(I borrowed this poster from Facebook)
Monday, September 10, 2012
They had me at 'laser light show based on Thriller'
Coming soon at the Pottstown Regional Public Library:
(I borrowed this poster from Facebook)
(I borrowed this poster from Facebook)
Friday, September 7, 2012
Launch party for Philly author Beth Kephart's new book 'Small Damages'
Jen Doll had this to say about Kephart’s latest book in her review in The New York Times, “Dreamlike is one word for 'Small Damages' … Kenzie’s percolating story emerges through Kephart’s lilting prose in the same hazy way you’d meander through the narrow streets of Seville.“
According to the library, Kephart's books will be available for purchase and "cake and punch for celebrating!"
Kephart, who is a graduate of Radnor High School, posted this on her blog Aug. 27:
My books are never quite yet real books to me until I get to share them with Pamela Sedor of the Radnor Memorial Library and my own Main Line community. Pam brings cake. Pam (a knock-out international-class rower, by the way) orders punch. Pam dresses in high but somehow still understated fashion, shines like a star, gives me a hug, and I stand up there and read. I read from a book I have loved, a book I have inevitably struggled with, a book that I do want to share with my friends. This is my chance to share my book with my friends.
That book, this sweet season after summer, is "Small Damages," a book that has been humbled by kindnesses from near and far (beginning with Tamra Tuller's yes, long ago, and fortified by Jessica Shoffel's care).
For more about this book and the journey it has taken since its release on July 19th, please visit this dedicated Small Damages page.
 |
| BETH KEPHART |
Kephart is a graduate of Radnor High School and the University of Pennsylvania. She was a National Book Award Finalist for her book "A Slant of the Sun: One Child’s Courage."
She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and son and is a writing partner in the marketing communications firm Fusion Communications and occasionally teaches and lectures at the University of Pennsylvania
She is the author of the following (quite impressive number of) books:
Handling the Truth, Gotham Books, forthcoming Summer 2013Dr. Radway's Sarsaparilla Resolvent, New City Community Press, forthcoming Spring 2013
Small Damages, Philomel Books, July 2012
You are My Only, Laura Geringer Books: Egmont USA, Fall 2011
Dangerous Neighbors, Laura Geringer Books: Egmont USA, August 2010
The Heart is not a Size, Balzer and Bray: HarperTeen, March 2010
Nothing but Ghosts, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, June 2009
House of Dance, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, June 2008
Zenobia: The Curious Book of Business, (with Matthew Emmens), Berrett-Koehler, January 2008
Undercover, Laura Geringer Books: HarperTeen, 2007
Flow: The Life and Times of Philadelphia’s Schuylkill River, Temple University Press, 2007
Ghosts in the Garden, New World Library, 2005
Seeing Past Z, W.W. Norton, 2004
Still Love in Strange Places: A Memoir, W.W. Norton, 2002
Into the Tangle of Friendship: A Memoir of the Things that Matter, Houghton Mifflin, 2000
A Slant of Sun: One Child's Courage, W.W. Norton, 1998
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Win it: 'Rittenhouse Square Rebels' by Philly author Lorie Maher
Reviewed: "Rittenhouse Square Rebels," by Lorie Maher (Abbott Press, 2012, $17.99, 240 pp.)
Philadelphia teacher and author Lorie Maher recently published her debut novel, "Rittenhouse Square Rebels," which she calls a "fairytale for adults and young adults alike." Below is a review published by Joe Infantino, an intern with some of The Mercury's sister papers, The Delaware County News Network, on August 29. Click here to see that article on the Delaware county News Network site.
I'm republishing the article here because Maher has graciously provided to me a review copy of her book that I'd like to pass along to a reader.
To win it, email me with your mailing address at mkaras@pottsmerc.com
Upper Darby High School graduate
writes her first novel
By Joe Infantino
News Intern
The desires to fit in and to find love are two aspirations not unknown to Lorie Maher, first-time author of “Rittenhouse Square Rebels.”
