Anne Valente: Where did the premise for "The Dance Partner" come from?

Mary Larkin: I had moved from the New England to a mountain town in the Carolinas, which had a huge dance community. It seemed everybody danced. They went to ballroom dances, or the contra dances, or both. Dancing was a great way to know the town and its people. The contra dances were especially appealing, with their live bands, and folks of all ages danced—young kids, teenagers, college students, even elderly people. Contra dances are not country dances or square dancing, but dances derived from old English and Scottish dances that have morphed with modern influences. Some of the music is quite bluesy, jazzy or swingy at times. The music is fabulous.

So the first glimmer of the story simply came from attending dances, learning about the culture of the dances in that area, who danced (just about everybody), who was dancing with whom, who was married, who wasn't. While there was a family atmosphere for the early evening dances, the scene became more laden with sexuality or at least flirtation as the night progressed. I observed people flirting, falling in love, bouts of jealousy, break ups . . . you name it. Oh, and some people met and married! Those were fun weddings.

AV: The reveries throughout this story reveal the narrator's insecurities to the reader, but perhaps not to the narrator herself. Was it difficult to write a story of greater internal conflict, as opposed to external?

ML: You're right, the conflicts are primarily internal. The external conflicts are The Other—the man, and of course, a wife in this situation could be considered part of the external conflict. But the Narrator internalizes everything, she thinks about everything, to an obsessive degree. I enjoyed trying to get into this character's head. She tries to be painstakingly honest, yet she comes across as an unreliable narrator. Is she making a wise choice with Zack? Isn't he unreliable, too, if he's married? If he does come to her, what can she expect from him? I wanted to show her longing, her keen desire to be loved, and how vulnerable it made her. There's a lot of movement in the story even though there's not a lot of outside action, because her thoughts and emotions go all over the place. Keeping the story this way felt valid to me for this character, and seemed natural.

AV: What is the revision process like for you? Did "The Dance Partner" require many drafts?

ML: I wrote the first draft of the story in one sitting, which is probably advisable for most short stories. The story has a natural progression, she meets him, she wants him, there are obstacles . . . but in each of those areas I did revise—at a paragraph level, sure, but also at the sentence and word level. The language itself is important to me.

AV: For a story about dancing, "The Dance Partner" obviously includes a variety of dances. Did this require much research on your part, in addition to your own experience with the dance community? Do you have a favorite dance?

ML: My research was dancing, and dancing with a lot of different people, which is how contra dances are. You change partners within a particular dance but end up with your partner again if you can count to eight. Most of the contra dances are an eight-count, except of course, for the waltzes. I watched couples executing complicated steps, beautiful moves—and I tried and learned and tried some more. I learned the names of certain steps. Grapevines are always fun and look good. I do have favorite dances. I love Argentine Tango, not the ballroom version. And I especially love the progressive waltzes of contra dancing, rather than the ballroom waltz.

AV: What projects are you currently working on? Are there other stories forthcoming that we can point readers to?

ML: I'm working on a collection of short stories, which means that I'm revising but writing new stories as well. I think I may end up with two collections because some stories just don't jive together. I'm tinkering with a novella set in the south, where I'm from. Even though I've lived in Europe, a few states in New England, California, New Mexico, the Carolinas, and Florida, I still find the south attractive to write about. It's pretty fertile ground for story.

Mary Larkin earned her PhD in Creative Writing and English at Florida State University and an MA from Hollins University's Creative Writing Program where she won the Andrew James Purdee Award. She is a Fellow of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, a Pushcart nominee, Guest Author of the Great Smokies Writing Program, a Writers@Work National Finalist, a two-time finalist for the Doris Betts Fiction Award, the recipient of the Sewanee Conference Tennessee Williams alternate scholarship and the Blumenthal Writers Award. Her short stories have appeared in Shenandoah, The Nebraska Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Red Mountain Review and other journals. She's on the women's competitive sailing team in Sarasota, Florida.