Deborah Ann Lucas
Few Words From the Author/Publisher:
I am deeply honored that Dance While the Fire Burns has received an Honorable Mention. This memoir captures my journey as a sister, woman, wife, and artist, alongside the healing presence of the horses that anchored me through grief and upheaval. I am sincerely grateful to the judges for understanding the heart of this book. As they beautifully noted, it is less about overcoming obstacles than it is about creating "a meaningful life while hardship is still part of it." Thank you to Next Best Reads for celebrating the honest, complicated beauty of family, and the determination to live an authentic, creative life.
Author's Biography
Deborah Ann Lucas is the author of Dance While the Fire Burns: Family, Identity, and Dreams, an award-winning memoir recognized as a 2025 American Writing Awards finalist for Best New Nonfiction, an Eric Hoffer Award Honorable Mention, and a Next Best Reads Writing Awards Honorable Mention. As a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach, she helps women writers find, finish, and share their stories, guiding them to discover their unique voices and bring their personal narratives to life.
She earned an MFA from UCLA with a ceramic empowerment installation and has exhibited and sold her art internationally. Her writing has received multiple awards from the Evanston Writers Conference and the Writer’s Institute. It appears in Avocet and Midwest Journal, is featured in several anthologies, and includes guest blogs for Brevity and Jane Friedman.
Deborah lives on a twenty-acre farm in Illinois with her husband, two retired racehorses, a German shepherd, and a lively crew of cats. Surrounded by nature, she writes and creates art inspired by her horses and her healing journey. She is currently working on a horse-inspired novel, poetry, essays, and notes for a new memoir.
Books by the Author
