Renée Nicholson’s professional training in ballet had both moments of magnificence and moments of torment, from fittings of elaborate platter tutus to strange language barriers and unrealistic expectations of the body. In Fierce and Delicate, she looks back on the often confused and driven self she had been shaped into—always away from home, with friends who were also rivals, influenced by teachers in ways sometimes productive and at other times bordering on sadistic—and finds beauty in the small roles she performed. When, inevitably, Nicholson moved on from dancing, severed from her first love by illness, she discovered that she retained the lyricism and narrative of ballet itself as she negotiated life with rheumatoid arthritis.

Jessica Deshler grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico surrounded by family members, and knew she would stay close to her roots while pursuing and education. Her family’s roots begin in Central Texas and in the lands of Northern New Mexico since before the land was part of the US. She knew she would study mathematics from an early age, having some amazing opportunities in middle and high school to pursue creative mathematics. She earned her undergraduate degree from New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and her graduate degrees from the University of New Mexico, all in Mathematics. All 4 of her children were born while she was in graduate school, and she uses this experience to advocate for mathematics students who also want to begin their families. She is now Professor of Mathematics, and Graduate Program Director at West Virginia University, where she is only the third woman, and is the first Hispanic faculty member to be fully promoted. She spent 2015-2016 as a US Fulbright Scholar in Hungary, where she provided professional development to international doctoral students.