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With gratitude, as always. I do know how lucky I am.

Additionally, my wonderful friend Karen Bernstein—she of gifts from Diane Keaton, she of brilliant Going Over pots—reports that she found Going Over on page 71 of the new issue of Main Line Today Magazine listed as one of the "ten great beach reads by local authors." Huge thanks to Karen, and to the magazine.

I have always loved being local.

Speaking of local: Come celebrate the first year in the life of Main Point Books next Saturday, when a fleet of super cool local authors will be signing books. I'll be there at three o'clock with both Going Over and Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir. More on the day can be found here.

Finally, more on Going Over can be found here, through the hugely generous BCCB review.

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Remember that Going Over vase of last week? Given to me on the day of my book party, also known as the day of one of the worst spring deluges ever to hit my area, a deluge that closed the street in front of the library, where my event was being held? Yes. That gorgeous, gorgeous graffiti vase. Made especially for me by my friend, Karen Bernstein.

Well, Karen was fighting the torrential downpour in NYC that very night, where she had gone to see Diane Keaton, whom she adores. Karen had, in her hands, a copy of Handling the Truth: On the Writing of Memoir, which celebrates Keaton's Then Again. Miss Keaton said yes to accepting the gift and then inscribed a book for me (a gift from Karen).

In case there is any doubt in your mind about what Miss Keaton wrote, please let me translate:

Beth! Hope to meet you someday.

I mean. Really.

Really!!

That is Diane Keaton, signing my book. That is my generous and talented friend Karen, standing by. This is my life, which is very small and very big at once. I share it, gratefully, with you.

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We’ve collected the books debuting on Indiebound’s Indie Bestseller List for the week ending May 04, 2014–a sneak peek at the books everybody will be talking about next month.

(Debuted at #5 in Hardcover Fiction) Natchez Burning by Greg Iles: “Growing up in the rural Southern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned everything he knows about honor and duty from his father, Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor and pillar of the community is accused of murdering Violet Turner, the beautiful nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the early 1960s. A fighter who has always stood for justice, Penn is determined to save his father, even though Tom, stubbornly evoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses to speak up in his own defense.” (April 2014)

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Yesterday, while I watched the rain pound the world around me (and awaited the watery launch of Going Over at Radnor Memorial Library), a note rose up on Twitter, alerting me to this great gift from Dahlia Adler on the Barnes & Noble Book Blog.

The title of the post: Around the World in Eight YA Novels. Dahlia, amazingly, noted both Small Damages and Going Over:

Small Damages, by Beth Kephart
One of my favorite literary writers of YA, Kephart has beautifully re-created the Spanish countryside for this contemporary novel about a teenage girl who’s exiled from her American home in order to hide the secret of her pregnancy. She leaves no sensation unexperienced, from the feel of the earth to the scent of oranges, and it’s hard to imagine getting any closer to Seville without a passport. (Kephart’s newest, Going Over, which alternates between East and West Germany, is another excellent candidate for this list.)

Incredible words, and I am so grateful.

I am also grateful this morning to that clay artist, Karen Bernstein, who not only graced the table last evening with her amazing Berlin vessel, but who carried a copy of Handling the Truth to New York City, where Diane Keaton was in the 92nd Street Y House. Keaton's memoir Then Again is featured in Handling. I'd always wanted the great actress to have a copy. Last night Karen made that happen. "Signed. Sealed. Delivered.," Karen wrote at the end of her day. This morning, Karen wrote again to say that Diane Keaton had used the word "honored" when Karen gave that bright orange memoir book to her.

One last very cool thing, and then I'm off to read and celebrate the books of others. My agent, Amy Rennert, called a few days ago with the exceptional news that Rich Green, an esteemed film agent who has represented Jonathan Franzen, Matthew Quick, Anne Rice, Andrea Creamer, and others, has agreed to represent Going Over.

A good day. A good life.

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There's plenty of rain out there, stripping the cherry trees of their pinks, heavying the heads of tulips, flooding the low plateaus of my brief driveway.

But inside all is color as I prepare for the launch of Going Over, my Berlin novel. Karen Bernstein, who surprised me earlier this month with a birthday celebration at the Wayne Art Center, has been at work on this vase for a long time now. She's a clay artist of the highest order. She read the book while it was still in galley form. She studied images of the actual graffiti on the Berlin Wall and made this pot — West Berlin, then East Berlin, 1983.  See that arrow up there? It's symbolic. See those flowers? Incredibly gorgeous. They fight the rain. They elevate my mood. They say love, in so very many ways.

