Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
Chronicling the adventures of my twenty-year journey as a creative writer.
For a long time, “ballet fiction” meant the books that catered to young girls, slim tomes with pink, appealing covers. Noel Streatfeild’s more substantial and highly popular Ballet Shoes comprised my ballet fiction-reading youth. I adored the book. I compensated for its lack of competition by reading it over and over, annually, through my youth … Read more
My friend Anne Clermont’s debut novel, Learning to Fall, is coming out the first week of August. Set in the equestrian world of competitive show jumping, it chronicles one young woman’s search for healing, hope, and what it means to love. About two weeks ago I went to check on Amazon to see if it was available for … Read more
Well, I am very excited right now about a very small (to you), writerly thing. I came up with a new first line for the opening chapter of my forthcoming ballet novel, Outside the Limelight. The old first line was sending the story in sorta the wrong direction, and it was using the wrong authorial … Read more
I’ve gleaned a lot of wisdom over the past two years, most of it the hard-earned, head-shaking kind. During this time period, coincidentally [or not], I recommenced a daily mindfulness meditation practice. You wouldn’t think that sitting on a pillow at 4:45am for twenty minutes, doing nothing but observing the rise and fall of your … Read more
It’s complex, gripping, devilishly complicated, and sounds like no other concerto in the violin repertoire. Listening to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius’ violin concerto, you hear dark, wintry night; pure, crystalline melody above a cushion of pianissimo strings (starlight has a sound!); brooding motifs; a violin that laments but never stops singing. In the second movement, … Read more