Kephart, Beth 1960–

views updated

Kephart, Beth 1960–

PERSONAL: Born April 1, 1960, in Wilmington, DE; daughter of Horace (a businessman) and Lore (a homemaker) Kephart; married William Sulit, June 28, 1995; children: Jeremy. Ethnicity: "Caucasian." Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.A. (magna cum laude), 1982. Religion: Presbyterian. Hobbies and other interests: Teaching children, gardening, reading, travel.

ADDRESSES: Home—PA. Agent—Amy Rennert, 98 Main St., Ste. 302, Tiburon, CA 94920. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Freelance writer, including work for architectural companies, pharmaceutical companies, and civic organizations, 1985–98. Chair of Young People's Literature jury, National Book Awards, 2001.

MEMBER: Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Bread Loaf Merit Scholarship for fiction, 1996; top grant for fiction, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, 1997; Leeway Grant for Excellence in Creative Nonfiction Award, Leeway Foundation, 1998; National Book Award finalist, 1998, for A Slant of Sun; National Endowment for the Arts award, 2000.

WRITINGS:

A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage (memoir), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1998.

Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things That Matter (first serial in Reader's Digest), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

Still Love in Strange Places (memoir), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002.

Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2004.

Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self, photographs by William Sulit, New World Library (Novato, CA), 2005.

Contributor to anthologies, including Mothers Who Think, Wanderlust, 2001 Best American Sports Writing, and The Leap Years.

Contributor to periodicals, including Atlantic Monthly, Chicago Tribune, Madison, Child, Salon, Oxygen, Philadelphia Inquirer, Baltimore Sun, Family Life, Tin House, New Jersey Life, Pennsylvania Gazette, San Francisco Examiner, Parenting, and Philadelphia Magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: Beth Kephart's first book, A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage, is the story of Kephart's son Jeremy and his struggle to overcome pervasive developmental disorder (PDD). This intensely personal tale is told from Kephart's perspective, chronicling her hopes and fears for Jeremy as well as the objective facts of his diagnosis and his eventual triumph over the disorder. A Slant of Sun, a finalist for the National Book Award, was described as "luminous" by John F. Baker, reviewing the book in Publishers Weekly. In another review, Booklist contributor Toni Hyde commended Kephart for her "uncommonly beautiful prose."

Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things That Matter, Kephart's second book, is a memoir of a very different type than A Slant of Sun. Kephart, in an interview with Susan Tekulve for Del Sol Review, described her approach to memoirs. "Memoir, as a term, actually refers to a subject that the writer takes on with passion. It's unfortunate, I think, that the word in our culture is now equated with tell-all narrative…. The memoirist should be constantly making room for the reader, opening up passages, asking, essentially, was it this way for you?" In Into the Tangle of Friendship, Kephart makes room for her reader by interspersing her personal stories with other writers' stories of and perspectives on friendship. Her own theory of friendship is also developed throughout. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly praised Into the Tangle of Friendship for its "precise" writing. Perhaps the highest praise came via the letters Kephart received from readers who were inspired by Into the Tangle of Friendship to seek out their own long-lost friends.

Still Love in Strange Places explores another relationship close to Kephart: the one between herself and her husband, William, and by extension his relationship with his life and family in El Salvador. Mindful of the cross-cultural nature of her marriage, Kephart determined that she wanted to become more familiar with the land and the people that her husband knew while growing up. Seeing herself as "white-bread American, blandness personified," Kephart decided to travel to El Salvador to find her husband's family and to seek out the basis behind some of the "wild stories" he told, noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Her first visit left her feeling like an outsider among her husband's family, separated by language and culture. Over the next eighteen years, however, she gathered not only background on El Salvador's tumultuous history, but detailed stories of her husband's family as well. Chief among them are tales of his grandfather, Don Alberto Bondanza, a near-legendary figure who survived much danger and privation to become the owner of a small coffee plantation. Kephart's account includes "some charming, if brief, glimpses into family life," noted Library Journal reviewer Nedra C. Evers, and how she came to be accepted within her husband's El Salvadoran family. A Kirkus Reviews critic called the book "a turbulent family drama enfolded in a nation's story." Book reviewer Penelope Mesic concluded: "As Kephart becomes attached to El Salvador, recognizing its beauty and human worth, so do her readers."

In Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World, Kephart once again centers her atten-tion on her son, Jeremy, now fourteen years old and working at discovering his own identity. A reluctant reader, Jeremy was not inspired by the typical children's books that have long served to spark young readers' imaginations and interest in reading. Undaunted, Kephart determined that she would help Danny develop his literary and creative interests, but not by forcing him. Instead, she took a guiding approach that nurtured and encouraged, but did not demand or force. She and her husband did not push him into competitive situations with other children, or involve him in early college preparation. Free of pressure to perform, Danny slowly and gradually honed a keen interest in reading, writing, and creative pursuits. Booklist contributor Vanessa Bush called the book an "eloquent and lyrical appeal to parents to treasure and nurture children's imagination." Kephart "concludes that unleashing youths' imagination can create well-rounded, stable, happier people, both in their generation and the one guiding them," noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer.

Kephart chronicles her own journeys into a contemplative life with Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self. Overwhelmed by stress, deadlines, family pressures, and looming midlife at age forty-one, Kephart found comfort and solace on the grounds of Chanticleer, a lush garden retreat and estate near Philadelphia. There, she found the sanctuary she craved, a place where she could retreat from her daily pressures to meditate, contemplate, and consider her life and her world. Kephart became a daily visitor to the gardens at Chanticleer, and her time there "signals a shift in her interior landscape—a pause in activity, a purposeful disconnection," observed Cindy Crosby in Books & Culture. "The garden serves as both sanctuary and incubator." She sees the inevitable cycles of life reflected in the surroundings at Chanticleer, and recognizes how they apply to herself, her family, and her friends. Perhaps most importantly, she comes to recognize those things that are most important to her, and realizes the folly of waiting to embrace them and enjoy them. "The poignant fleetingness of life, so vividly expressed in the cycle of the seasons, reverberates throughout the book, more in tone than in specific," Crosby commented. Kephart emerges from her experience renewed and refreshed, and determined to use her time and effort to their greatest advantage. Carol Haggas, writing in Booklist, called the volume a "lyrical, graceful contemplation on the living of a purposeful life."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kephart, Beth, A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage (memoir), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1998.

Kephart, Beth, Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things That Matter (memoir), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 2000.

Still Love in Strange Places (memoir), W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Book, January, 2001, Stacy Schnellenbach Bogle, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship, p. 71; May-June, 2002, Penelope Mesic, review of Still Love in Strange Places, p. 80.

Booklist, June 1, 1998, Toni Hyde, review of A Slant of Sun, p. 1698; September 15, 2000, Donna Seaman, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship, p. 189; June 1, 2004, Vanessa Bush, review of Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World, p. 1678; February 1, 2005, Carol Haggas, review of Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self, p. 928.

Books & Culture, September-October, 2005, Cindy Crosby, "'Leave the Path,'" review of Ghosts in the Garden, p. 44.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 2002, review of Still Love in Strange Places, p. 311.

Library Journal, June 15, 1998, KellyJo Houtz Griffin, review of A Slant of Sun, p. 100; September 1, 2000, Lucille M. Boone, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship, p. 233; April 1, 2002, Nedra C. Evers, review of Still Love in Strange Places, p. 120.

New York Times Book Review, January 3, 1999, Margaret Talbot, "The Boy in the Bright Green Hat," p. 5; October 1, 2000, Megan Harlan, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship, p. 18.

Organic Style, June, 2004, Barbara Jones, review of Seeing Past Z, p. 24.

Orlando Sentinel, October 9, 2000, Doris Bloodsworth, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship.

Publishers Weekly, May 4, 1998, review of A Slant of Sun, p. 194; October 2, 2000, review of Into the Tangle of Friendship, p. 76; March 19, 2001, John F. Baker, "An Author's Return," p. 16; March 18, 2002, review of Still Love in Strange Places, p. 88; June 27, 2004, review of Seeing Past Z, p. 46; January 17, 2005, review of Ghosts in the Garden, p. 43.

Rocky Mountain News, November 2, 2000, Justin Matott, "'Friendship' a Bonding Experience," p. 11D.

Washington Post, January 24, 1999, Mary Jo Kochakian, "A Rare Look into World of a Child's Disability," p. V6.