Thoughts on One Thing Stolen by Beth Kephart

(Florence. April 11, 2001. Me in the first of a string of purple coats. Lynn and Ponte Vecchio.)

I sat with this exquisite book late at night, my husband snoring beside me, a dim light keeping watch. When I read a Beth Kephart book, I make sure the hours are there before me, uninterrupted. I knew, about thirty pages in, there would be no stopping mid-way. I had to get to some kind of end.

One Thing Stolen is about Nadia Cara, who, on a research trip with her mother, brother, and professor father in Florence, has begun to lose her ability to speak. She's snatching pieces of memory, of her elusive now, searching for a boy who may or may not be real, stealing pieces of a city and weaving them into elaborate nests. 

She lives in a room once occupied by twins and she fixates on the might-be disappearance of one of them. We watch, as if on high or below or behind or across, the weave of two Nadias. One, through memory, as part of a plea for us to know her as she was in her home of West Philadelphia, the whip-smart planner, witnessing miracles, leading her best friend Maggie to hidden pockets of her city. A girl with a future. The other, a shadow of her former self, whose everything is uncertain.

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.

The broken Nadia is what captured my heart as it pulsed and raced through these pages, what broke it and put it back together. I don't, that I know, have a neurological disorder, but perhaps I understand what it is to mourn someone I used to be. To feel that I have unravelled, lost pieces of myself, chasing through the streets of a foreign city, desperate to find myself whole. 

There is time, in our lives, to seek out, to remember, and to hold tight to the people who remind us, every day, who we are and who we can be. In this book, that person is Nadia's best friend, Maggie. We meet Maggie throughout the book but we know her and come to love her as she wrestles with Nadia's story for us. She, like the Mud Angels who rescued the city of Florence after its 1966 flood, is steadfast, certain, hopeful, and loyal, willing to see past the muck and mire, to the rare relic of us all. She is someone we should all aspire to be. To one another. To ourselves.

I am lucky, so lucky, to have many Maggies in my life but I could not help but close the pages of this book and remember my own time in Florence with my very own Maggie, my friend Lynn. Lynn held tight to our Let's Go Europe guide book and led us through cobblestone streets, teetering gelato cones, yanking my chin up to the Duomo, waiting with me in an endless line at the Uffizi, standing above and beside the almost-but-never-will-be (S)Arno river. I was reminded, as I looked at the photo above, that I was designated map girl. Me, hopeless with direction, a person who never knows where she's going until she's there, but, like Nadia, so certain, so sure, I had a future.

This book holds tight to hope and I held on with it. A really stunning, masterful work. 

A Trip to Philly to celebrate stories in a vending machine and do my first reading

UPDATE: Many of you asked how to purchase these stories. They are now available here for $3 (shipping included.)

I spent last evening in Philadelphia, dreaming words on the train, sitting on the benches in Rittenhouse Square, looking up, in the wet dark, at the twinkling Christmas lights. Then, I walked down a blue lit path on 22nd street and went to the Science Leadership Academy. It's a school I've heard about and wondered about. I've seen the TED Talks and articles and the PBS stories about the work this school is doing and how it is inspiring others to relook at their own models of education and follow suit. 

I was there for the launch party of the 4th Floor Chapbook series, an awesome publishing venture from the Head and the Hand Press in collaboration with SLA's students and staff. See that vending machine in the photo? It's selling chapbooks. Snackable stories. My story, The Song Inside, sits alongside some amazing work and it was so cool to be a part of it. 

I wore flowered tights and, you guys, I did my first reading in front of a live audience over the age of six -- feeling very grateful for my friend Tracy, who used to make me read my work aloud in her living room, but only after giving me liquid courage in the form of wine. Don't worry, I was completely sober for this experience, unless you count the delicious potato chips I had beforehand. 

I was able to talk with Nic Esposito, who founded the Head and the Hand Press and told me stories of his son and his urban farm, which he wrote about in his collection of essays, Kensington Homestead. Linda Gallant, who might be the nicest person ever and it's clear, took great care with our stories. The author Jennifer Hubbard, who read from her fantastic story In Memory of Lester, and advised me where to get middle-eastern food. And Robert Marx, a senior at SLA, who is waiting for his college acceptances, no doubt to do great things wherever he ends up. He blew me away with his story, Fade to Black, which I read on the train ride home. 

