Rgz Street Team: Priya Reviews Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Priya reviews Dangerous Neighbors by one of our esteemed authors in residence, Beth Kephart!

"Katherine and Anna are two peas in a pod, two sisters that are so close together than only death can really tear them apart. After Anna's tragic death, Katherine is so filled with sorrow, anger, and guilt that her desire to live fades away; it takes a series of surprises and near-disasters for Katherine to find her way. As we ride through Katherine's memories and current life, the story of her and Anna is slowly unraveled, until the thing that we've all been dying (pardon the pun) to know about is finally revealed.

Dangerous Neighbors is a quietly powerful and poignant novel that kept me enthralled the whole time. It's a lot shorter than I expected it to be - only 166 pages - but I feel that its brevity only enriched the story. Once again, the main thing that stands out in this novel - and all of Beth Kephart's novels - is the writing. All of the words were so deliberately picked, the descriptions were like poetry, and awkward phrases were nonexistent. Kephart can put things into words that the rest of us cannot, and in such a beautiful and touching way as well..."

Read the rest of this review on Priya's blog. (And read the story behind that gorgeous cover here!)

Cover Stories: Nothing But Ghosts by Beth Kephart

Our lovely Author-in-Residence, Beth Kephart, shared this story on my blog, and I'm happy to bring it to readergirlz! (Don't forget to enter Beth's latest writing challenge by Monday.)

Here's Beth:

"Since Nothing but Ghosts is rooted not just in my imagination, but within Chanticleer, a very specific pleasure garden that I have now visited for years, this book was always visually alive to me. I could see each scene--place it atop the ambling hill, or beside the watercress stream, or within the shadows of a tree at night. I could see it. I hoped that others would.

"I sent photographs of the garden to my editor, Jill Santopolo, and to Carla Weise, art director, at HarperTeen. I sent images, too, of young women standing by windows, since

this is one of the book's prevalent themes. And then I waited, as Jill, Carla, and the

HarperTeen worked through what sounds like dozens of possibilities. One of the pivotal scenes in the book

involves the sun streaming through a window and catching the light of tinted bottles; a related image was

apparently tried. There are horses and old photographs in this book; these, too, were considered. In the end, there was but one day left before the book would have to be sent out for binding into ARCs, and that is the day that I first saw, on my husband's tiny phone, the image that became the Nothing but Ghosts cover.

"I loved it--every single thing about it--and felt the great happiness that arises when one feels as if an editor, an art director, and a marketing team have entered into your world and seen just what it was you were hoping to leave behind. That mood. That manner of maturity. That character waiting for a breeze. I seek, with my YA novels, to write beyond

genre or category--simply to tell a story that has a teen protagonist at its heart, in a way that engages any reader, of any age. This particular cover is timeless and ageless, too. Oh, how I had hoped for that.

"It is rare when an author feels as at peace as I have felt about this particular cover. I know how lucky I got, this time around, and I am grateful."

I love this cover! I think it has a softness and a sense of nostalgia--and whoa, those grounds that Beth knows, how gorgeous are they? Everyone should read this book--it's fantastic. Beth Kephart is a wonderful writer (just check out her blog, filled with photos and poetry daily--a bouquet of posts to enjoy!). I mean, Beth even writes poetry when she's telling me her Cover Story!

This is the Story of You: Beth Kephart

Each Beth Kephart book which sails onto the shelf is like polished sea glass refracting the light of truth. This is the Story of You is a poetic rendering of loss and isolation after an epic storm. Mira is asked if she is strong enough to stand on her small, destroyed island and help the community that has shaped her every heartbeat. With her mother and brother off-island, she finds her family is broader than she ever expected.

Find the work, readergirlz, and listen to Beth's love of the sea. Draw your mind in directions unexpected, and finish the last page with the sound of the ocean and one girl's resilience shoring you up in your own story of you.

This is the Story of You
by Beth Kephart
Chronicle Books, 2016

Cover Stories: You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

Beth Kephart has shared many Cover Stories in this space--for Undercover and House of Dance, for Nothing But Ghosts and for The Heart is Not a Size. Her latest novel is high in my pile, and it should be in yours too! I dare you to read a Beth Kephart book and not sigh at the beauty of her words. She's truly a poet (check out her blog for proof).

Here's Beth talking about the cover of her new novel, You Are My Only:

"For many months I have wondered just how I would write this cover story. In some ways, I still don’t know quite what to say.

"Should I start with the title, You Are My Only, which sets the mood? And if I start with the title, then aren’t I really starting (or shouldn’t I start) by thanking my agent, Amy Rennert, and her colleague, Robyn Russell, who helped me toward knowing what the title must be during a week of grave uncertainty?

