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 […]

The Vic en Bigorre Book Festival

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Books by Ruth Hartley, Festival, Graphic Novel, Reading, The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, The White and Black Blues1 Comment

A very pleasant and successful day I thoroughly enjoyed myself and sold some of my books. I started the day slightly bemused as we had just returned from Paris rather late the night before. Nick Inman, Clara Villanueva, myself and June Gadsby had a table together for our books in English and Spanish. This is the second year that there […]

My story, is it a memoir, an autobiography, or a novel?

Ruth Hartley Storytelling, Graphic Novel, Memoir, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Writing Process4 Comments

What is my novel? “How much of your novel is an autobiography?” It’s a good question to ask a writer. A good question It was asked at the launch of The Tin Heart Gold Mine, but it’s not a simple question to answer. I immediately wanted to ask the other writers there what they thought. It’s easier to answer this […]

Paris, Africa and Otto Dix’s war paintings

Ruth HartleyBook Launch, Graphic Novel, Southern Africa, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, Visual Arts4 Comments

I have just returned from two nights in Paris where I visited a museum exhibition about Africa, saw paintings, and was reminded of Otto Dix’s war paintings — and his paintings of war injuries in particular. We travelled there by train, which gave me many lovely hours of dozily dreaming and reading. It was a foggy, misty day so staring […]

Mixing art and writing – can it be done?

Ruth HartleyComic Strip, Film, Graphic Novel, Visual Arts1 Comment

Hello again! How many of you do what I try to do? My website — the one you are looking at now — is about both my art and my writing. The fact that they are both on my website and mixed together in my work is something I take for granted these days but I didn’t always. Maybe some […]