It meant a lot to me, to share my work in such a unique venue. My story sits next to great talent. To pop in a few dollars and watch books fall through the machine was a great thrill. If you can't make it to the school itself, I hope to be able to point you toward the place to purchase these stories in a few weeks. 

Thank you to Beth Kephart, who told me about this series. If you haven't noticed, she pretty much points me toward everything awesome.

Now, I must return to my regular scheduled programming in our Brooklyn apartment. Little O has found the recycling bin, its contents are in a pile at my feet as I write, and I think he just tried to bite into a metal can.

Subway Sketches and a Short Piece Published

I've written a lot, over the years, while riding on subway and train cars. It's resulted in dozens upon dozens of sketches where I capture moments, real and imagined.

It's no wonder, then, that in all the years sending work out into the world, only two small stories have ever been accepted for publication and they've both been part of what I shall now call the subway series (like baseball but more lyrical.)

So, I'm happy to share one of those stories, this flash piece in the latest issue of Cleaver Magazine. I hope you will check out this issue and all the wonderful work the magazine puts out. It's cool to be a small part of it.

With thanks to the lovely Beth Kephart for pointing me towards the magazine, the way she points me in the direction of so many cool things.

What's Up Wednesday #3

What I'm Reading

I just started Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses, recommended by Beth Kephart, whose taste in books I trust implicitly. So far, and I am only a few chapters in, it's beautiful. Already there is a scene that haunts me, involving a crushed birds nest. It's one of those moments that is so richly drawn, I can see it, feel it, will always see it as if it happened to me. I'm hoping to learn a lot from this writer.

What I'm Writing

Finishing final revisions to RABBIT ISLAND and that's it. I've decided to take a break from writing anything new for the month of June. Then July will be dedicated to research for The Oyster Book before I dive into a draft in August. There are some short stories and essays I'd like to polish up and send out into the world.

What Inspires Me Right Now

The written words of others. As always.

What Else I've Been Up To

I thought maybe an instagram collage would help explain the days.

Yesterday, before attending a wonderful event about writing history for children (more on this later) I stopped in Washington Square Park. The fountain looks a bit like it's sprouting up into the sun.

Our summer CSA has begun, which means a summer full of fresh local greens and experimenting with unknown vegetables that over the years we've come to know a little better (kohlrabi, tatsoi, etc.)  These strawberries are actually from the farmer's market but I thought they were really beautiful.

Last weekend I went to the Belmont Stakes for the first time in many years. I loved the beautiful clothes and hats. After watching a few races, we left early, and did what my family does best: eat pasta at one of the local Italian joints with the best bolognese I have ever tasted. It turned out to be a good day.

Beyond that, I've been struggling a bit at work. I hesitate to write about my job here because I realize it's public but my boss and coworkers know my frustration and unhappiness. I've been working to change this part of my life, working very hard, and, while I sense a shift, I have yet to see a real change. Part of the hands-off approach I mentioned last week is letting go a bit, allowing the universe to decide what is best for me. I don't see this as giving up. I'm hoping that two years of hard work and persistence to make a transition will open the doors I've been banging at. It's summer. It's time to reassess, to step back and just be  for a while.

For more What's Up Wednesday, go here.

Thoughts on Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent by Beth Kephart

I always wait impatiently for my friend Beth Kephart's books. I'm lucky they appear on the shelves often. I'm never disappointed when I crack open their spines.  I read her latest, Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, quickly and quietly because I don't like fits and chokes and starts when I read a Kephart book. I prefer to chug it in its entirety. Then sit happy and full.

That is what I love, love, love about this book.  The fullness and richness of this writhing adventure. Each sentence swells with the endurance of characters that are, in many ways, running on empty, past empty, but with their hearts bursting full at their worn seams.

