Beth Kephart's Blog, page 96

small strokes of atmospheric kindness

Between client calls and contractor visits, I found this shock of sun.

Some of us badly need rain. Some of us badly need spring. All of us are wondering about the weather.

My plan: to be grateful for small strokes of atmospheric kindness. To capture them, on film.

Bruce Springsteen sings "Chimes of Freedom" at the Berlin Wall

This morning, putting together my play list for the GOING OVER blog tour (thank you, Lara Starr and Chronicle Books), I found myself transfixed by this video of our own Bruce Springsteen singing Dylan's "Chimes of Freedom" to the East Berliners one year before the all came down.

Look at the faces of that crowd. Look at him. I can't even speak. Watch all the way through, as Springsteen answers an interviewer's questions about the people of Berlin.

Interested in joining the blog tour? Let us know.

The GOING OVER excerpt: a first look at the inside pages

Chronicle Books has made Going Over, the Berlin novel due out on April 1, a priority—and I feel that every day. In their enthusiasm, in their ideas, in their innovations, in their just plain them-ness, they are united; they are engaged. "Reach out anytime," Sally Kim, who leads the marketing effort, said to me last evening, during a call she most certainly did not have to make. I appreciate these things, wholly.

I'll be sharing more about Berlin and the wall and the heartache and the possibilities as the launch countdown begins in earnest. Today I share a Going Over excerpt—a link made possible by the Chronicle team. This is the book. This is how my two characters—Ada and Stefan—speak of their separate worlds. This is Berlin, 1983.

Celebrating Sister Kim, the force (with K.M. Walton) behind the Teen Writing Festival at Little Flower High School

Sister Kim believes in authors. Boy, does she ever. She believes in them, supports them, spreads the word to her students, and now her students are gigantic believers and supporters, too.

In April, Little Flower Catholic High School, Sister Kim's home, will be throwing a huge teen festival, featuring 20 area authors. K. M. Walton helped turn the idea into a reality. We authors are pretty pumped. And today the Philadelphia Daily News is helping to tell the story, with this fantastic article by Dan Geringer.

Since I'm cited in the story as one who enthusiastically blogs about these students, I feel a responsibility to prove that this is true. Check this out, then. And smile all day.

The Patron Saint of Ugly/Marie Manilla (prose of the day)

Sometimes life intervenes. Frankly, life ALWAYS intervenes. Which is to say I simply cannot read as thoroughly, as completely, as everlastingly as I would like to do.

Case in point: The Patron Saint of Ugly, a forthcoming novel by Marie Manilla, is so rocking, so unusual, so full of 'tude and flair ... but I haven't had the time to finish reading it yet, and I don't wish to rush through. At the same time I want you to know now about this writer, sooner being better than later, and so my methodology, on this Monday morning, as other pressures press, is to advertise, then to excerpt.

So first, the set up, from the flap copy: Born in Sweetwater, West Virginia, with a mop of flaming red hair and a map of the world rendered in port-wine stains on every surface of her body, Garnet Ferrari is used to being an outcast. With her sharp tongue, she knows how to defend herself against bullies and aggressors, but she finds she is less adept at fending off the pilgrims camped outside her hilltop home, convinced that she is Saint Garnet, healer of skin ailments and maker of miracles. Determined to debunk this "gift" rooted in her past, Garnet reaches back into her family's tangled history, unspooling a tale of love triangles on the shores of the Strait of Messina; a sad, beautiful maiden's gilded-cage childhood in blueblood Virginia; and the angelic, doomed boy Garnet could not protect.

Now an excerpt, to prove my assertion that Marie Manilla writes jangling, animated, original prose, that she ceaselessly surprises, that she is hilarious, that she sings a song to the wild, flame-hued tunes in her head.

Garnet, our storyteller, is addressing the Archbishop:

It's a stormy day in our smudge on the map. I'm impressed you visited, since getting here involves a series of ever-smaller planes—jets, turboprops, hamster-powered Cessnas—topped off with a spiraling drive up to my door. Even you commented on West Virginia's low status, its reputation maligned thanks in part to industrialists, Johnny Carson, and Virginians—our Siamese twins still fuming over that nervy Civil War split.

I can't wait to finish this book. You shouldn't wait to order it. It's due out on June 17th from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Editor: the one and only Lauren Wein.

Congratulations, Marie Manilla.

Nest. Flight. Sky.: an excerpt (and a Netgalley)

This morning, an excerpt from Nest. Flight. Sky., my memoir newly out from Shebooks. Shebooks feature women writers of both fiction and nonfiction. I chose to write about birds and loss and words. To explore the aftermath of mourning, and the women, over time, who have hunted down wings.

Shebooks are available for $2.99, as e-books. Mine can be purchased here. Interested reviewers can contact me for a link to Netgalley.

