 |
Ruth is an
award-winning author of books and articles, mainly
for children and young adults. She has been an
attorney, editor, research analyst, ticket seller,
and keypunch operator. Her 10 nonfiction books
focus on history and biography, while her articles
range from leeches to Einstein’s
refrigerator. Blue Thread, her forthcoming
historical fiction/fantasy for young adults,
entwines the struggles of two teen girls across
the millennia. Ruth lives in Portland, Oregon,
with her husband, dog, and innumerable dust mites.
|
|
|
 I
grew up in Long Branch, New Jersey, about the same
time that poet Robert Pinsky and cartoonist Mark Alan
Stamaty did. One summer when I was little, I had a
whopping case of whooping cough. My mother let me play
for hours on an isolated beach. I thought that
the ocean made me well, and I still sit by the ocean
every chance I get.
I earned my
first money as a writer when I was a Long Branch High
School correspondent to the Asbury
Park
Press.
They paid me 10 cents per column inch—big money back
in 1964! Thirty years later, I really got serious
about writing. By then I was a legislative
attorney at the U.S. Department of Education, drafting
bills to send to Congress on behalf of the president.
In the meantime, I had:
- studied international
relations in college and graduated from law school;
- married Michael Feldman
(not the guy from the radio show);
- lived for a year in
Bologna, Italy, then another year in Leiden, The
Netherlands; and
- settled down in
Bethesda, Maryland, to raise two sons who have sons of
their own.
 Eventually I fell under the
spell of the Pacific Northwest. Michael and I moved to
Portland, Oregon, with Her Royal Furriness, Guinevere
the Pooch, a Corgi mix who monitors my work and walks me
several times daily. I wrote about her in one of my Animal Angles columns for Odyssey magazine.
In turn, Guinevere coached me to be President Clinton's
dog, Buddy, in the Bannockburn Spring Show— a Bethesda
community's satirical extravaganza that's almost as old
as I am. Other roles I've played include the fictional
detective Hercule Poirot. I've written song parodies for
the show, too, including one about French food that was
later aired on National Public Radio. Contact
me and I'll send you the lyrics. 
My best writing coaches these days are members of
Viva Scriva, an extraordinary group of authors and
artists based in the Portland area. They keep me
working. And when I take a break, I head out for a
visit with my three grandkids, who call me "Nana." I had
my own nana once, my Polish grandmother who made soup
out of chicken feet and told me folk tales from Eastern
Europe. She taught me to play gin rummy and instilled in
me her taste for strong tea with milk. I used to make up
quite a few of my own stories then. I made up imaginary
friends and enemies, and I still do. Only now I call
them characters.
|