Fourteen year old William Quinn is a finder and fixer despite a life of tremendous loss (his father in jail, his brother, Francis, murdered, his mother slowly disappearing from a broken heart.) His best friend, Career, still stomps across the dust with a ripped sack jacket and a 'too-big-for-him' vest while he doggedly pursues even bigger dreams.  His mother, struggling every day to cope, still manages to rise from bed and stitch that sleeve. And I haven't even got into blowzy Pearl and her boisterous kindness or the amazing, persistent, stubborn Molly whose yellow bow, against all odds, still clings to her hair. Even the empty promise of the magical sarsaparilla (it's just root beer) doesn't stop them (or me) from believing, hoping, knowing, that their strength is resolute.

I'm not smart enough to really know the time period (1871) or the place (Bush Hill, Philadelphia) but I'm lucky Beth fills the pages with the sound and spirit of the time so I can come to understand it (a most gorgeous review that goes into that here.) And, in collaboration with her husband, artist William Sulit, the beautiful illustrations reveal the scratch and charcoal and steam of those words.  

This winter, in freezing cold, I did visit the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where parts of the novel take place. As a symbol of atonement and redemption, the former prison (known as Cherry Hill) seems to stand at the center of the book, and the characters make their amazing rescues and deliverances around its imposing walls.

I'd pull every sentence from the book if I could, such is the care Beth puts into each one. But I'll just excerpt one of my favorite moments:

William leans against the streetlamp, corner of Broad and Pennsylvania, the light an apron of yellow around his old, broke boots. Two brown moths lap at his head, fuzzy creatures with gigantic wings that make him think of the night he and Francis and Ma sat within the spectacle of the Phasmatrope. She'd caught her breath as soon as the first projected waltz had begun, and by the time the tumblers started galvanizing and leaping across the screen, Ma was pulled to the edge of her seat, her sons on either side each holding one hand. Ma's fingers were white from the laundry bleach. Her nails were short and square. It was her gold ring that shone like a star that night, an infinity band. William remembers remembering Pa and what Pa'd been through and what he'd done and lost, and how the bearing of him had changed, but never his outright love for Ma.  

I love this moment for the wide-eyed, knowing, perhaps misunderstood kindness that brought them to the Phasmatrope, William's memory of it, and the enduring love behind it, always at the center of Beth Kephart's beautiful books. If I must wait for the next one at least I always, always, wait happy and full.

It's Work-In-Progress Day, Share Your Words

The ever-lovely Beth Kephart has declared it Work-In-Progress day and she has encouraged writers to share small excerpts from things they're writing or have written (and her own gorgeous words here.)

I've enjoyed reading through the beautiful words others have written or linked to on her Facebook page. How amazing to share our words and know we're all working towards telling the world a story, whatever it may be.

So, will you join in?  Because I truly want to read what you're writing, if you feel comfortable and want to share.  I hope you'll post a snippet on your blog.  Or on Facebook (if we're not friends, can we be?) Then let me know, if you do.  And spread the word!

And my own words from some kind of something, I don't know yet:

“Ya see that white tip there?”  His gloved fingers stretch out like they are reaching for a slow dance.

            I hold the binoculars at my eyes and my eyelashes catch the reflection, prickly magnified spiders that graze the sky then butterfly kiss a brown tangle of branches. “Where?” 

            “Ya see the tallest tree?”

            I move the binoculars away. I look out. I have no idea which tree is tallest.  But I nod.

            “Two trees to the left.”  His fingers smudge across the frozen river. “That white spot.  You see it?”

            I want to see it, this thieving eagle. I want, desperately, to please him.  I steady the binoculars.  I search.  For one white, feathered space.  But winter is stained gray and brown and the sun film-flickers through the lens. The landscape rattles at my lashes.  I see nothing.

“Oh look,” I say, anyway. “I see it.” Stolen wonder streaks across my chest. My terrible heart, the yawning cavity of a tree.

YA: What's Next, Thoughts on Publishing Conferences

Yesterday, in classic last-minute-Melissa fashion, I was really lucky to attend the YA: What's Next -- Children's Publishing Conference hosted by Publishing Perspectives.

I felt so incredibly happy and proud to hear my friend Beth Kephart who delivered the keynote. Her beautiful words started the conversation and placed us all in this remarkable mind-space, capturing the beauty, the immediacy and the urgency of young adult literature, how it transcends any label. You can read the start of it: here. (UPDATE: Read the speech in it's entirety here !!!)

