What I do all day when I’m writing

Ruth HartleyArt Process, Children's Stories, Feminism, Imagination, Mpapa Gallery, Poetry, Reading, Self-Publishing, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, The Shaping of Water, The Spiral-Bound Notebooks, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues, Visual Arts, Writing Process, ZambiaLeave a Comment

Some problems faced by writers What are writers’ problems and what about yours? What do you all do when you’re writing? Please – do comment and tell me how you do things. If you’re a reader then you’re exactly what I need. Writers love readers. Readers, however, are often curious about the habits of writers. As both a writer and […]

Writing, art and the rewriting of history

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Apartheid, Art Process, Colonialism, South Africa, Southern Africa, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Truth, Visual Arts, War5 Comments

I’ve had to learn a different history I grew up during the British Empire when Cecil John Rhodes was the hero of school history but I had a great teacher. She was a cynical idealist who toed no party lines. At Cape Town University under the Rhodes Memorial, I followed up her questioning style and explored a more radical history […]

The Story of a Storyteller in Zambia

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Book Launch, Book Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Creativity, Graphic Novel, Identity, Imagination, Promotion, Reading, Southern Africa, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, The Shaping of Water, The Spiral-Bound Notebooks, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues, Writing Process, Zambia2 Comments

Zambia is the home of my heart. A country I love and that I returned to for a while this year. I was honoured that Dr. Fay Gadsden of Gadsden Publishers, Lusaka generously arranged a book launch for me at the Alliance Francaise – France is my other home so that felt appropriate. Daniel Sikazwe, journalist, Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation […]

Book Festival and my Book Launch

Ruth HartleyBook Launch, Book Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Festival, Illustration, Promotion, Reading, The Love and Wisdom Crimes, The Shaping of Water, The Spiral-Bound Notebooks, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, When I Was BadLeave a Comment

I’m promoting the three books I’ve published this year The Love and Wisdom Crimes is a novel based on real experiences. In it Jane returns to South Africa as apartheid ends to unlock the secrets of her past as a young political activist in a police state. My collection of poetry, The Spiral-bound Notebooks contains my early poems that form […]

Stories about wars that stop us remembering to forget

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Migration, Politics, Power, Race, Racism, Southern Africa, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues, Truth, Visual Arts, War, Writing Process7 Comments

Black Cowboys in the Wild West and African-American soldiers in WW2 There are facts we don’t know and facts we choose not to know because they don’t suit us. There are facts that are hidden from us by politicians and power-hungry people and there are facts which are distorted by the media, by myth-makers, advertisers and film makers. When it […]