In today’s episode, we meet Mary Ann Claud, author of “Alex Dances,” and Mary Flinn, author of “Lumina,” novels where dancing is front and center in the plots of both books.
Charlotte Readers Podcast is sponsored by Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.
In today’s episode, we meet Mary Ann Claud, author of “Alex Dances,” and Mary Flinn, author of “Lumina,” novels where dancing is front and center in the plots of both books.
Mary Ann’s latest novel, “Alex Dances,” features Alexandra Ward Dixon, who comes from a long line of strong-minded women from a prominent Southern textile family and who has one goal in life, to be a principal dancer for the American Ballet Theater. She leans on her grandfather but has to fight her ever-determined mother, who has a different idea for her career.
Mary Flinn’s latest novel, LUMINA, depicts social life on Wrightsville Beach during the summer of 1928 when an early version of the Shag was introduced at the Lumina Beach pavilion, also known as “The Palace of Light.” LUMINA explores race relations, Prohibition, new jazz, the sexual revolution, changing roles for women, and class conflict, and has a little romance thrown in for good measure.
We start the show with Mary Ann and Mary reading from the opening pages of “Alex Dances” and “LUMINA.”