When I attend publishing conferences, I love to learn from the people who call this industry their home.  Sometimes, I don't love what I learn.  Sometimes, it sounds like a lot of very loud noise with unwavering definitions and slaps of labels.  Sometimes I see boxes and lines being drawn and I see a real danger in that way of thinking.

What, for example, would have happened if someone had followed the rules and drawn lines for a book like The Book Thief, one of my favorite books of all time?  What would have happened if someone said, this isn't narrated by the voice of a 14-17 year old protagonist, and it doesn't belong on any shelf, and it doesn't fit in the six letter alphabet we've created for ourselves: YA, A, MG, PB?  What story would the world have lost because a set of words didn't exactly fit into a planogram?

Sometimes, if I'm being honest (and I am), I start to see the publishing industry as a fortress, a military stronghold that nurtures certain big blockbuster books and doesn't let anyone else in.

But, then, I remember that The Book Thief is a book.  And Beth Kephart's books are books.  And all of the incredible and important books that aren't conventional or aren't blockbusters, books that challenge labels and yet are labelled in some way, some form, because someone allows them to fit somewhere, thus changing the very label they own (which, if you think about it, is amazing), are...

...tada...

BOOKS.

And then I feel really great about the publishing industry.

Have you been to a publishing conference?  Do you go through a similar (or different) wave of emotion?  Or am I just weird? (Don't answer this last question.  Okay, fine. Answer it)

Thoughts on Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson

I had mentioned the other day about my train ride, how absorbed I was in Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson upon the recommendation of Beth Kephart. When I sat down to write about the book, I didn't know how to begin. The arc of Winterson's tale and, by virtue of the fact that it is memoir, the arc of Winterson's life, is, in a way, linear but, like any life, it meanders through back roads and tramples over thick brush.

It's an easy book to read (I flew through it) but not an easy book to take apart.  So, if I were to give you directions to this book's home, I would not be able to give you street names.  I would not be able to point you North, then West, because it's not as simple as that.

And that's what I loved about this book.  As Winterson reaches through memory to understand her 'real' mother, her adopted mother, her 'real' self, and the self she has assumed (in the way you might assume an identity) she doesn't take a straight and narrow path.  But it reads as if she has.  She might look for answers. But she doesn't claim to have them.  And all of this makes perfect sense while I'm making none.

What I mean to say is: read this book.    

My favorite moment:

A tough life needs a tough language -- and that is what poetry is.  That is what literature offers -- a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn't a hiding place.  It is a finding place.

I think, at the heart of it, this book is about navigating the story of our lives, as well as the stories we read or write, and seeing it all through.

A Stack to Read

This is the stack (well, one of many stacks) at my bedside table. My mind has been much clearer in recent weeks. So I've been reading a lot and I'm hungry for more books.  I'm excited to see what these bring.  

I took this photograph yesterday, so I've already finished David Levithan's Every Day.  It has such an incredible and inventive premise (From the cover: Every day a different body.  Every day a different life.  Every day in love with the same girl.)  A premise that, in my opinion, would send any imagination soaring.  I had to know where Levithan would take it.  This book requires a steadfast suspension of disbelief (admittedly, I wavered a bit) but it did absorb me.  It surprised me. It made me think.  

What are you reading?

Winner of Small Damages Giveaway!

The winner of a copy of Small Damages by Beth Kephart is:

The lovely and talented Catherine Denton! (whose beautiful blog I adore.) 

I hope that those of you who entered will seek the book out.  It's such a beautiful, special book.  And when you read it, we must chat. :)

Catherine please email me your mailing address! thistooblog (at) gmail (dot) com.

Small Damages by Beth Kephart: A Giveaway!

So happy-happy (because sometimes it is not enough to say it once) to celebrate the release of Beth Kephart's new book Small Damages.

My thoughts on this beautiful book are here.

The New York Times Book Review gave it this gorgeous review.

Beth has been a great friend and teacher to me, in this writing life, in this life-life. Her books are also great friends and teachers. I like to keep them on my over-stuffed shelves. I learn so much from every sentence.  I can't wait for everyone to experience the beauty that is this book, Spain and its characters, life full to bursting.


I am giving away a copy of Small Damages to one lucky commenter.  I'll announce the winner on July 26th.  Just leave a comment below!

