Beth Kephart's Blog, page 49

A One Thing Stolen reading, the Moravian Conference keynote, the Arcadia master class: upcoming

Yesterday I took several dozen books off my shelves and began to read the novels I forever return to. Housekeeping. The English Patient. Crossing to Safety. Reading in the Dark. The Beet Queen. So Long, See You Tomorrow. I Was Amelia Earhart. In Hovering Flight. And—

How settled and peaceful and happy I felt, among old friends, enduring classics.

I was searching for something specific—literary signposts that will infiltrate the keynote I'm now writing for the Moravian Writers' Conference, to be held June 5 through June 7, in Bethlehem, PA. The title of that keynote is "Where You Live and What You Love: The Landscape of the Story." The conference, magnificently organized by Joyce Hinnefeld, promises to be full of riches, with its galvanizing theme of "Stories and/of Home." So many fine writers, teachers, book makers, and book sellers will be on the campus that weekend. In addition to the keynote, I'll be joining Josh Berk at his library for a fundraiser, joining a panel focused on what people read and why, and closing out with a Sunday afternoon conversation with my dear friend, A.S. King. I am so looking forward to Moravian.

Before June 5, however, there is May 20, next Wednesday evening, when I will be joining Margo Rabb, IW Gregorio, and Tiffany Fowler Schmidt at Children's Book World in Haverford, PA, for an evening we've titled "Body, Mind, Heart, Soul: The Whole Self in Contemporary YA." This will be my only bookstore/library event for One Thing Stolen. It will, as well, be a chance for you to meet my friends and discover/celebrate their talent. I hope to see you there.

Finally, at the end of June—June 27—I'll be conducting a Master Class/Reading/Q and A at the Arcadia University Creative Writing Summer Weekend, in Glenside, PA, another event that I anticipate with great happiness.

how to stay (un)safe as a writer

 I think this says it all.

There are a lot of ways to stay safe as a writer: by not writing, by writing to no one, by writing to a single admirer, by challenging the judgment of those with the power to judge, by not putting much effort into your work. "It's hard," Zink writes in "The Wallcreeper," trying to defend your territory and advertise your presence and keep out of predators' line of sight."

—Kathryn Schulz, "Outside In," The New Yorker, May 18, 2015 edition, in a story about the writer Nell Zink

there, again, is the news: what is solid, standing, everpresent, ever true?

How difficult it is becoming for all of us to get up and go about our daily work. As if the ground isn't shaking beneath us. As if terror and its isms haven't edged too close. As if the farmers don't need rain. As if it not snowing, in May, in Wyoming. As if our friends were not on that Amtrak train that rode a curve too hard outside our city.

What are we to do with the news? How are we to live our own lives, tick and tock after our own ideas, stand for this or stand for that, prepare our defenses despite the fact that there is no defense against earth grind, cruelty, the drought within our skies?

What is solid, standing, everpresent, ever true? What matters, and what can we do?

I woke up to write a proposal for the 2015-16 Beltran Family Event. To sneak a line or two of a novel-in-progress onto the page. To get ready for the day's client interviews. To write the bills. The small, the daily, the mine, the one. Get up. Do it. Believe. But there, again, is the news.

6:10 now. The morning hours gone. Another day and in defense against the defenseless, I will pretty my garden, present a cake, send flowers to a friend, call my son and call my father. The things I still know how to do, in the face of too much news.

I cried real tears when I read these words (about One Thing Stolen)

I can't tell you how much I love this book, how in awe I sat of this story, an elaborate nest of its own. I'd copy every beautiful sentence from this novel and leave it here for you, but that is the gift of Kephart's book, sitting with its soft feathered pages. This book is not a tangle. It is an incredible, careful, deliberate weave. Ribbons and strands of story coming together to create something exquisite and beautiful. Like Nadia's very first steal, which involves taking apart the words and language she is losing her grip on and braiding it back together in pieces, this book is a similar, spectacular creation.

From This Too (the full review is here).

To have been understood. So thoroughly. Like this. To be taken into Melissa's own life, heart, mind, travels.