<!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-font-charset:78; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:1 0 16778247 0 131072 0;} @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-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"ＭＳ 明朝"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:JA;} @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><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What is it we are waiting for, when we sit and wait for birds? What do we believe they will fly this way to tell us? Why do we need them—these creatures that sleep with one eye open and sleep, sometimes, even in flight? These evolved dinosaurs with their air-sac bones and their toothless bills and their magnetic sensibilities and their panoply of feathers—tail feathers, flight feathers, semiplumes, filoplumes, bristles, down? These songsters, these architects, these visionaries, these clowns?</span> </div></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq"><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Some 150 million years ago, birds found a way to fly. One bird—the bar-tailed godwit—flies from Alaska to New England without stopping—eight days of flight. One bird—the albatross—the globe. Some birds—warblers, flycatchers, hummingbirds—travel at night. In the ache of loss, in the ache of yearning, in the suspense of waiting, what is the science of whoosh?</span></div></blockquote><div class="feedflare">
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In this weekend's Philadelphia Inquirer: in the cold heart of a dystopian winter, we escaped to Wilmington

... and I write of our adventure here, with thanks, as ever, to Kevin Ferris. The story begins like this, below, and introduces a restaurant of unexpected delicious-ness (La Fia Bakery + Market + Bistro, created by Brian Sikora).  The full story should be available on Philly.com tomorrow.

We were refugees—two of among hundreds of thousands in the sudden snap of cold and dark.  We had listened to the savaging of trees, the terrible torque and release of high-up limbs We had feared for our rooftops, our abandoned cars, the iced utility lines that hung like glassy staffs between tilting poles. We had succumbed to the dissipation of heat and waited for trains that did not run and there was the sound of sirens further on—trouble that far exceeded ours.            February 5, 2104. The ice storm had come.

blurry on purpose: work on the new book begins

Yesterday afternoon, work on a book I've been nurturing in dream margins began. I wasn't sure I'd write again; I never am. I cannot say what three pages of blurry ink might add up to, a year from now. I don't know (I never do) precisely where I'm going.

But I know this: Take away the pressures of publishing, take away the late-night fears, take away the expectations we writers draw around ourselves, those fragile hopes—erase all that and there stands writing itself. The thing that I most like to do, in the afternoon, when the work is done, when it's just me and my horrid handwriting.

Scenes from The Cake Boss and Skylark on the Hudson

We've been to Hoboken a number of times. Walked the entire length along the Hudson. Wandered into the back streets. Found our way to restaurants and sports bars. Hoboken can strike you as nearly ideal, in certain weather, at certain hours of the day. It is, always, happening.

It's also home to The Cake Boss. Carlo's Bake Shop sits right there, in the center of things, long lines of sweet-seekers at its door. We stood in that line this past Monday morning because it was about time. Bought a few cookies (and, uh, yeah they were good). Took a few shots. Listened as people ordered boxes upon boxes of delicacies. Then we walked back toward the Hudson, through the train station and into Jersey City, where I had this tower of vegetables at Skylark on the Hudson, a fine diner that, with all its fresh foods and lovely towerings, helped me forget the sugary sins I'd just committed.

Forget all those anxieties about book reviews and sales. This is the real stuff of life.

Pour Richard's Coffee Co.: offering shelter from the storm

We did not choose the right season to trade an old, dilapidated kitchen for something brighter. There were delays, heartbreaks, additional expenses—and (given the lack of a kitchen sink) a few too many meals that began and ended with pistachios.

And yet, there was this considerable bright spot throughout the travails—Pour Richard's Coffee Co., a new, hand-built mecca not far from home. Pour Richard's offers not just some of the best coffee my Salvadoran (which is to say coffee-experienced) husband has ever had, but a hometown, community-knitting brand of hospitality. You walk in; they know your preference. You sit down, and if you ask, they'll tell you some secrets about coffee.

I'm a tea drinker myself, and oh, does Pour Richard's have some tea (and a wild machine they steep it in). And you can't beat the pastries that arrive each morning, fresh, from a variety of local bakers. Personally, I'm in love with the warm chocolate croissants. I do extra sit-ups as penance.

It took Richard (a dentist by day, a coffee roasting hobbyist for years) many seasons (the story goes) to build this enclave, to hire the coffee experts, to connect with local bakers, to put out the sign. It took hardly any time for locals to settle in. Over the five weeks that we were kitchenless, we watched the crowds grow, the pleasures build. We saw something special happen.

We have a kitchen now (though we are far from done). But we are not going to abandon our friends at Pour Richard's. There's too much good going on over there to dismiss the experience as a passing fancy. And it's fun, in this day and age, to watch an independent, artisanal shop grow a pair (or two) of wings. In my mind's eye, an independent bookstore goes up nearby, then a new, specialty-chef empowered kitchen. In my mind's eye, the artisans reclaim my town. It may sound like a dream, but it is not (to gauge by Pour Richard's) an utter fantasy.