"You Are My Only, then—a title that I was helped toward. Words that struck me once, and strike me again today, as singular and brave.

"To create the image, we turned, of course, to Neil Swaab, who had designed the gorgeous cover for Dangerous Neighbors [read that Cover Story on bn.com], and who seems to get books the moment he reads them—seems to settle on that symbol or scene that obsessed the writer or, in this case, kept the writer going. Both of my protagonists—Sophie and Emmy—are caught inside worlds, trapped in places they should not be. Both look out through windows on people and places just out of reach. What might symbolize that? What single image might tell the story of two young women separated by time and place and hurt?"

Read the rest of Beth's Cover Story at melissacwalker.com.

Rgz Street Team: Priya reviews The Heart is Not a Size by Beth Kephart

The rgz Street Team is a group of teens who bring YA reviews to our blog, led by Postergirl Miss Erin. Find out more.

Today, Priya reviews The Heart is Not a Size by our former Author in Residence Beth Kephart!

"The Heart is Not a Size is, by far, Beth Kephart's best YA novel yet. It's an incredibly lovely story about finding out who you really are. The plot was terrific and moved at a good pace, and the writing was stellar -- beautiful and poetic, yet simple and heartfelt.

"One wonderful thing about this book was that it was mostly set in Juarez, Mexico. Reading about life in places like Juarez really opened my eyes to poverty and living conditions around the world. I had no idea that there were communities like Anapra, where there were no bathrooms and just sand stretching on and on. That aspect of the story made it quite interesting and educational as well, and it was really touching to read about how hopeful the children there were, despite their surroundings.

"What I most enjoyed about this book was the recurring theme of friendship... "

Read the rest of this review (where she shares her favorite part!) on Priya's blog.

(This one's out today. Run to the bookstore!)

rgz LIVE! with Beth Kephart tonight!

Join us tonight for a rgz LIVE! chat with Beth Kephart, our first Author-in-Residence!

Beth Kephart is the amazing author of several books (including the delicious mystery NOTHING BUT GHOSTS), and she's been our author-in-residence since December. We have one last chat with her tonight at 6 p.m. PST/9 p.m. EST, right here at the readergirlz blog. Don't miss it!

Circle of Stars Release: Beth Kephart

This note just in from our former A.I.R., Beth Kephart. Celebrate her new release! Woot!



Yesterday afternoon, the first copies of Dangerous Neighbors (Laura Geringer Books: Egmont USA), my twelfth book, made their way to my home. A story about twin sisters set against Centennial Philadelphia, this book was inspired both by my work on Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River and by my ongoing love affair with what I’ve always called “my” city.

Dangerous Neighbors takes readers into the world of 1876 Philadelphia—onto the Centennial grounds, onto the ice of the Schuylkill River, up the slopes of Laurel Hill, beneath the chandelier of the Academy of Music, through Rittenhouse Square, and down Walnut Street. It takes readers to Cape May at the height of clamming season and into worlds—Shantytown, Operti’s opera house, and the Colosseum—that no longer exist.

Momentum has been building, and early reviewers have been kind. Kirkus offered these words: “... A tender, quiet work of historical fiction...exquisitely crafted...as lovely in its imagery as it is tragic.” Ed Goldberg, meanwhile, in his five-star review for YA Books Central, wrote: “... Dangerous Neighbors is about more than feeling the loss of a sister. It is about sisters, especially twin sisters, and how they are a part of each other. It is about the inevitable maturing and ultimate growing apart of siblings. It is about the world in 1876 and one parent’s fight for equality. It is about having someone to care for and how that spark of caring can change everything.”

A brief excerpt from the book can be found here, at my newly revamped and expanded blog: http://beth-kephart.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-neighbors-reading.html

I look forward to sharing this book with you.

All my best,
Beth

Diva Delight: Going Over by Beth Kephart

I trotted home with one book from ALA Midwinter. I was so excited to see Beth Kephart's upcoming Going Over being released from Chronicle. I love Beth. I love Chronicle. That's enough for me.

As always, the language is gorgeous, the love full of meaning, and the plot tight and tense.

"We live with ghosts. We live with thugs, dodgers, punkers, needle ladies, pork knuckle. We live where there's no place else to go."

Set in a 1983, within a divided Berlin, two teens in love are separated by the wall. The work is told in both their voices so that the reader can sit in the East and the West. An unexpected layer adds the plight of the immigrants of Kreuzberg and the further oppression of Turkish women.

Aside from the language, the imagery, and the sensory input, I marveled at the pacing. Beth creates these moments of stall, rewind, and then a lurch forward, over and over. As the story progresses, the pauses shorten and the reader is launched farther and farther. That so perfectly mimics the passing of time for the characters themselves, caught on either side of the wall. Simply brilliant.

