Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Rachel Kapelke-Dale lives in Paris and writes fiction, memoir, and satire. Years of intensive ballet training gave the American author direct knowledge of the discipline later used in The Ballerinas, her fiction debut. St. Martin's Press published the novel in 2021. It follows three women who first meet as students at the Paris Opera Ballet School, then revisits their friendship and ambitions across two periods of their lives. Dance is both the setting and the pressure system through which Kapelke-Dale examines artistic perfection, loyalty, secrecy, and the uneven costs of a professional career. Before the novel, she co-wrote the memoir Graduates in Wonderland with Jessica Pan and wrote a satirical advice column for Vanity Fair. Those strands of friendship writing and cultural observation meet in her portrayal of the ballet world.