A Book Talk with Elaine Neil Orr on DANCING WOMAN

Join us for an evening with Elaine Neil Orr in conversation with Ed Southern on Monday, February 17 at 6:30 pm! Registration is required for this free in-store event, and attendees will have the option to purchase a copy of Dancing Woman (out 1/21) along with their registration. There will also be copies available for purchase at the event, and the author will be doing a signing after the conversation.

To ask questions about accessibility or request accommodations, please contact Bookmarks at [email protected] or (336) 747-1471 x1001. At least two weeks' notice will allow us to provide the best experience possible for you and your guests.

Elaine Neil Orr was born and grew up among the forests and rivers of Southwestern Nigeria. After settling in North Carolina as a literature professor, she turned to creative writing. She first published a memoir, Gods of Noonday, followed by two novels, A Different Sun and Swimming Between Worlds, finalist for the 2019 Phillip H. McMath Post-Publication Book Award in fiction. Dancing Woman is her third novel. Elaine has received numerous prizes and awards, including most recently the 2023 John Ehle Prize and the 2021 Denny C. Plattner Award in Creative Writing. She is Professor of English at North Carolina State University. She also serves on the faculty of the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband, Andy, and their beloved pup, Sam.

Elaine Neil Orr, born in Nigeria to expat parents, brings us an indelible portrait of a young female artist, torn between two men and two cultures, struggling to find her passion and her purpose.

It’s 1963 and Isabel Hammond is an expat who has accompanied her agriculture aid worker husband to Nigeria, where she is hoping to find inspiration for her art and for her life. Then she meets charismatic local singer Bobby Tunde, and they share a night of passion that could upend everything. Seeking solace and distraction, she returns to her painting and her home in a rural town where she plants a lemon tree and unearths an ancient statue buried in her garden. She knows that the dancing female figure is not hers to keep, yet she is reluctant to give it up, and soon, she notices other changes that make her wonder what the dancing woman might portend.

Against the backdrop of political unrest in Nigeria, Isabel’s personal situation also becomes precarious. She finds herself in the center of a tide of suspicion, leaving her torn between the confines of her domestic life and the desire to immerse herself in her art and in the culture that surrounds her. The expat society, the ancient Nigerian culture, her beautiful family, and even the statue hidden in a back room—each trouble and beguile Isabel. Amid all of this, can she finally become who she wants to be?

Ed Southern is the author of The Jamestown Adventure, Voices of the American Revolution in the Carolinas, the short-story collection Parlous Angels, and Fight Songs: A Story of Love and Sports in a Complicated South. Since 2008, he has been the executive director of the North Carolina Writers’ Network. He lives in Winston-Salem.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bookmarks, 634 West 4th Street, Winston-Salem, United States