October 2024: Q&A with Zelly Ruskin, author of debut novel, Not Yours to Keep
Watch our Q&A and order your copy of Ruskin's psychological thriller, out today!
Dear Writers,
We’re excited to share this Q&A with Zelly Ruskin, whose novel, Not Yours to Keep, is out today from SheWrites/Simon & Schuster. We also have a Zoom Q&A with Ruskin below. Ruskin was one of my longtime students and has written a fabulous book. The novel is both a psychological thriller and a story about the challenges of infertility and adoption. The book asks the question: How do we reconstruct the notion of family? The novel manages to be simultaneously funny and stress-inducing. I was on the edge of my seat reading it, and also laughing out loud.
Join Sweet Lab in conversation with Zelly Ruskin at Shakespeare & Company Monday night, October 21 at 6 p.m. Ruskin will be signing copies of her book.
In other news: Sweet Lab is co-hosting an event with Cosmic Writers on Thursday night, October 24, from 6-8 p.m., in Brooklyn, in honor of National Writing Day. Cosmic Writers is a creative writing education non-profit that runs free writing workshops and creates fun, accessible writing materials for 3rd–8th graders. Join us as we eat, drink, make merry and raise money for a great cause. Sweet Lab will be running a mini-writing workshop at the event. Details here.
📢 We’ve Got Some News for You 📢
Starting in January our exclusive video Q&A’s will be available to paid subscribers. Consider buying a subscription to our Substack and supporting our business today ✨.
What is your writing process?
I am a complete pantser with a deep case of plotter envy. I’m full of plot ideas and one usually sticks out and intrigues me. The story germinates in my head for a good long while until I know where the plot should go, and then I attempt to make sense of it on a page.
Do you write by hand? Type from notes? Develop an outline?
I’ll pen my ideas on paper first. It’s chicken scratch and twirls around the page in a ferocious mess. But something about the process helps formulate it more clearly before it gets typed into a Word document as the first of many drafts.
Do you have a regular writing practice? If so, describe it. (For instance, do you write first thing in the morning for at least one hour? Commit to writing 1,000 words a day? Journal for 15 minutes and see what happens? Write late at night, after everyone has gone to bed? )
Ideally, I like to write every day. On the best days, I start in the morning and get so lost in the world I’m creating that when I look up, it’s dark outside. Days like that have been few since Not Yours to Keep got on the busy publication track. I’ve tried setting a block of devoted writing time to my weekly calendar, but it seems I’m a bit commitment-phobe, so it never works. It’s better to go with the creativity flow when it strikes. And, when it does, I have to be comfortable, like sweats comfy, nestled in a cushy chair like a college kid who still has flexible knees and a strong back.
Which writers do you turn to for inspiration?
When I need a vacation from writing, I read other people’s books. Usually on an e-reader, just for ease and lack of shelf space. There’s a variety of genres on the library screen, though it’s been heavy on suspense since discovering how much fun it is to write. There isn’t just one favorite author or one preferred style, there is inspiration in all of them. The irony is, as a loyal reader of her work, I always thought my stories would be Danielle Steel-esque. Instead, so I’ve been told, my writing is reminiscent of Liane Moriarty and Gillian Flynn. It’s an enormous compliment. However, I think my writing style blends the works of Mary Higgins Clark and Faye Kellerman—entertaining and suspenseful, with a sensitive exploration of difficult, thought-provoking issues.
For example, Not Yours to Keep blends my career in adoption and personal experience with fertility, to bring you an intriguing story in which the characters face morally questionable choices, while also opening a window in the very complex world of adoption. This was a story idea that I carried with me for years and needed to tell. If you don’t count life stuff and pandemic delays, it probably took two-years to complete before it found a home at She Writes Press. There are snippets in my newsletter about why a hybrid press was the right choice. Let’s just say I’m great at making all the ‘how-not-to-query’ mistakes. Sometimes mistakes lead to the best path.
What are you working on now?
Currently, I’m working on a new twist of a woman who contemplates the murder of her greedy, gaslighting husband. Because who hasn’t had that nano-moment when we’ve wanted to kill our spouse or partner? What if you had no other choice?
October Q&A with Julie Fingersh, whose memoir, Stay: A Story of Family, Love & Other Traumas, is out October 15 from Rowman & Littlefield/Bloomsbury.
December Q&A with Elizabeth Burk whose debut full length poetry book, “Unmoored,” is out November 21.
We’ve launched a bimonthly, online book club. We discuss how a book is structured and why it works. We’ll discuss Percival Everett’s novel, James, on October 10.
A new 3-discussion session starts up again in December when we’ll read Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s novel, Long Island Compromise. If there are books you want to read with us in 2025, let us know!