I wish you could meet Karen and see for yourself what a special and uber talented person she is. She is, however, now in a car, headed to NYC, where she will meet Diane Keaton (whom I love so much that I celebrated her in Handling the Truth) at the 92nd Street Y. Karen has a lot of Diane in her. The two could probably talk forever. If they did, or when they do, Diane K. will be enchanted.

Those of you here, near, those of you able to slip out with all this rain, come join us for cake at Radnor Memorial Library, Winsor Room, 7:30 PM.

Berlin Wall.

Friends.

Family.

A little Springsteen, too. 

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Oscar-nominated actress Julianne Moore, Emmy-nominated comedian Mindy Kaling, and journalist Jim Lehrer will host breakfast events at this year’s Book Expo America.

Moore, author of picture book Freckleface Strawberry, will preside over the children’s writers’ breakfast. Kaling (a writer at The Office)  and Lehrer (author of both fiction and nonfiction) will host two adult writers’ breakfasts.

Here’s more from the press release: “The other speakers who will be joining the hosts for these popular events include Sarah Dessen, Roger Ebert, Anne Enright, Jefferey Eugenides, Charlaine Harris, Kevin Henkes, Diane Keaton, Erik Larson, and Brian Selznick.  In addition, Katherine Paterson, who is the current Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, will be saying a few words at the Children’s Breakfast on behalf of the Children’s Book Council.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Below is another reflection on the life of a publicist from Michelle Rafferty. Rafferty has been a Publicity Assistant at Oxford University Press since September 2008. Prior to Oxford she interned at Norton Publishing for a summer and taught 9th & 10th grade Literature. She is chronicling her adventures in publishing every Friday so be sure to visit again next week.

While growing up in the Midwest my understanding of New York City was formed by shots of Rockefeller Plaza on the “Today Show,” and Monica Geller’s apartment in Friends. At the same time a different, more romantic notion existed in my head, similar to what Woody Allen envisioned when marrying an old and new New York in the film Manhattan: a city that “existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.” Since moving here 10 months ago, I’ve dispelled my preconceived, romantic notions of New York, learned that Manhattan has more to offer than Rockefeller Plaza, and am now just another commuter with a vacant stare and headphones, unmoved by the subway screeches and jolts I used to find alarming. But in many ways I’m still in awe and I and wonder if I always will be.

In E.B. White’s famous essay, “Here is New York,” he recalls “what it felt likes as a young man to live in the same town with giants”—his giants being those columnists, critics, and poets he idolized as an aspiring writer himself. White writes that being on the same island as them made him burn “with a low steady fever,” and when he walked by the house of F.P.A., “the block seemed to tremble…the way Park Avenue trembles when a train leaves Grand Central.” I myself am constantly in awe at the “big giants” I find myself in proximity with everyday. I have conversations with authors renowned in their respective fields; I’m always one or two degrees separated from the producers, editors and reporters of the publications, radio, and television programs I revere, which makes it difficult at times not to blurt out “I love your work!” And our enormous contact database, well it would be a lie if I said I was never tempted to abuse it.

In my short time here, I’ve learned that on the outside, becoming a New Yorker doesn’t take long: wear all black, don’t advert your eyes, and only carry a map if it can fit into your wallet—better yet, get a Blackberry with access to Google Maps. But what is a New Yorker on the inside? Does amazement have to stop? If it did, why else would everyone continue to cram themselves in such a tiny space? This seems to be what E.B. White is getting at when he wrote, “the city makes up for its hazards and deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin—the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.” I think that only when this supplementary dose stops taking affect, when amazement has manifested itself in every way possible, a person can leave. And then maybe, nostalgia leads them back to where they came from originally.

In Manhattan, Diane Keaton’s character, Mary, tends to disavow her New Yorker prowess in moments where her intellect and sexuality leave her feeling vulnerable. She says things like, “I’m just from Philadelphia: I mean, we believe in God,” or “I’m from Philadelphia. My family’s never had affairs.” Although Mary’s words are superficial, they are poignant because they show how New York can suddenly make us encapsulate the “virtue” of the places we left behind—whether we believe in that virtue or not. For example, I’m from Indiana where we “watch the fireplace for hours in the winter and take long country road drives in the summer.” Those New Yorkers who truly miss virtues like these return to them. Those who are content with keeping them a romantic notion until the day they die will stay on the island. Or they will continue their search for something else, and maybe even tell their tale of New York to a stranger in a pub along the way. And that stranger will decide they want to take a shot at it. So they come to the city and live their New York story, which is passed along, maybe even in the form of a novel, poem, portrait, or script. That is how I imagine the “greatest city in the world” stays alive. And maybe it is youth tinged optimism, but I hope my own New York story goes on for a long time.

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