Don't miss this important novel. There's a great giveaway over at Goodreads right now. Click here and leap over! Congrats, Beth, and bravo, Chronicle!

Me, I'm off to read: Nest. Flight. Sky. Beth's new memoir!



Going Over, starred review from Booklist
by Beth Kephart
Chronicle Books, 2014

rgz Newsflash: New Kephart Book Trailer

So happy to share our beloved Beth Kephart's latest book trailer for Small Damages. It will be available in July. Look at this beautiful cover!



Okay, listen in...Congratulations, Beth!



Small Damages
by Beth Kephart
Philomel, 2012

Story Secrets: DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS by Beth Kephart + Giveaway!

Perhaps you've been waiting anxiously for this day because a gorgeous, brilliant, and much-anticipated book is hitting the shelves at this very moment. That day has arrived!

Today, Beth Kephart's latest exquisite novel, DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS, is born! So if you happen to be at the bookstore for any other reason, please pick it up and savor it like the rarest and finest of chocolates.

I'm thrilled and proud to welcome Beth to a special edition of Story Secrets to spill some of her DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS secrets - and she has generously offered to give away one book (see entry info below)!

*****

DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS is the story of twin sisters set against the backdrop of 1876 Philadelphia, the Centennial year. When the novel opens, Katherine has lost her sister, Anna, to an untimely death and, feeling responsible, is unwilling to live on. She chooses a hot Saturday in early September to make her way to the Centennial grounds, where all the noise and commotion of the international exhibition does nothing to permeate her sadness. Chased by Anna’s former lover and contemplating suicide, Katherine is saved, at the exhibition, by an unlikely turn of events and by a boy, an animal whisperer of sorts, far outside her social class. The present day story is leavened by numerous flashbacks, where we meet Anna herself, and her lover.


Holly Cupala: Such a fascinating premise, Beth! Both sisters and a beloved city. Can you tell us about how the idea began?

Beth Kephart: I had been working on a book (an unusual “autobiography”) about a Philadelphia river—a book called FLOW: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF PHILADELPHIA’S SCHUYLKILL RIVER— and I kept encountering images and stories of old Philadelphia that led me in this direction. I love my city, and I always return to it in my imagination.

Read the rest of Beth's secrets and enter to win a copy of DANGEROUS NEIGHBORS here!

~Holly Cupala

Diva Delight: You Are My Only, Beth Kephart

Can we take a moment to thank Egmont for publishing another Beth Kephart exquisite novel? Thank you, Egmont!

You Are My Only will be released October 25th, and I encourage you then to find Beth's newest book. In this realistic fiction novel, you'll breath despair along with several suppressed characters. You'll turn pages and yearn for them each to find hope. One story tells of a young mother's loss of her baby, while the second winds a tale of a teen sequestered from society. How the works intertwine is brilliant. From beginning to end, images and movements echo and resonate back and forth between the stories. At the reveal, I actually stopped reading, stunned by the moment of truth.


As always, I was mesmerized by Beth's rich writing. Even in the smallest detail:

"There is a bird making a tree branch heavy, her gray belly bottom like the high back of the sun."

"Outside the wind sneaks up under the loose skirt of the roof tiles..."

Nesting in the story are sweet truths of life that you can grapple with and then possibly hold.

"Tragedy and blessing," Miss Cloris says. "Sometimes they're the same one thing."

"What do you suppose any of us, Sophie, wish to be remembered for? For the things that tried to stop us or the ways we carried on?"

I'm still thinking over the latter. I'm challenged to find the truth that I would ultimately hold.

You Are My Only is current, relevant, and gracefully written with gripping realism. There is no shrinking back. Thank you, Beth, for staying truly dedicated to the fine art of writing.

You Are My Only
by Beth Kephart
EgmontUSA

Watch for It: One Thing Stolen

Thank you, Chronicle Books and Beth Kephart, for preparing to release another of Beth's beautiful novels into the world!



The book itself is a nest of treasure with rich imagery, lyrical language, metaphor, and winged flights through the city of Florence. Nadia is trapped in theft, a loss of words, and a loss of reality while she repeatedly loses consciousness during her family's relocation in Italy. And there is a boy, a boy whose hair glows, who leads her through the streets of Santa Croce, and there is a best girlfriend, who will give all to find him again for Nadia, never losing hope for her.

Keep this one in mind, readergirlz. You'll have a wait for its release. But isn't Beth always worth it?

One Thing Stolen
by Beth Kephart
Chronicle Books, April 7, 2015

Author in Residence Beth Kephart: a surprise visit!