Thoughts on 'Small Damages' by Beth Kephart

I'll be travelling through Spain when you read this post. I wanted to schedule it in advance to surprise the lovely Beth Kephart with my thoughts on her newest book, Small Damages, while in the country she loves, where the novel is set (well, a different region but still.) 

 A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to read an advanced copy of Beth Kephart's Small Damages, one of the most beautiful books I've read in a long time. I read the book in one sitting, at a time when a lot of emotions had started to crash and flood and crowd.  All I wanted to do was get lost in a book, and I fell easily, landed deep in the world of this novel, got tangled up in love with characters I want to keep in a jar for always.  Or maybe they are characters I wish would keep me.  It feels that way, sometimes, with the right kind of story.  And this, for me, is that kind of story.

Kenzie is eighteen years old and pregnant, sent away to live in a cortijo in Spain where arrangements have been made for her to give up her child for adoption.  Still mourning the death of her own father, Kenzie is left with memories of all she left behind: her boyfriend (the father of her child), a group of friends that remain carefree and unaware of her situation, and her mother, who grieves by forgetting, by quickly letting go, desperately trying to erase what can't or shouldn't be erased.  But, in Spain, Kenzie must live with people who do not forget, who linger, and hold on tightly to past loves and regrets. And, in my mind, this is where Kenzie is caught.  Between what should have been and what is, between forgetting and holding on.

There is a moment in the book that stopped me, literally, took my breath away. Kenzie walks away from the ranch and is later found and asked why she has left.

"I needed to get away," I say, knowing how stupid it sounds, how messy I must seem. "From me, I mean.  Away from me."

To me, that kind of moment is an everything moment.  I think a lot of people would say that it takes courage to embrace who you are. But, I believe, it takes even more courage to walk away from who you are in order to find out who you can be.  To capture that in these few words means they are everything words.  To explore this theme in a book means Small Damages is an everything book.

I feel lucky to know Beth Kephart and to learn from her. She is not just an amazing writer but an amazing person and that means more to me.  But when I finished Small Damages (due out July 19th), I thought, this is the kind of book I want to read, always.  This is the kind of book I want to write.

Jhumpa Lahiri, Beth Kephart, and More Attention Given to the Sentence

I was happy to find Jhumpa Lahiri in The New York Times Sunday Review this weekend.  I wait, impatiently, for her books, her words.  When they come, I devour them quickly, then I come up for air, look around, wild-eyed, wish for more.  


The article (here) is about sentences.  And while I do believe my friend Beth Kephart was writing about sentences well before this article was published, I am pleased to see these thoughts extend from one of my favorite writers to another.  Because, as Lahiri says:

...it is a magical thing for a handful of words, artfully arranged, to stop time. To conjure a place, a person, a situation, in all its specificity and dimensions. To affect us and alter us, as profoundly as real people and things do.

The article is the first in a series called Draft which according to The Times will feature 'essays by grammarians, historians, linguists, journalists, novelists and others on the art of writing — from the comma to the tweet to the novel — and why a well-crafted sentence matters more than ever in the digital age.'

And now that I've read the article, I have learned why I must wait for Lahiri's words.  She waits for them too.  She takes care with them.  She does not rush.

Recently Read

I got into a great e-mail conversation with Tyler's cousin, Mathias, who is deep in his studies at Brooklyn College and will receive an MFA in Creative Writing at the end of this year.

Mathias always talks with great passion about books and language. And he is so incredibly well-read, I often leave our conversations feeling as if I should shed all of my responsibilities, sneak into the library, hide in the stacks, and stay overnight for the next year to catch up.

Our discussion was about lyrical writing. Fiction that feels like poetry. Sentences that hold together with the most perfectly chosen words.

He asked a simple question: Have you read any books recently that do this well?

I've read all kinds of books recently. I've even (you'll be surprised to know after seeing my list) read a lot of adult fiction recently. And I realize a few of these books have not been written recently. But I read them recently. And that was the question.

I also realize that what Melissa read recently isn't exactly a perfect sample to make grand, sweeping judgements about the state of literature. So, just to clarify, that is not what I'm doing here.

