Sedona author debuts her first book at age 17

At 17, Sofia Wolf is hitting two milestones at once: She has penned her first book, “Lessons from the Barre: 16 Lessons in Resilience, Passion and Purpose,” drawn from years of ballet, and she is graduating a year early from Sedona Red Rock High School after switching to online classes halfway through her sophomore year.

“I just switched to being more independent and traveling back and forth from Sedona in order to provide more training hours for myself,” she said. “I’m graduating early from high school, and I’ve learned a lot of independence this past year from being separate from my parents and from all my friends. Learning online, you sacrifice your social life, and you really have to learn to live in the happiest way when you’re just focusing on your passion and having to constantly work.”

Post-graduation, Wolf plans to spend the next year focused on her training in Phoenix before applying to the University of Arizona to major in dance. She currently trains Monday through Friday at the Ballet Clinic in Phoenix, logging up to 25 hours of ballet a week, then returns to Sedona on weekends, where she works a job and teaches private lessons at Sedona Dance Academy.

“The book revolves around the number ’16,’ since I wrote the book at 16 years old, and structured it to have 16 chapters. Each chapter reflects a different lesson or experience that I had through the dance studio,” Wolf said. “Although the foundation of the book revolves around ballet, I tried to write it in a way that wasn’t limited to people in ballet or the arts. I wanted it to speak to anyone who has worked towards a goal, struggled with pressure, or had to learn resilience in difficult moments. My hope is that people can read it and see that the lessons learned through one passion can be applied to every area of life.”

Wolf also kept the book a secret from her parents and didn’t tell them until they received the very first copy.

“Ballet did not just train my movement and body,” Wolf wrote. “It trained the way I look at struggle. It taught me that effort is not evidence of failure, but of devotion. That trembling does not mean weakness, it means you remained long enough to be changed by the work. That to fall does not mean cancelling all of your progress. It shaped the way I understand pain. Pain was never an interruption in the studio. It was a part of the process. Blisters, aching muscles, bruised knees, lungs that burned for air — none of it meant stop. It meant listen, work through it, and continue.”

Wolf described writing as her “secret hobby” and that after she gets her college education she aims to focus on the psychology behind dance and the health aspect of it, however inspiration for a second book could come from a completely different topic.

Released on May 5, “Lessons from the Barre” is currently available for sale online at this link, and Wolf said she hopes to soon have it available in the Community Library Sedona.