Miriam Landis in Conversation with Nancy Pearl

Join us to celebrate Mercer Island’s own Miriam Landis and her new middle-grade novel, Lauren in the Limelight! You may know Miriam from her work as Island Book’s official blogger for many years, or her work at Pacific Northwest Ballet, or around the Island with her kids in tow. America’s librarian, best-selling author and literary critic Nancy Pearl will be here to talk with Miriam about Lauren in the Limelight and how it came to be.

For fans of the classic novel Ballet Shoes, this a coming-of-age dance story reimagined for a new generation. As she begins 6th grade, Lauren Lightfoot wants nothing more than to get her first pair of pointe shoes, enjoy her love for ballet, and spend time with her friends. Lauren and her friends Bryan and Serena are challenged to define themselves both on stage and in the world when they audition for the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and compete for roles in the spring recital.

“I so wish that Lauren in the Limelight had been in my local library when I was a tween-ager… I would have loved loved loved to imagine myself Lauren then and I know that tweens—ballet fans or not—are going to love it now.” —Nancy Pearl, author of the Book Lust series and George & Lizzie: A Novel

“Lauren in the Limelight promotes empathy and understanding, and deals with the crucial moments in life when we gain maturity, break from our parents’ version of us, and become ourselves.”
—Peter Boal, Artistic Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet and author of Illusions of Camelot

“Lauren in the Limelight centers around three young adolescents captivated by ballet’s mysterious, magical lure, but this book is about so much more than dance. The characters’ relationship and fascination with ballet is a prism through which we— and they— begin to discover and understand the complexities of self-identity, autonomy, and morality and that adults have just as many internal conflicts as kids.”
—Gavin Larsen, author of Being a Ballerina and former principal with Oregon Ballet Theatre

Miriam Landis is a faculty member at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. She was a LitCamp fellow, and an assistant editor at Simon & Schuster, Hyperion, and the Amazon Books team. A Stanford grad, she was also a student at the School of American Ballet and a professional ballerina with Miami City Ballet. When not writing, teaching, or dancing, she enjoys life on Lake Washington alongside her husband and four children. In addition to Lauren in the Limelight, she is the author of two young adult novels, Girl in Motion and Girl on Pointe (previously published as Breaking Pointe).