I'm just talking about the question. And the list I thought to share:

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

First Light by Rebecca Stead

The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson

I've got to tell you. I was so very thrilled after I shared my list. This makes me happier than I can say. How amazing it? How incredibly lucky are all of these young readers? They have such wonderful books written for them. They are reading, in my very humble opinion, some of the most beautiful words.

It made my day.

What have you read recently that made you fall in love with the writing and language?

Book Birthdays! You Are My Only and IQ84

Today's the day. It's finally here. Two of my favorite authors. Two book birthdays that have me singing. I hope these books will not spit too hard when they blow out the candles and ruin towers of ice cream cake (because ice cream cake is the best cake. It is ice cream and cake...in one.)

I was fortunate enough to read Beth Kephart's You Are My Only early on. It releases today! (Congratulations lovely Beth.) My thoughts on this beautiful book are here. You can buy it here.

Spit-spot, I say, in my best Mary Poppins impression, a flower sticking out from my imaginary hat. Even though I'm always the one lagging behind, the one stopping to look at a pretty tree or a happy cloud, I have little patience for those of you who are lolling about when it comes to this book. It's time you read it. It's time we talk about it. In fact, I don't know what on earth you're waiting for. It's TIME. I just broke out a Mary-Poppins-I-mean-business impression. This is about as strict as things get in Melissa Land.

And the English translation of Haruki Murakami's IQ84 also releases today. I have long tried to understand and articulate my love for Murakami's work. I have since given up trying. My latest philosophy is: Don't question it! Just do it! (The Saturday Night Live Dora parody Maraka anyone? Anyone?)

I realize this kind of attitude can have only the most dangerous consequences. It is the same philosophy that left me blind, dazed and confused after seeing a recent Edward Albee play (His work is another one of my inexplicable, tongue-hanging, head-bobbing, whatever-you-say obsessions.) Despite the fact that IQ84 is a 932 page book, a three-volume series condensed into one 5 pound dead-weight in the United States, I'm ready to take the journey. I am, after all, just a cog in Murakami's robot machine.

Anyway, it's not often that, in one serendipitous fell swoop, two of my favorite writers send their books out into my world. It's a happy day.

Any book birthdays you'd like to celebrate?

Ten Things About Me & Winner of the Beth Kephart Giveaway

First I'd like to announce the winner of my Beth Kephart giveaway (I calculated the results through random.org):

Wendy @ carbibousmom

Please e-mail me at: thistooblog (at) gmail (dot) com to claim your prize. I feel very strongly about sharing these books and I hope you love them as I much as I do.

Susan Kane at thecontemplativecat tagged me in this post. She is such a great storyteller and I hope you will follow her blog. She challenged me to share ten things about myself. Since there are some new followers here I thought it might be fun. So here goes...

1. I really, really love to wear dresses. I get sad when the winter comes and all of my dresses get stored away.

2. I have a strange obsession with Julie Andrews. When I was sixteen years old, in a wonderfully embarrassing moment, my friend Leah and I created a life-size cardboard cut-out of her and stood outside of The Today Show with the hopes that this kind of crazy would allow us to meet her after her interview. Katie Couric did find us in the crowd (my goodness, how could she not?) and we had a relatively long chat. She promised she would try her hardest to help us meet Julie. In the end, it did not happen.

3. I have never met a cheese I didn't like.

4. I have the illogical belief that I can walk any distance. I'm pretty sure I could walk across the country and not get tired.

5. For a long time I was afraid to talk to people I didn't know. I have conquered that fear and now I have a tendency to babble to innocent strangers because of all those years without practice.

6. I love, love, love trees. I think they are so beautiful.

7. When I was a little girl, I lived next door to a woman who did science experiments on turtles. One summer all of her turtles got loose around the neighborhood and it became the summer of many strange turtle incidents. I firmly believe that this summer made me into the odd person I am today.

8. I used to send all of my letters without stamps when I was a kid. I would just switch the return addresses so that the letters would be 'returned' to them.

9. Outsmarting the US postal service was as rebellious as things got in my life. I received detention once in high school for cutting the first and only class I ever cut. When I walked into the detention room, the Vice Principal laughed at me and told me to go home.

10. Even though I love the outdoors more than the indoors, I have never been camping because I do not like bugs or sleeping anywhere but in my own bed.

