Gail Folkins, writer and English instructor, often writes about her deep roots in the American West. Her creative nonfiction book Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit was released in September 2007 by Texas Tech University Press.
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"A Palouse Horse," published in Iron Horse Literary Review, was named a 2010 notable essay by Best American Essays editor Robert Atwan. Best American Essays is part of the Best American Series celebrating American literature.
Gail is currently writing essays about the Pacific Northwest. Read "Light in the Trees," appearing in the spring 2009 edition of Amoskeag: The Journal of Southern New Hampshire University.
Texas Dance Halls: A Two-Step Circuit takes you on a journey to eighteen
dance halls. Along the way, you'll meet musicians, owners, and patrons
who keep these historic sites vibrant. Photographs by J. Marcus Weekley help illustrate their stories.
"In the rhythm and swirl of these images and words, we are but one step removed from the dance." — Andy Wilkinson, from the Preface
From Chapter 5 -- KJT, Dubina, and Freyburg Halls
Riding in a tan van through Fayette County, I breath in fields of blowing grasses, the narrow road we follow parting them like a comb. On a road south of La Grange, Gary's expression brightens. He adjusts his baseball cap and scans the roadway for a shady place to park. Gary McKee of the Fayette County Historical Commission has volunteered to give me an early afternoon dance hall tour. On this warm day in March, Gary plots a course to the communities of Ammannsville, Dubina, and Freyburg. The sun, straight overhead, pierces through the oak leaves and into the van.
"A Palouse Horse," published in Iron Horse Literary Review, was named a 2010 notable essay by Best American Essays editor Robert Atwan. Best American Essays 