Beth Kephart's Blog, page 40

Open Invitation to meet Dr. Richard White at the Lore Kephart '86 Distinguished Historians Lecture Series

This year's Lore Kephart '86 Distinguished Lecture Series is bringing Dr. Richard White, the esteemed Margaret Byrne Professor of American History at Stanford University, to Villanova University for a lecture titled: "The Late Great Environmental Crisis of the Gilded Age: A Success Story."

The Lecture Series is a gift by my father to the university from which my mother graduated with honors after raising three children. Each year it brings extraordinary people to the campus for dialogue with students and the community. Jill Lepore has joined us. Andrew Bacevich. James McPherson. Others.

The selection of Dr. Richard White for this year's lecture is especially timely—and inspired. Dr. White is a Pulitzer-Prize nominated historian with a special interest in environmental history and Native American history. Through his Spatial History Lab at Stanford, he "explores the construction of space by transcontinental railroads during the late nineteenth century." It's a topic about which he wrote in Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, a Los Angeles Times Book Award winner.

My father, the Kephart family, and Villanova University invite you to join us for this free event:

October 1, 20157 PM - 9 PMVillanova Room, Connelly CenterVillanova University

Today is the day for LOVE: A Philadelphia Affair (on sale now)—and an update on upcoming talks and appearances

With thanks to Avery Rome and Kevin Ferris, who made a home for my stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer, with thanks to Temple University Press for binding these essays and photos into a single volume, and with thanks to some very special early readers—today is the day for Love: A Philadelphia Affair.

It's on sale now.

Over the next few weeks and months I'll be celebrating the 200th anniversary of the Fairmount Water Works (in concert with other speakers), sharing the Free Library stage with Marciarose Shestack, returning to the beloved Radnor Memorial Library, teaching memoir to high school students in Bethlehem, PA, conducting an in-depth memoir workshop in Frenchtown, NJ, joining an exquisite panel of young adult writers, reviewers, and educators at Bank Street in New York, thinking out loud about home with dear friends Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, A.S. King, and Margo Rabb (at Penn), and participating in a variety of other talks and signings.

I'd love to see you along the way.

September 10, 2015, 10:30 AM
200th Anniversary of 
the Fairmount Water Works
Fairmount Water Works
Philadelphia, PA 
(open to public) 

September 21, 2015, all day
Handling the Truth/All School Read
Day-long workshop event
Moravian Academy
Bethlehem, PA
(private event) 

October 7, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Launch of Love: A Philadelphia Affair
with Marciarose Shestack
Free Library of Philadelphia
Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia, PA
(open to public)

October 15, 2015
My Philadelphia Stories at
The Philadelphia Rotary Club
Philadelphia Union League
Philadelphia, PA
(private event)

October 20, 2015, 7:30 p.m.
Radnor Memorial Library
A Celebration of One Thing Stolen
and Love: A Philadelphia Affair
114 W. Wayne Avenue
Wayne, PA 19087
(open to public)

October 21, 2015
The Cultural Series at Kennedy House
1901 JFK Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA
(private event)

October 24, 2015
Panelist
BookFest @ Bank Street
Bank Street College of Education
610 West 112th Street
New York, NY  
(registration required)

October 25, 2015, 4 p.m.
Love: A Philadelphia Affair signing
Main Point Books
1041 W. Lancaster Avenue
Bryn Mawr, PA
(open to public)

November 1, 2015, 2:00 PM
LOVE and FLOW
Women for Greater Philadelphia
Laurel Hill Mansion 
Philadelphia, PA
(private event)

November 15, 2015
Memoir Workshop 
In-store reception
The Rat
Organized by The Book Garden
Frenchtown, NJ
(registration required)

November 16, 2015
LOVE, TRUTH, and GOING OVER
Frenchtown, NJ-area high school
(private event)

December 3, 2015, 7 PM
LOVE signing
Chester County Books
West Chester, PA
(open to public)

December 5, 2015, noon
LOVE signing
Barnes and Noble
Devon, PA
(open to public)

March 1, 2016, 6:00 PM
Beltran Family Teaching Award Event
Featuring A.S. King, Margo Rabb, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto,
Penn students, and moi
Kelly Writers House
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA
(open to public)
 
April 16, 2016
Little Flower Teen Writing Festival
Keynote Speaker
Little Flower Catholic High School for Teens
Philadelphia, PA 

May 22, 2016
Memoir Workshop
(details to be announced) 

public apology

Like so many of us, I struggle with time. Struggle to find it, to use it well, to not regret the misplaced hours.

There are so many misplaced hours.

This summer, as I put most work and reading and writing aside to help my father with a big house project, I also put much of social media off to one side. Took Facebook and Twitter off my phone. Spent less time before the screen. Blogged infrequently.

It was my way of buying back time. Or, perhaps, of spending the little time that was left to me on things that required my whole self. My hands zesting the lemon for a cake. My body out on an end-of-day walk. My mind engaged in conversation with the friends who would stop by or call. My arms and legs hauling away things so that there would be more room in our small house for pure and simplified living.

