Paula Saunders Paints Vivid Picture of World of Dance in 'Starting from Here'

In her second published novel, Starting From Here, author Paula Saunders tells a poignant coming-of-age story set in South Dakota in the 1970’s. The book follows a young woman named René who leaves her small town of Rapid City to pursue her wish of becoming a ballet dancer. With her mother’s support, she journeys from South Dakota to Phoenix to Colorado and finally to New York City to chase that dream. Because of the hardships that René endured, Saunders felt great sympathy for her protagonist. She said, “I have a lot of empathy for that young girl, and I have a lot of empathy for young girls coming up in this culture in general. I really do, and maybe because of the kinds of things that I’ve been through as a young girl and because I went through them and René goes through them in the book on her own without the support of her family and is still kind of having to navigate all of the treacherous waters of being a young adolescent girl… and that empathy developed in me maybe mainly as I got older.”

While many parts of the novel are fictional, Starting From Here is also semi-autobiographical. Saunders herself left home at a young age to become a dancer and encountered many of the same challenges as René. She playfully remarked that she’s drawn to these kinds of stories because she has no imagination. However, she noted, “I must have some imagination because obviously this is all made up… this is all constructed so I do have that kind of imagination, but also I have a really reflective mind. I reflect a lot and I try to take from what I’ve experienced and integrate it into my life, and these books are part of that work. I heard a woman… she’s a priest in the Cheyenne tradition and she said that an elder once told her that if you can’t take your experiences and make them part of your life, you are a dilettante. I heard this recently and I just thought it was so fascinating because I was like, I get that.”

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