Guess what? You're all tagged. Just go for it, my friends.

Attached to Books

I think my posts have been getting a little too long on the blog. I am constantly trying to edit myself but, sometimes, I just run away with words...

Today I'll be brief. I promise.

I've been thinking about physical attachments to books. I may have mentioned once or one million times that I live in a small apartment. There is simply not enough room to keep a massive library (though I dream of one...like in Beauty and the Beast, where the ladders fly across the shelves and I can sing as I browse.)

I came to the conclusion that I would not have a problem donating almost all of the books in my library.

As I have come to know a few authors recently, I have several books that are signed specifically to me and I would most certainly keep those.

But other than that, I only have a few select books that I feel the need to have in my home. I'm not a re-reader. I just like the idea that those books are near me.

So tell me. Do you have a physical attachment to books? Are there books you need to carry with you always? Are there books you need to have in close proximity so that you can read them again or do you simply need to know they are there?

Today is the last day to enter my giveaway for a collection of Beth Kephart books. So click and enter if you haven't already. I will announce the winner tomorrow!

It Wasn't A Dream! It Was A Place!

I'm feeling random today so this is just a mashup.

Because you can never get enough Beth Kephart in your life (just a personal philosophy) you should check out this Treasure Hunt. Two lucky winners will get a signed copy of her latest book You Are My Only and a 2,000 word critique on a work in progress. Did you catch that? Did. You. Catch. That? Writers, I think you should jump on the opportunity.

And of course, you can still win a collection of Beth Kephart books from my blog because I want you to fall in love with her books, as I have.

I did two things on the blog this week that I rarely do. I posted my fiction. And I put together the aforementioned givewaway. The only reason I have held back on doing these things in the past is because of fear.

Maybe you understand the hesitancy to put my work out there. But I'm sure you're wondering who, in the world, would be frightened to give away books? Me. That's who. Every time I post something on this blog I wonder: who will care?

And I'm always amazed, absolutely floored, that all of you do. You think I would have figured it out by now with all the times you've been there...but let me have my Dorothy-wakes-up-from-Oz kind of moment. Oh, but it wasn't a dream! It was a place! And you - and you - and you - and you were there. But you couldn't have been, could you?

Could you? You were. You are. So thank you.

A Giveaway in Anticipation of Beth Kephart's You Are My Only

I have mentioned Beth Kephart on this blog before, mainly to say that I love her blog (which you must visit) and her books (which you must read) but not much beyond that. Not because I haven't wanted to say more, only because I have tried to understand why I love her books and have found it very difficult.

The experience of reading her young adult books is deeply personal for me.

I know it's not enough to say that the 'why' can not be expressed. It can be. I just haven't tried until today.

When I read her books, I am in them. Truly inside of them. A very safe place to be. These main characters, these girls, I know them, even if their experiences are vastly different than my own.

They are girls who are searching, who are curious, who want to understand and know. They are girls who are on their way to becoming and no matter how old I get I am still that kind of girl, always searching for a better someone to be. I'm always aware of a kind of ache in Kephart's books. Like resting inside of a long sigh. And I know this ache. It is familiar to me.

Her latest book, You Are My Only (due out on October 25th and available for pre-order here) is also a book about a desperate search. Two quests, really. Emmy, a young mother, searching for her lost child. And Sophie, who begins to question her world, seeking the one thing she doesn't know to look for. All of it culminating to a discovery that left me with sweaty palms and a racing heart as I turned each page.

There is color and hope and life in this book. When I imagine it (and I always try to imagine how a book really, truly feels) I think of paint against canvas, technicolor film on a page, every image, feeling, and character bursting, so real and vivid and bright.

As I read, I was let in and out of each scene at just the right moments, enough to feel that I was there, but aware of something just out of reach. And that's the shadow. The contrast. A secret. It is also what keeps Emmy and Sophie restless and yearning. What keeps me reading Kephart's books and writing my own because I, too, am desperate to know what eludes these girls. Girls like me.