The novel, which Maher spent nearly four years writing, stars a young and troubled eighth-grade girl, Christina Jackman. Her father, a stereotypical capitalist and local advertising guru raises her with the help of a cruel and impatient housekeeper, whom together, stunt her childhood, so much so, she is repeatedly kicked out of school. Alone in the world and in a quest to find her mother, Jackman learns about falling in love and rebelling against the status quo.
Maher grew up in Drexel Hill and is a graduate of Upper Darby High School. Her mother, who once owned a children’s clothes store in the Pilgrim Garden Shopping Center in Drexel Hill, was Maher’s greatest inspiration as a child. Today, Maher teaches English to seventh and eighth-grade students at Kirkbride Elementary School in Philadelphia.
Over the years, Maher has written short unpublished pieces, shown only to her family, some friends and childhood classmates. Through reading, she grew to love writing and pursued creative fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Maher said she was drawn to fiction because of the freedom to create characters and enthralling stories.
The narrator, loosely based off of Maher as a child, shares a love for animals with Maher’s younger self. Her familiarity with Rittenhouse Square Park in her hometown, Philadelphia, sets the stage for what Maher calls a “funny spoof” of one social class pinned against the other. On one side of the park are the fancy dogs that walk there everyday and on the other side sit the ordinary dogs.
Although characters in the novel were based off of Maher’s former classmates, she spun their specific traits into unique characters, unrecognizable to the untrained eye.
“I doubt it would be that clear because they are fictional,” she said referring to her characters. “I used specific personalities that I have encountered in my life but then I changed things enough so that they would be entirely different people.”
In a race against the clock, the narrator has only her summer vacation to find her mother and to learn what is not taught in school: love and rebellion. One day she spots a curiously intriguing man in the Rittenhouse Square Park. She imagines many scenarios with him, but before she can muster the courage to act, summer ends and it is too late to do anything about it.
“A lot of people look back on things and think ‘why didn’t it happen like this?’ “ Maher said. “In my story, time becomes a dark shadow on Christina Jackman.”
Capitalism is another theme in the novel, but rather than using her writing to take a stance on the issue, Maher simply wanted to remind readers of the omnipresence of greed.
“I wanted to paint an entertaining, vivid portrait of people’s lives in my novel,” Maher said. “Christina Jackman’s uncle and father are ‘off the wall’ money hungry and narcissistic and some might think they’re fools, but I definitely wanted to affect readers’ emotions so that they have their own opinions about these people.”
At the end of each journey is a reward and while the book is newly on the market, Maher hopes to gain a strong readership and ultimately wants critiques so she can improve her writing. Maher recently received a good luck e-mail from Danielle Steel, an author that she followed as a student and someone that she frequently found herself looking up to.
“I feel like my life has change because I have gotten involved with going to these writers events,” Maher said. “It’s been great being able to meet other writers and to learn from them.”
Book summary (from the author):
Philadelphia teacher and author Lorie Maher recently published her debut novel, "Rittenhouse Square Rebels," which she calls a "fairytale for adults and young adults alike." Below is a review published by Joe Infantino, an intern with some of The Mercury's sister papers, The Delaware County News Network, on August 29. Click here to see that article on the Delaware county News Network site.I'm republishing the article here because Maher has graciously provided to me a review copy of her book that I'd like to pass along to a reader.
To win it, email me with your mailing address at mkaras@pottsmerc.com
Upper Darby High School graduate
writes her first novel
By Joe Infantino
News Intern
The desires to fit in and to find love are two aspirations not unknown to Lorie Maher, first-time author of “Rittenhouse Square Rebels.”
The novel, which Maher spent nearly four years writing, stars a young and troubled eighth-grade girl, Christina Jackman. Her father, a stereotypical capitalist and local advertising guru raises her with the help of a cruel and impatient housekeeper, whom together, stunt her childhood, so much so, she is repeatedly kicked out of school. Alone in the world and in a quest to find her mother, Jackman learns about falling in love and rebelling against the status quo.