Thank you, Melissa Sarno.

In Princeton, at the James Beard blessed Mistral, with them

We met at Princeton, my brother's undergraduate campus, where many happy memories live. My boy was looking his handsome self in a sunny-day colored shirt. He had stories. Posture. A photograph inside a frame.

Together we discovered Mistral, an exquisite "fast pace, small plates, fresh local fare" establishment, whose chefs—Scott Anderson and Ben Nerenhausen—were both named 2014 James Beard Foundation Award Semi-Finalists. I'd lately been watching Chef's Table (watch this trailer!), the sumptuous Netfix series. I wanted a little of that. And so there we were, and such is fine, great happy for me: memories of my brother on his campus, the companionship of my husband and my son, and a restaurant in which everything we ordered was unlike anything I've ever ordered elsewhere.

We watched them make it. They brought it to us. I could do that again and again.

To those who love. To those who are loved. To those remembering. This day.

Fusion Wins Franklin Award of Excellence for Books/Hard Cover/Neographics

We were pleased to learn, at Fusion, that the book we had researched, written, designed, and (taken all photos for) won the Franklin Award of Excellence for Books/Hard Cover Category from the Mid-Atlantic Region of Neographics.

Ana Maia draws Nadia; A.S. King sends on the gift; I love Chef's Table

Yesterday was a wall-to-wall-er. You know how it is. I topped off the day by watching two segments of the Netflix documentary series, Chef's Table, a David Gelb production that can turn any too-long day around.

Chef's Table doesn't just focus on the famous chefs and what they make and how they live. It goes deep into questions about how early failures shape lives. It explores the consequences of the decisions we make. And oh my goodness, does it showcase the artistry of fine minds in kitchens and over flames.

Massimo Bottura. Francis Mallmann. Niki Nakayama. Ben Shewry. Magnus Nilsson. I'm telling you. Step inside their worlds.

I was saying goodnight to the day when I noticed an email from A.S. King. I pattered my fingers. I squinted. I read. To her note was attached this drawing above, from a Brazilian reader named Ana Maia, who had read One Thing Stolen and rendered my Nadia like this.

There is so much to this—so much extreme and gentle thoughtfulness. I am deeply touched.

Ana Maia does this—draws the characters she finds in pages. You can follow her here on twitter: @coloredpins < https://twitter.com/coloredpins

from a novel in progress (how life intersects art)

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman";} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} </style> --> <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>She’d teach me her cake. Try out her latest. Turn my kitchen into a mini coop—Harvey lacing us together with the striped ribbon of his tail. She’d bring the sugar with her, ask for eggs. She’d put the whole milk on the sill to get it to temperature, use the sixteen-ounce cups to sift into, to stir. She’d carry sea salt in a clear bag in her back pocket, explain the purpose of its crunch inside the batter’s silk. She’d call the confectioner’s snow, her French whip Jacob’s Pride, her technique ineffable, and it was. She was. We stood side by side, her elbows shaped like cul de sacs, the rest of her arms so skinny that it looked as if they would be permanently bent at the hinges, as if she would, and she never spoke of the boy, and I didn’t ask her.<br /><br />(last night, at a street fair, I met an adorable girl named Sophia. she drew this rose. I give it to you.) </div><div class="feedflare">
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you can do it on just three hours a day

"... three hours a day is all that's needed to write successfully. Writing is turning time into language, and all good writers have an elaborate, fetishistic relationship to their working hours. Writers talking about time are like painters talking about unprimed canvas and pigments. (Nor is there anything philistine about writers talking money. Inside the ballroom at the PEN banquet, it's all freedom and dignity; outside, it's all advances.)"

Adam Gopnik, "Trollope Trending," New Yorker, May 4, 2015

Tomorrow, at Ryerss Museum and Library

I'll be talking about that river of ours—the great She, the Schuylkill—and selling copies of Flow. The facts are here, should you be in the neighborhood. I would love to see you.

 


May 3, 20151 PM
Schuylkill River/FLOW presentation
Ryerss Museum
7370 Central Avenue
Philadelphia, PA(free and open to the public)