In a stressful summer I slowed down to a more human pace.

But. When we enter the world of social media we are also, implicitly, signing a contract. I will be there for you as you have been there for me. I will read your updates as you have kindly read mine. I will know how you are by following your trail. I will reach out when I should.

I broke the implicit contract.

To all of you who have shared big things, small things, sad things, glad things that I, in my less social media-ized state, missed, I offer my apologies. I don't care less. I just see less. Trust that I am here in spirit.

what is it that we really need? brief reflections following the reinvention of a family home

I have spent much of my summer at my father's side, working through the reinvention of his home of many years. Today, with the help of realtor extraordinaire, Marie Gordon, the reinvention comes to a close. The house is staged. In a matter of days it will be for sale.

We hold onto many things in this life—our third-grade reports, our fifth-grade medals, our computer-science grades, our uncle's letters, the pots and the pans, the ceramic bunnies and the glass ducks, the extra lamps and tea cups. This summer, working through the many shelves and drawers and boxes and closets and frames, the tools on nails, the orchids in pots, I reflected endlessly on the questions: What is it that we really need? What material objects mark and shape a life?

Today, following several morning hours of heavy lifting and flower arranging (and learning a thing or two about picture wire from Marie), I returned to my own modest house thinking about peace and peaceable space—the families we build inside the hope we create. My father and mother raised three children (and a cat named Colors) in this house of many years. We touched the things. We lived the life. The memories remain.

Weighing in on the critics, in the New York Times

Isn't Charles McGrath a right voice in our time?

(Wait. Did that sound critical?)

This week the New York Times Book Review asked Charles McGrath and Adam Kirsch the question: Is Everyone Qualified to Be a Critic? It's a question I often ask myself. A question I've been asking myself for the past 20 years, in fact—throughout my reviews of many hundreds of books for print and online publications, my jottings on behalf of the competitions I've judged, and my meanderings on this blog.

What makes me qualified? Am I qualified? And do I do each book—whether or not I like it—justice?

I do know this: If my mind is dull, if I am distracted, if I feel rushed, if I've grown just a tad weary of this trend or that affect, I won't review a book, not even on this blog, where I own the real estate. Writers (typically) work too hard to be summarily summarized, falsely cheered, unhelpfully glossed. Reviews should only be treated as art (as compared, say, to screed or self-glorification). It's important, as McGrath notes, that we reviewers keep reviewing ourselves.

His words:

It’s surprising how much contemporary critical writing is a chore to get through, not just on blogs and in Amazon reviews but even in the printed paragraphs appearing below some prominent bylines, where you find too often the same clichés, the same tired vocabulary, the same humorless, joyless tone. How is it, you wonder, that people so alert to the flaws of others can be so tone deaf when it comes to their own prose? The answer may be the pressure of too many deadlines, or the unwritten law that requires bloggers and tweeters to comment practically around the clock. Or it may be that the innately critical streak of ours too frequently has a blind spot: ourselves.

on the street where I lived (Camac)

When I lived here the doors and shutters were red. A single room on the second floor was mine. Later, when I got married, I rented three full rooms on the floor above.

Camac Street. Philadelphia. Where I wrote bad poems, read at night, bought ice cream as an extravagance, waited for the phone to ring, but it hardly ever did. Where the big meal out was the Middle Eastern shop; I've still not tasted hummus like they made at that Middle Eastern shop. I met Precious near Camac, when I walked (in sneakers) Locust late at night. I went back and forth to my job until, at the age of twenty-five, I went into business for myself.

So that this place, which had red doors once, was where I waited to be married, then was. Where I had a job, then created one for myself. Where I stopped writing poetry so that I could write short stories. Where I learned I would have surgery that would wire my disintegrated jaw shut.

So much happened on Camac Street.

I walked by the other day. I remembered.

Talking to Ruta Sepetys (and you) about Salt to the Sea

I have not vlogged for years. I'd forgotten how. Also, the technology has changed. Plus, I'm old and weary. Please forgive all of that.

Because the only thing that matters is that I've just read the third novel by Ruta Sepetys, Salt to the Sea, a powerful historical novel about refugees, friendship, and a terrifying trek toward the world's greatest maritime disaster.

My thoughts are here.

Congratulations, Ruta Sepetys. 

oh, my friends, look what I have. look who.

How glorious it is to receive books from loved friends, and loved writers. The third Ruta Sepetys novel, the already-much-acclaimed Salt to the Sea, is here. And I can't wait to read. You'll hear more from me on this once this veil of supreme busyness passes.

LOVE arrives (and Temple did such a good job)

In the midst of a busy afternoon, two copies of LOVE arrive in all their hardbound glory.

I have stopped.

I have paged through.

Temple University Press, you did an amazing job. The photos are rich, the paper is kind, the cover broadcasts our love for our city.

Thank you.

LOVE is now officially on sale.

Carrying the great A.S. King and Patricia McCormick forward, in This Is the Story of You

My actual beach book. Due out next spring, from Chronicle Books.Thank you, A.S. King and Patty McCormick. For the words.For the friendship.