I consider a good book a gift. And the way I see it, Beth Kephart has given me many gifts: her blog (a wealth of inspiration, a treasure), her books, and her friendship. And we are all so lucky because she is an amazingly prolific writer, the gift that keeps on giving, if you will, with twelve books out there in the world, two more coming out soon, and more in progress than I would know what to do with. So, in anticipation of the release of You Are My Only (October 25th. I'll wait here for you to put it in your calendar), I want to give the gift of four of her young adult books to you.

All you have to do is comment on this post and I'll randomly draw a winner and you'll have a chance to win four of Beth Kephart's young adult books: Undercover, House of Dance, The Heart Is Not A Size, and Nothing But Ghosts.

So the rules:

Comment on this post before September 13th.
If you blog about this contest you get 2 extra entries: +2
If you tweet about this contest you get an extra entry: +1
If you follow my blog or you become a follower of my blog you get an extra entry: +1
You must add them up and put that in your comment because I don't do math.
:-)

BEA Recap- The Authors & The Books

It was a wonderful day at Book Expo. As I mentioned, I didn't plan ahead for my time at BEA. I basically just wandered around. Saw what there was to see. I chatted with book lovers on long lines for autographed books. I got flustered when I reached the front and couldn't think of anything witty or intelligent to say to authors. I spent a lot of money on lunch. I sat and listened to some panels. I didn't see anyone I knew in the crowds. My feet hurt as I traversed back and forth on the Javit's floor. The usual.

So that's the short version. Read on for the long version.

Last year, I was a a BEA psychopath, getting my hands on as many books as I could, because I couldn't quite get over the fact that people were just giving books away. This year, I still couldn't get over that fact, but I used a lot of restraint. Because, er, I still have a stack of unread books from last year's expo. I look at some of them and I think 'huh'? I really have zero interest in them. So I thought it best not to get carried away.

"
The day began with signings for the only 2 books I really cared about getting at BEA. Lauren Oliver's new middle grade book Leisl and Po and Beth Kephart's You Are My Only. Of course their signings occurred at the exact same time, but I managed it, only once or twice calling it 'a situation', because the hour I spent on Lauren Oliver's line was really infringing on the block of time I would be able to get to Beth Kephart's signing. This is becoming 'a situation' I kept telling the dear librarian standing next to me, who was kind enough to listen to my neuroses.

I guess there are worse things in life than worrying about whether you will get two free autographed books from your favorite authors, but...ya know...first world problems...

Like I said, I managed it. And I can't say enough wonderful things about Beth Kephart, I just can't. But I'll guide you to her blog and to her books and ask you to read them so we can hold them up to our hearts and talk about them because that is what I would like to do.

After that, I found Elizabeth Scott who I consider the discovery of the week because I didn't know about her books and she has popped up everywhere in my life this week: in blogs I read, at events I attended, on the BEA floor when I didn't even know she would be there. I like her wild blond hair and her warm personality. She said she liked to give her readers hugs and I obliged, so there's that. Her book, Between Here and Forever, is out right now.

Then, I don't really remember what happened, but I wound up meeting James Dashner, author of The Maze Runner series. He was so ridiculously nice, I just feel I should share that. I wanted to buy him a cake, he was so nice.

At this point, I had a series of Brooklyn encounters.

Somehow, I wound up getting this book called Bedbugs by Ben H. Winters, author of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Gotta tell ya, with bedbugs being such a terrible epidemic in New York City, I'm not so into the book idea. But he sold me because it takes place in my neighborhood in Brooklyn and some scenes take place in a coffee shop nearby.

Then, I truly stumbled upon a signing for Say Her Name by Francisco Goldman, which I remembered hearing about in Beth Kephart's blog (did I mention you should read her blog?) And boy am I glad I did because he was such a kind and genuine person. When I asked him why he signed his book with a sunflower, he told me it was 'Aura's favorite flower'. The book is about his wife, Aura, and her tragic death in a freak accident, and just the way he said that was so heartfelt, I nearly started crying right then and there. Which would have been really attractive. Then, I learned that he is my neighbor! He lives just a few streets away from me in Brooklyn. He told me that if I ever saw him, he hopes I stop him on the street to chat. And I believed that. He seemed like just that kind of guy.

Those are the books and authors that made an impression. I hope to talk a little bit more about the experience, especially the panels I sat through in the afternoon. But this post is already getting much too long.