Ruth E. Walker still has the book she “borrowed” from her high school library: R is for Rocket by Ray Bradbury. Raised on a healthy diet of fairy tales and fables, her broad literary appetite introduced her to Shakespeare, Isaac Asimov, Stephen King, and Margaret Atwood.

Poetry taught her how powerful images stick to the brain. Star Trek (every single series), taught her how a storyline can be made fresh again and again. But she didn’t know she was a writer until, as a mature student at Trent University, a professor commented on her creative work. BINGO. She hasn’t looked back since.

The first story Ruth submitted won $1,000 and publication in Canadian Living magazine in 1996. Soon after, her poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction found homes in Canadian, US and UK publications.

Her debut novel, Living Underground, was a Canadian Authors Association’s top ten book in 2013, and achieved second printing soon after. In 2014, her 72-hour first draft won the YA award at the Muskoka Novel Marathon and an Ontario Arts Council WIP grant.

Ruth is a popular creative writing workshop teacher, designing and delivering programs for high school students and adults, privately and through her partnership at Writescape. With her husband, Ruth lives and writes in Oshawa, where she respects that they are settlers on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, covered under the Williams Treaties.

Photograph by Stuart Blower