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 […]

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 […]

What is an identity? How do we identify ourselves?

Ruth HartleyCreativity, Family, Human rights, Identity, Photography, Poetry, Refugee2 Comments

How do we identify ourselves? What is identity? What criteria do any of us use to identify ourselves? Is it appearance? Tribe? Work? Status? Religion? Why do we need an identity? What do we use our identity for? To belong somewhere? To exclude another or many others? What identity do we think we have in someone else’s eyes? We are […]

Flying backwards to yesterday and arriving in tomorrow’s world

Ruth HartleyBooks by Ruth Hartley, Creativity, Family, The Shaping of Water, Visual Arts, ZambiaLeave a Comment

Flying backwards to yesterday     Was I flying backwards into a nostalgic and unreal fantasy about a past life? Even now Zambia feels like home to me, the place closest to my heart where I feel most deeply rooted. I lived in Zambia for 22 years and my dream had always been to have a plot of land, build […]