A hundred years of remembering the Great War

Ruth HartleyFeminism, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, War, Zambia9 Comments

The war to end all wars Tomorrow people in Britain will wear red poppies and visit cenotaphs, war memorials, churches and gravesides to remember those they will call the fallen heroes. In Germany they will carry Forget-me-nots, in France they will wear cornflowers. I will think of that song asking where have the flowers, the girls, the young men, the […]

How to make a book look good enough to read

Ruth HartleyBook Publishing, Bookbinding, Promotion, Reading, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues3 Comments

How to be your own publisher I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m learning on the job and wondering if what I do is make mistakes and then recover from them. The learning curve I’m riding gets steeper and deeper and the pressure to do it all at once keeps on mounting. Yesterday I was sent a cover design and […]

Never judge a book by its cover but please buy mine!

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Book Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Festival, Illustration, Imagination, Promotion, Reading, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues, Writing Process2 Comments

Book Cover design                   Dear Friends and dear Readers I have great need of your help. This year I will be publishing my new book The Love and Wisdom Crimes. Its a book that has been 53 years in the making and 20 years in the writing. Next year I will publish […]

‘The Shape of Water’ and ‘The Shaping of Water’ and the Oscars

Ruth HartleyDisplacement, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Video, War, Writing Process2 Comments

Films and books and Oscars There’s my first novel The Shaping of Water – and there’s the film – The Shape of Water  – its quite strange when the title of your book is almost, but not quite, on the shortlist of the Oscars! If only! Add to that that there is a fascinating character called Oscar in my novel […]

Love Stories, World Wars, Armistice Day & why I wrote The Tin Heart Gold Mine

Ruth HartleyBooks by Ruth Hartley, Migration, Politics, Southern Africa, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, War, Zambia8 Comments

Today 11.11.2017 is Armistice Day. Next year is the centenary of the end of World War One. On that day the German East African army was undefeated. It only surrendered on 25.11.1918 two weeks later. The surrender was signed in Zambia at Mbala (Abercorn),- check out the website – all those fascinating facts link to The Tin Heart Gold Mine […]