I felt a bit like an elf today, slipping through the halls of a local high school and delivering a copy of Nothing but Ghosts to Kiera Ingalls, the talented young writer who won the third readergirlz writing contest. I meant to stay for a short while, but my hosts—Katherine Barham and her class of aspiring writers—were dear and gracious, giving me room to talk about the extraordinary enterprise that is readergirlz and asking intelligent questions about the writer's life. Where do stories begin? How do titles erupt? Can books really build an audience through word of mouth? Why do so many embrace and celebrate books that don't appear to be immensely well written? These students had just, at Ms. Barham's prompting, written their own books and designed their own covers; they'd rounded up blurbs and crafted their bios. What, they seemed to be asking, is the future of books?

The future is you, I thought. And you. And you. It's Kiera, pictured here with the fabulous Ms. Barham, and with me, who felt so proud to meet her.

~Beth Kephart

Beth Kephart's Undercover Contest

Beth Kephart, whose book Undercover was a Postergirlz Suggested Read in March, is having a contest!

From now until May 10th, you can leave a comment at her blog with a link to a poem you've posted at your blog. Beth will be "assembling fragments of those poems for a future post, and I'll be asking a special person to choose a favorite."

Read about the contest here!

Check out Little Willow's review of Undercover here and her interview with Beth here.

Thanks to Little Willow for the link!

 

Family: Beth Kephart

Every meaningful relationship is born of, and returns to, trust. Family, for me, is composed of the people whom I trust. So that my husband, son, father, and siblings are there in my heart home, absolutely. But so are those with whom I dance two times a week - the teachers with whom I feel free to make mistakes, the other dancers who yearn as much as I do. Sometimes I don't even know what we are all yearning toward - I can't name it or define it. But I look around and I understand that we are all in that same wanting place, and that we trust each other, and that the conversations we are having, the lives we are living, will be tangled up together for a long time. That we are, in other words, family.

- Beth Kephart

Follow the series of family posts.

Catching Up with Beth Kephart

We're catching up with Beth Kephart, who was our first Author-in-Residence from September through December 2009, and whose novel Nothing but Ghosts is a recommended read in this month's issue of readergirlz.



Thank you, Beth! You sound as busy as ever. :)

Author in Residence Beth Kephart: Remain Vulnerable

Our very first Author in Residence, Beth Kephart, is a critically acclaimed, gracious writer who will be on the rgz team through December. Check out her mini-issue at the rgz website. Welcome this author of HOUSE OF DANCE, UNDERCOVER, and NOTHING BUT GHOSTS!

Here is the first of Beth’s monthly vlog entries about writing:

I believe that the stories that touch us are written by authors who remain vulnerable to the world—who leave themselves open to the raw wounds and the glorious possibilities of yearning, outreach, and hope. Watch the video, then write no more than ten lines of poetry or prose expressing a fully lived emotion. Send your entry to me at kephartblog AT comcast DOT net by September 25, 2009. The author of the winning ten lines will receive a signed copy of UNDERCOVER, a novel about a young, aspiring poet who discovers the beauty that lives within her.

A Treasure Hunt with Beth Kephart

Her latest book, You Are My Only, is on our must-read list. And you can participate in a blog treasure hunt that our illustrious first writer-in-residence Beth Kephart is doing all around the internet. Beth is writing five posts that each tell a story about the making of You Are My Only (read the Publishers Weekly review). Many posts include passages that were written but never used in the final book.  

Prizes include a signed copy of You Are My Only and a critique by Beth of the first 2000 words of a work in progress (priceless!). Go to Beth's blog to hear about the full magic of this treasure hunt!

Shelf Elf Interviews Beth Kephart!

Shelf Elf just did a fabulous interview with our Author in Residence, Beth Kephart (remember, there's just one week left to enter her latest challenge: Then and Now!).

Here's a little snippet from Beth, in response to one of many insightful questions from Shelf Elf, that will leave you wanting more:

"What is the most difficult part of writing for you, and what aspect of writing is the most fulfilling?"

"The most difficult part of writing is working on a project for years and years, as I do, with the grave uncertainty of whether or not anyone but me will ever love the book, will ever publish it, will ever buy it. It is a lonely and trembling enterprise. The most fulfilling is finding a way to tell the story you want to tell and finding those readers with whom the story resonates."

Read the full interview here.

Beth Kephart reviews HOLD ME TIGHT by Lorie Ann Grover!

Our lovely author-in-residence, Beth Kephart (remember to enter November's Then and Now Challenge!) has written a gorgeous tribute to our own Lorie Ann Grover's Hold Me Tight.

Beth says of the novel-in-poems "In line after line, Lorie Ann masterfully reveals a child grappling to understand, and to forgive."

Hooray for Lorie Ann's beautiful book and Beth's thoughtful contemplation of it.