About Ruth A. Deaton
My Story
I started writing short stories when I was a young girl, with an endless appetite for reading. I spent my afternoons after school in the library of the small mountain town where I grew up. I particularly enjoyed the stories that crushed my heart and left me thinking about them long after I moved on to other stories.
Those stories shaped my young mind and made me a lifelong learner through books, conversations, and thinking about topics that have no answers or endings, only beginnings.
I kept reading and writing short stories. I wrote and published my first piece of fiction while raising my kids, writing it for them. I returned to college in my mid-forties, learning the craft of creative writing and immersing myself in a community of writers who truly live out the phrase: the only stupid question is the one not asked.
My Goal
I think of my work as the color orange — bright and encouraging. Creative, unique, and perhaps something you embrace joyfully. This is how I want to leave readers: thoughtful but hopeful.
Also, Autumn is my favorite season, offering respite from the heat and long days of summer, ushering us into wintertime with the changing of leaves and crisp bite in the breeze. Because I know that life is always changing and I often ponder the hard stuff of life, I want to encourage others to take steps forward together, united in hope.