Writing The Lost Ballerina
Deanna Lynn Sletten
My upcoming novel, The Lost Ballerina, follows a fictional young girl in the 1950s – 60s as she rises from child ballet lessons to studying at The School of American Ballet with the hope of dancing for The New York City Ballet under choreographer George Balanchine. While the girl is fictional, the setting is historically acurate with real-life characters, dancers, and Mr. Balanchine. The story follows not only the young girl from the past, but also a teenage girl today, who has befriended the elderly ballet dancer. It’s sweet, heartwarming, and heartbreaking, but it takes you on an adventure into the world of ballet.
Like many young girls, I attended ballet classes as a child and through my 20s. Ballet was such a positive experience in my life, and I always look back at it fondly. I knew, someday, that I’d write a book about a ballerina. When this story popped into my head, I was so excited to write it. And as I was writing, I quickly learned more about the dance world than I ever thought possible.
While I was creating the characters, I realized that I couldn’t write about a professional ballerina without first reading biographies of ballerinas who danced under George Balanchine’s direction. After reading several bios, I then realized that I could not do the NYCB or George Balanchine justice if I didn’t learn everything I could about the man himself. Nearly every ballerina profile I read, or interview I watched, had nothing but good things to say about Balanchine. He was everything to them. Except for one or two dancers (from what I read and researched) everyone loved him. He was the nucleus of their world. They revolved around him. And he loved them all.
George Balanchine is a unique character all his own – one that any writer would love to write about. He lived in St. Petersburg, Russia during the 1917 revolution. He lived at the dance school where he’d been placed at nine years old and learned quickly how to fend for himself. Later, as a young man, he danced through Europe and then became the choreographer for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. Finally, he made his way to New York City where he was asked to begin a dance company. Balanchine’s famous words were, “But first a school,” and that began the School of American Ballet.
Balanchine had a sense of humor, was soft spoken most of the time, and loved working with his dancers. Yes, he fell in love with a few of them, too, and married several times. But his greatest love was for the ballet. He was a complicated and interesting character, and I soon realized that even though he would have a small part in my novel, I had to learn everything about him to do his character justice.
One of the reasons I love writing historical fiction is because I love researching history. This novel was a joy to research and write. I fell in love with my characters. As I’ve been listening to the audiobook, I’ve fallen in love with the story all over again. I hope you will fall in love with them, too.
The Lost Ballerina releases on January 13, 2026, and is up
for preorder now on Amazon Kindle. It will also be available in Paperback and
Audiobook on release day. (The audiobook may be a little late.) It will also be
on Kindle Unlimited.
Preorder Now:
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