Let there be light

Ruth HartleyPoetry, Religion2 Comments

The God-trodden Mount Sinai John and I made a pilgrimage to the summit of Mount Sinai in 2005. We were in Egypt to scuba dive and  snorkel in the exquisite Red Sea when the opportunity came up. The year before we had visited New York and again, by chance, seen an exhibition about the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine at […]

About good writing – but also about good films

Ruth HartleyBooks by Ruth Hartley, Film, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Writing ProcessLeave a Comment

Films need plots Good films depend on good stories according to Steven Spielberg. I watched the BBC’s The Little Drummer Girl with dread and delight. Would it be a pleasure? Could it live up to expectations? It was and it did! I sat down happily afterwards to reread John Le Carré‘s brilliant novel. Film and book had to be different but […]

Writers, readers and the publishers picnic

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Book Publishing, Books by Ruth Hartley, Reading, Writing Process5 Comments

A lovely day, a friendly gathering and a picnic It was a picnic about  different ways of publishing books that was held on a lovely hillside venue at a private home – many thanks to our hosts. It was well organised by Jane Sherwin of Cafe Matin and I was delighted to be one of those asked to take part. […]

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 […]

Blood Red Moon Poem – The Lunar Eclipse 27th July, 2018

Ruth HartleyFamily, Poetry, Southern Africa, Zambia8 Comments

    LUNAR ECLIPSE JULY 27th, 2018 On a routine night the ordinary moon swims through a shoal of cloud. It slides upwards as blotches of water vapour in saturated air slip away eastwards. It’s a dead ball of dirt whose dust was kicked about by two astronauts in 1969. Held in place by Earth’s gravitational pull, it circles our […]