We chat with debut author Elyse Durham about Maya & Natasha, which is set in the fascinating world of Cold War Soviet ballet and follows the fates of twin sisters whose bond is competitive, complicated, but never broken.
Hi, Elyse! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Hi! I’m a novelist from Kalamazoo, Michigan. I got my MFA from Warren Wilson College, and I love writing about tight-knit communities that are just a little bit strange. I’m married to a Greek Orthodox priest who isn’t Greek, which is just as delightfully bizarre as it sounds.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
I don’t remember not writing! I’ve kept a journal since I was very small. One of my childhood friends told me that when I was seven, I gave her a story I’d written about us getting stuck in a snowdrift in which I compared her to George Washington crossing the Delaware. My grandmother also told me, from a very young age, that I was a writer. Her encouragement made such a difference for me.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: Harold and the Purple Crayon! (I still want to eat pie with that moose and deserving porcupine…)
- The one that made you want to become an author: Every book in the children’s section with a Newbery Medal on the cover. (Picking those up made me feel like a discerning reader.)
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Dune: Messiah. I read it last year and I’m still trying to figure out what it’s trying to say about religion.
Your debut novel, Maya & Natasha, is out February 18th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Sweeping ballet Soviet sister…story? (Why is writing five words so much harder than writing a hundred and fifteen thousand?)
What can readers expect?
To be immersed in the world of 1960s Leningrad. To feel, on a physical and psychological level, what it’s like to be a dancer. To be caught up in a story about two sisters who love each other very much but face impossible choices. And to encounter some real-life historical figures along the way! (I won’t spoil who, but let’s just say dance fans will be especially excited. And if you’d ever wanted to find out what movie John F. Kennedy watched during the Cuban Missile Crisis, well—now’s your chance.)
I’d also say that if you liked A Gentleman in Moscow, Astonish Me, or Hello Beautiful, you’ll enjoy Maya & Natasha too. This is the kind of book you can read with your mom, your best friend, your book club, or your seventeen-year-old daughter who’s obsessed with ballet.
Where did the inspiration for Maya & Natasha come from?
I fell in love with ballet as an adult when one of my favorite musicians did a collaboration with New York City Ballet. From then on, I was hooked—I loved watching ballet so much I started taking classes, and I loved dancing so much that I had to learn everything I could about ballet and dance history. Reading about defecting Soviet dancers in Jennifer Homans’ Apollo’s Angels was a lightning-bolt moment for me. I was amazed by these artists who loved their work so much that they left everything behind to devote themselves to it.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
Maya and Natasha are my babies, and I’m very proud to be their mother. But I also loved writing all the side characters, like Yekaterina Furtseva, a no-nonsense bureaucrat who’s in charge of bringing Soviet art to the world. She’s a woman who knows how to get what she wants and doesn’t care who she upsets along the way. She was also a real person, so that made it especially fun to bring her to life.
And I have a very soft spot in my heart for Olaf, one of Maya and Natasha’s classmates who has an enormous crush on Maya but doesn’t have the guts to tell her. (His character, by the way, was inspired by Rudolf Nureyev and Timothée Chalamet.)
Did you face any challenges? How did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge was accepting that no matter how much I researched ballet, Russian history and culture, or the Soviet world, I was never going to feel like an expert. The subject matter was too big to ever give me a feeling of mastery. Eventually, I learned to embrace that: I realized my job was just to learn enough to tell the story that I had to tell.
This is your debut novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
It was a road full of unexpected twists! I started working on this novel in 2018, and by the end of 2022 I thought I still had another year or so before I was ready to start querying. On a whim, I applied to AWP’s Writer to Agent just to practice writing query letters and then, very unexpectedly, got a bunch of interest. My brilliant agent, Allison Hunter, was heaven-sent: she knew exactly what the book needed to be its best. We spent the summer editing it and then it sold, at auction, in fall 2023. I know I’m extraordinarily lucky.
What’s next for you?
I’m one of those people who always has a lot of ideas brewing. I don’t know which one’s going to rise to the surface first, but I’m definitely going to keep writing!
Lastly, what books are you looking forward to picking up in 2025?
I can’t wait for fellow Michigan writer Lauren Carlson’s debut poetry collection, Steelhead. And my inner fashionista is super excited to pick up David Kibbe’s long-anticipated Power of Style. (I’m determined to figure out once and for all if I’m a Soft Dramatic.)
