Beth Kephart's Blog, page 37

thoughts on M.T. Anderson and Nicola Yoon's new YA books, In New York Journal of Books

My thoughts on two new YA books—M. T Anderson's Symphony for the City of the Dead and Nicola Yoon's Everything, Everything —in the New York Journal of Books.

Podcast/Videocast at the Free Library, with LOVE and Marciarose

Marciarose Shestack, didn't we have ourselves a time last evening, at the Free Library of Philadelphia?

With greatest thanks to Siobhan, Andy, and Jason, to Gary, to Kevin, to my husband and father, to my friends, to all those who joined us there on a starry night, to everyone who asked a question, to all of you who stood in line.

A podcast can be found here.

A video stream of the reading and conversation can be found here.

Talking about our home, at Radnor Memorial Library

The extremely dear Pamela Sedor has invited me back to the Radnor Memorial Library to talk about my 2015 books, LOVE: A PHILADELPHIA AFFAIR and ONE THING STOLEN. Pam is lovely, that space is kind, and there will be cake.

I'll be reflecting on places familiar to many of you—Darby-Paoli Road, the Devon Horse Show, the Wayne Art Center, DanceSport Academy in Ardmore, the gardens of Chanticleer, the bells of Valley Forge. I'll be listening for your own stories.

I hope that you can join us.


Tuesday, October 20
7:30 PM
Radnor Memorial Library, Winsor Room
Wayne, PA

Philadelphia and Florence, coming soon to the Radnor Memorial Library

The extremely dear Pamela Sedor has invited me back to the Radnor Memorial Library to talk about two books that take place in two sister cities, LOVE (Philadelphia) and ONE THING STOLEN (Philadelphia and Florence).

She is dear, that space is kind, this is my good fortune.

And there will be cake.

I hope that you can join us.

Nathaniel Popkin asks about LOVE (in Hidden City)

Philadelphia long ago discovered the gem who is Nathaniel Popkin. He shows up at Emmy Award celebrations, on the jackets of wonderful novels and nonfiction collections, in the pages of Philadelphia magazine, as book review editor at Cleaver. He is, as well, a force behind Hidden City, and what I say here is the truth: few people know more about this city, or think about it more deeply, than Nathaniel Popkin.

So it was a distinct pleasure to be interviewed by him for Hidden City. Our conversation about walking, seeing, thinking, and believing (and Philadelphia) can be found here. I always learn from the questions he asks.

Thank you, Nathaniel.

We're launching Love: A Philadelphia Affair at the Free Library tomorrow night on a stage that will sparkle with the warm wit and intelligence of broadcast pioneer Marciarose Shestack. We hope you'll join us.

The Art of Gardening/by R. William Thomas, Rob Cardillo, and the Chanticleer Gardeners

Yesterday was moving day at my father's house. After so many months of packing and renovation, the big truck came. I snuck away from the activities for two beautiful hours in the afternoon to celebrate the release of The Art of Gardening (Timber Press) by the gardeners of Chanticleer. (And then rushed home, changed back into grunge wear, and began again the unpacking of boxes.)

Readers of my blog and books know that Chanticleer has served as backdrop for many of my musings, both nonfiction (Ghosts in the Garden) and fiction (Nothing but Ghosts). (Indeed, my Inky story about this fabled landscape is featured in Love: A Philadelphia Affair.) But as a writer I merely bear witness. I do not know the names of most things, do not capitalize upon the folds in the earth, do not walk the garden every day looking for the ebbing away and the new opportunity.

Bill Thomas and his gardeners do. They make these now 48 acres (the garden is growing) glow, season after season, with their plants, their sense of purpose, their artistry. You'll find their winter projects—clay pots, wood furniture, metal work, hand rails, sculptures—in among the blooms. You'll hear them talking about ways to preserve the biodiversity of soil and to optimize microclimates, not to mention the secrets still stashed in the greenhouse.

The Art of Gardening, featuring photographs by Rob Cardillo (who once took this photo of me on a rainy Chanticleer day for what has become an award-winning magazine), is subtitled "Design, Inspiration, and Innovative Planting Techniques from Chanticleer." Its authors are the gardeners themselves, with Bill Thomas editing the overall narrative and Eric Hsu providing the captions. The history and vision of Chanticleer is represented here, as are design strategies, reports on experiments, and a planting list.

It's a lovely compilation, celebrated on a gorgeous day that also marked the unveiling of the grand new path that winds up toward the Chanticleer house and (at this particular moment in time) makes the hover above the ground feel airbrushed with a color that is not quite pink and not quite purple.

Huge congratulations to the Chanticleer gardeners (and Rob) whose artistic spirits are so well captured here.