Maher grew up in Drexel Hill and is a graduate of Upper Darby High School. Her mother, who once owned a children’s clothes store in the Pilgrim Garden Shopping Center in Drexel Hill, was Maher’s greatest inspiration as a child. Today, Maher teaches English to seventh and eighth-grade students at Kirkbride Elementary School in Philadelphia.
Over the years, Maher has written short unpublished pieces, shown only to her family, some friends and childhood classmates. Through reading, she grew to love writing and pursued creative fiction writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Maher said she was drawn to fiction because of the freedom to create characters and enthralling stories.
The narrator, loosely based off of Maher as a child, shares a love for animals with Maher’s younger self. Her familiarity with Rittenhouse Square Park in her hometown, Philadelphia, sets the stage for what Maher calls a “funny spoof” of one social class pinned against the other. On one side of the park are the fancy dogs that walk there everyday and on the other side sit the ordinary dogs.
Although characters in the novel were based off of Maher’s former classmates, she spun their specific traits into unique characters, unrecognizable to the untrained eye.
“I doubt it would be that clear because they are fictional,” she said referring to her characters. “I used specific personalities that I have encountered in my life but then I changed things enough so that they would be entirely different people.”
In a race against the clock, the narrator has only her summer vacation to find her mother and to learn what is not taught in school: love and rebellion. One day she spots a curiously intriguing man in the Rittenhouse Square Park. She imagines many scenarios with him, but before she can muster the courage to act, summer ends and it is too late to do anything about it.
“A lot of people look back on things and think ‘why didn’t it happen like this?’ “ Maher said. “In my story, time becomes a dark shadow on Christina Jackman.”
Capitalism is another theme in the novel, but rather than using her writing to take a stance on the issue, Maher simply wanted to remind readers of the omnipresence of greed.
“I wanted to paint an entertaining, vivid portrait of people’s lives in my novel,” Maher said. “Christina Jackman’s uncle and father are ‘off the wall’ money hungry and narcissistic and some might think they’re fools, but I definitely wanted to affect readers’ emotions so that they have their own opinions about these people.”
At the end of each journey is a reward and while the book is newly on the market, Maher hopes to gain a strong readership and ultimately wants critiques so she can improve her writing. Maher recently received a good luck e-mail from Danielle Steel, an author that she followed as a student and someone that she frequently found herself looking up to.
“I feel like my life has change because I have gotten involved with going to these writers events,” Maher said. “It’s been great being able to meet other writers and to learn from them.”
Book summary (from the author):
Christina Jackman was a spoiled,
rich girl who lives in the richest part of Philadelphia, Rittenhouse
Square. Because of her family, no one likes her at school. In fact,
Christina gets into a lot of trouble at school-so much that she has been
repeatedly kicked out! Now she's finally about to finish eighth grade.
She lives with her father - a local
king of advertising - and a housekeeper, Ingrid Zeimer. Mrs. Zeimer is
terrible; cruel, mean, and impatient. Christina's Uncle Harry was no
better. She suspects he didn't even like her-which is okay, since she
doesn't like him either. Christina is all alone in the world with no one
to turn to and no one to love-until one day when she begins to ask
questions about her mother.
 |
| LORIE MAHER |
What happened to her mother? Why
did her mother leave her father? Where is her mother now? Christina's
father doesn't respond so Christina decides to seek top-secret
information herself. With the help of her detective friend, Brian Parks,
Christina sets out to find her long-lost mom. Along the way, she learns
about falling in love, and risking everything to be a rebel!
Download/purchase the e-book of "Rittenhouse Square Rebels" here.
About the author:
Maher grew up in Drexel Hill and attended Upper Darby High School. She resides in Philadelphia.
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