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.
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 11, Gruene Hall
Past the gentle whine and slap of the screen door, I pull my wet hair back and walk inside the dance hall. A fast two-step number from a country/Americana band fills the hall. Fresh from floating on inner tubes down the river, a group of friends and I settle on Gruene Hall's wooden benches with glasses of iced tea and beer. I drink in the music and the wood floor smell faster than the glass of tea in front of me. The crowd laughs and dances as if it's a Saturday night.
