Welcome to Ink and Pointe

What is this Substack?

My husband took this photo on a road trip a few years ago. We laughed about it later—I said it could have been an ad for the Toyota Siena minivan. But when I came across it on my phone today, I thought, “That sums up how I’ve come to look at the world.”

If you’re receiving this email, you subscribed to my author newsletter via my website at some point or another in the last two years. I haven’t thought much about my mailing list since I set it up in preparation to launch Lauren in the Limelight. I was too busy with the book tour, starting a publishing company, undergoing a double mastectomy and reconstruction, teaching ballet, tending to my family, and a long list of other things too tedious to mention. And I didn’t want to spam people.

Because I’ve followed a very untraditional path, whenever I take a risk, I ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” That question frequently arose in recent years as I gave birth to four kids and my third book. Weirdly, the answer grew more apparent to me once I started experimenting with social media. Why publish books? Why perform ballets onstage? Why show up on Instagram? You don’t need a full transcript of my therapy sessions, but what I’ve realized over and over again is that I’m always seeking connection and community. (My dad is a rabbi, after all. It’s in the genes.)

I’ve been working on a new novel for about three years now. It’s the most ambitious thing I’ve ever tried to write, and I want it to be my best work yet, so I’m not rushing to finish. I like the private work part of making art, like taking daily ballet classes or rewriting a chapter.

But I miss the fun and interaction of writing to people. I do it a bit on my social media accounts, but there’s a character limit, and content creation doesn’t leave space for deeper exploration of a subject. So, I thought I’d write letters here to see if this writing can serve a different purpose.

I tend to think forward, so another question I’m usually asking myself is, if I do this now, will it make the future better? (I’ve been known to make myself miserable because I think it will pay off in a decade. Case in point: a houseful of babies and year after year of no sleep). How to get where I’m going in a way that takes care of my family is what I’m thinking in the picture above, and what the theme of this Substack will be. How can little me make the future better for my family, students, and community?

Writing, dancing, and teaching have all helped me find my way forward—and no matter what this election week brings, we’ve got work to do if we want to make the world a better place in each of our small ways.

Stay subscribed if you’re asking yourself the same question. Let’s talk about it.