by Zoe G. Phillips | Apr 1, 2025 | News, The Latest
The ballet world first learned about Joy Womack in 2009, when she moved from Texas to Moscow to study at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy. She was 15, unaccompanied by a parent or an interpreter, and equipped only with leotards and steely determination. She had one goal: to...
by Martha Anne Toll | Feb 13, 2025 | News
From its breathtaking opening to its poignant ending, Elyse Durham’s Maya & Natasha (Mariner Books; $30 hardcover), out February 18, is a page-turning immersion into the Russian ballet world, filtered through the lens of sibling rivalry. Debut author Durham...
by Sophie Bress | Sep 10, 2024 | News, The Latest
Royal Ballet School alum turned English teacher Lucy Ashe draws from both aspects of herself in her writing. Her love for ballet, as well as her command of the English language, shine in her latest novel, The Sleeping Beauties (Union Square & Co.). Set for a...
by Katherine Beard | Aug 30, 2024 | News, The Latest
Many stars of the dance world have shared their journeys through books, chronicling their glamorous or fairytale-like rise from student to premier ballet dancer. Rarely, if ever, do we read stories from the corps de ballet, despite the fact that the majority of ballet...
by Martha Anne Toll | Apr 17, 2024 | News, The Latest
Ballet-book lovers are in for a treat this spring with the release of Karen Valby’s The Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years of Sisterhood, and their Reclamation of a Groundbreaking History (Penguin Random House, $29). Valby’s book, out April 30,...
by Emma Love Suddarth | Nov 9, 2023 | News, The Latest
Miriam Landis has worn a lot of hats: Dancer at Miami City Ballet. Stanford graduate with a BA in English. Assistant editor in New York City. Ballet teacher in Seattle. And now, three-time author. Following her two previous books—Girl in Motion and Girl on Pointe,...
by Sophie Bress | May 11, 2023 | News, The Latest
Writer Nicole Cuffy has always felt connected to ballet. She’s danced since childhood and is a regular at the theater. But when she first began reading fiction about the art form, she couldn’t find a story with the nuances and characters she longed...
by Martha Anne Toll | Feb 27, 2023 | News, The Latest
Alice Robb’s Don’t Think, Dear: On Loving and Leaving Ballet (Mariner Books, $29.99) opens a window into ballet’s behind-the-scenes mysteries. Part memoir, part reportage, the book explores George Balanchine’s artistic legacy, as well as the physical and technical...