An Evening with Elaine Neil Orr, Author of Dancing Woman, in Conversation with Bren McClain
Schedule
Tue Oct 07 2025 at 05:00 pm to 06:30 pm
UTC-04:00Location
Pat Conroy Literary Center | Beaufort, SC
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NeverMore Books and the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center will host an evening with visiting novelist Elaine Neil Orr, author of Dancing Woman, in conversation with fellow novelist Bren McClain, award-winning author of One Good Mama Bone. Free and open to public, this in-person event will be held at the Conroy Center (601 Bladen St., Beaufort) on Tuesday, October 7, from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., with books available for sale and signing through NeverMore Books. Seating is limited; please call the store to reserve your spot: 843-379-7025.ABOUT THE BOOK
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?
"Sure to become a popular book club pick."—Southern Review of Books
"Brimming with vivid description, deeply rooted in time and place, and with a fascinating cast of complicated, enigmatic characters, Dancing Woman is ultimately a story of longing—for a sense of self, community, redemption, and healing—and a profound exploration of the transformative power of art in its many forms."—Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain and The Trackers
“The urgency of protagonist Isabell Hammond’s voice and her desires mixed with the dreaminess and other-worldliness of the setting creates a singularly spellbinding and original read. I literally could not put this book down!”—Lee Smith, Silver Alert and The Last Girls
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The author of six books, Elaine Neil Orr was born and grew up among the forests and rivers of Southwestern Nigeria. Her explorations of home and exile and spiritual connection are rooted in those rich formative years. She comes to the American South by way of that other South in West Africa. After devoting herself to literary scholarship in the early part of her career, Elaine could no longer resist the call of creative writing. She first published a memoir, Gods of Noonday: A White Girl’s African Life, 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, North Carolina Literary Review, and the 2021 Denny C. Plattner Award in Creative Writing, Appalachian Review. She has won grants from the NEH, the North Carolina Arts Council, and North Carolina Humanities. Elaine received her Ph.D. from Emory University and 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.
ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
Bren McClain’s critically acclaimed debut novel One Good Mama Bone won the 2017 Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction and the 2018 Patricia Winn Award for Southern Literature. It was also named Pulpwood Queen 2017 Book of the Year, a 2017 Great Group Reads by the Women’s National Book Association, a Southeastern Independent Booksellers Association (SIBA) Okra pick, longlisted for SIBA’s Southern Book Prize and a finalist for the 2018 Crook’s Corner Prize. Most recently, the French translation (retitled Mama Red) was selected for the 2021 Prix Maya, an award given for France’s best animal novel. Bren is now working on her next novel, which has already received the gold medal for the William Faulkner Novel-in-Progress. Bren hails from upstate South Carolina, Anderson, where her novel is set.
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Where is it happening?
Pat Conroy Literary Center, 601 Bladen Street,Beaufort, South Carolina, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
