Paula Saunders + Ellen Ann Fentress Event

Name: Paula Saunders + Ellen Ann Fentress Event
Start: 2025-10-08T17:00:00-05:00
Location: Lemuria Book Store

Schedule

Wed, 08 Oct, 2025 at 05:00 pm

UTC-05:00

Location

Lemuria Book Store | Jackson, MS

Join us for an event with author Paula Saunders for her new book STARTING FROM HERE on Wednesday, October 8th at 5:00pm!
Can't make it to the event?
Order your signed copy here: https://www.lemuriabooks.com/Starting-From-Here-p/9780593978290.htm
More about the book: More than anything, René wants to be a dancer. Eve, her mother, supports René despite the overwhelming financial burden and increasing tension her training places on the family. But one thing is clear: René’s dreams are never going to come true in Rapid City, South Dakota, circa 1973.
Setting in motion a journey that will transform her from the inside out, René is sent to train alongside stick-thin, sculpted girls in Phoenix, then on to Denver and beyond, encountering along the way a dazzling sequence of eccentric, sometimes dangerous, characters: creepy dads, mean girls, predatory radio announcers, kindly ex-opera singers, sham teachers, and avaricious cult leaders. Through it all, René pushes herself, doing everything she can to excel at her art while at the same time finding her way through the trials of adolescence.
But leaving home is not the same as escaping it. And try as she might, René can’t quite shake the aching she has for someone to love and accept her just the way she is, dancer or not, successful or not, perfect or imperfect.
Lyrical and incisive, Starting from Here is a story of facing the many challenges and terrors of girlhood, of reaching for something that exceeds your grasp, of the enduring contradictions of familial love, of right steps and wrong turns, and of somehow finding your way from wherever you are to wherever you need to go.