Contemplating the change in season, in today's Inquirer

In today's Philadelphia Inquirer, I'm remembering a recent day spent alongside my father, at Longwood Gardens. We made our way to the meadow. We stood on the cusp of a season. We thought about the summer we had shared packing up his beautiful home, and about all that might come next.

That story can be found in full here, along with an invitation to join me and Marciarose Shestack at the Free Library of Philadelphia this coming Wednesday evening, at 7:30, as we talk about our love for this city.

Tell Us Something True/Dana Reinhardt (you're. going. to. love. it.)

We returned from a rain-soaked Shenandoah Valley to a nor'easter being chased by a possible Category 4. But I had places to be. Third and Spruce, for a conversation. Up near the Art Museum, to visit with a friend.

I had places to be, and I was saturated. I was a walking puddle, a character from a Peanuts cartoon.

I had two things in my bag, in my long walk from damp to embarrassing. One of them was Dana Reinhardt's oh-so-perfect forthcoming novel (I apologize in advance that you will have to wait for it until next spring), Tell Us Something True (Wendy Lamb Books, Random House Children's Books).

May I preface this by saying that I have enormous respect for Dana Reinhardt—as a writer, as a person. Despite her impressive breadth as an author, her astonishing talent with character, story, and sentences, and her cache of awards, you will not find her out there on the circuit showboating. You will not hear her raising toasts to herself.

So 1)  I'm predisposed to love Dana Reinhardt, and 2) I felt hugely blessed to receive an early copy of her book. But 3) Even I could not imagine how utterly un-put-downable this new novel is. About a teenage boy who is dumped by a girl and finds himself (on his long walk home) standing before a fading sign—black words on white: A SECOND CHANCE.

This dumped kid, River: He feels he needs a second chance.

And so he enters into this community of teens who are struggling to break free of one kind of addiction or another. He feels at peace. It's his turn to talk and he fables up something. He confesses that he is addicted to weed. It's not true. It's not even close to true. But if River holds onto (then embellishes) this ready myth, he'll always have a chair in this circle.

He wants a chair in that circle.

This is the premise of Dana's book. But Dana never barters with mere premise. She is a storyteller with a heart, a writer (and a mom) who understands that characters make for story, not theses. That the honorable thing to do with a novelistic set-up is to find out who lives inside the chosen frame. Who really lives there. What they think. How they hope. How they screw up. How they take first steps toward forgiveness. How they continually readjust the way they see the world and themselves.

There's not a single throw-away character in Tell Us Something True. No cardboard constructions representing An Idea. There are best friends, an adorable half sister, good parents, white neighborhoods, Mexican ones, missed buses, the romance of imagination. There's humor and infinite humanity. There's line after line of prose so good I kept pumping my fist, and let me tell you something: I didn't want this book to end.

I despair, sometimes, at the YA category. At trends that suffocate original impulses. At books that sell on the basis of a hook and authorial ambition (and little else). At copy cat voices. At plot-point checklists. At self-serving declarations. At marketing machines.

But then along comes Dana Reinhardt, who writes character and considered plots, who quietly, then boldly escalates her ideas, who gets you all caught up inside the family of action, who leaves you running from place to place in a storm, desperate to return to her story.

Tell Us Something True is hope; it is humanity; it offers a master class in ultimately accepting our own impossible imperfections. Original, funny, wrenching, real, and intelligently surprising, it's bound to endure. It might even heal the many cracks between us.

At the Free Library of Philadelphia this Wednesday evening, with Marciarose Shestack, for LOVE

Yesterday, following a long walk through the rain and the wind, I was greeted by the gorgeous pioneering news woman Marciarose Shestack at her eloquent Philadelphia home. We were meeting as friends. We were meeting, too, to plan our coming evening at the Free Library of Philadelphia, when we'll be talking about our mutual love for our city (and its surrounding areas) and about my new book, Love: A Philadelphia Affair.

That event is this coming Wednesday at 7:30, at the Free Library.

The details for the event are above.

A video interview and reading from Love are available here.

We would love to see you there.

what would you think if (a query to you, about a memoir program we're imagining)

We escaped to the mist and hills of the Shenandoah Valley and pondered the days and years ahead. The what next (again) of life. With the wind blowing and the rain pouring and the rivers swelling we imagined a future spent creating and delivering something new—a one-of-a-kind workshop exploring the many ways we find and represent the truth.

We're in the earliest planning stages, of course. But if you think you'd be interested in a program that would come to where you live and work with you and 14 other writers and seekers, please do let me know.

We think this idea has promise. We would begin delivering the program next year.