I nearly walk away as much from any genre with which I choose to torment myself. I work the opening 50 pages countless times, for it is in those pages that many of the most important decisions are being made. Voice and mood, for example

In Which the Son Rescues the Mother

Euphoria is short-lived in the life of a writer. You have an idea—oh, you have an idea—and you go all out in your attack of said idea—moving forward because you have to move forward because you don't have time (in the heat of the new) to slow things to a slog and hover over the fine points of perfection.

Then it has to happen: You slow down. You stop on a Saturday to read what you have written and you really wish you hadn't. You spend your next three days throwing out most of your work, swapp

On Writing a Novel for Adults

There are few things less gratifying than successful literary novelists. I myself can't get enough of their stories, their confessions.

It is a lovely thing, therefore, to watch Jeffrey Eugenides in conversation with Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times—to hear what this multi-platinum author of The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex has to say about the work that he has done over the years and the city, Detroit, that has fueled his imagination.

I was intrigued, especially, by the way Eugenides has det