Perhaps what I love best about the writing process is putting into words the thoughts and feelings we all experience but perhaps haven’t been able to articulate ourselves. There’s something incredibly fulfilling about knowing we’ve given people the language they need to make sense of their inner monologues and express themselves clearly to others.

We come to fiction for the big story (the kidnapping, the flood, the plane going down in the wilderness), but we stay for the small moments, the ones that feel true. Most of us won’t get lost at sea, catch a serial killer, or go running around in the dark during a hurricane; but we all know how it feels to be misunderstood or to come home at the end of a very long day and then burn dinner.

I love creating stories that take us beyond our own experiences but still remind us of what it feels like to be ourselves. In my books, I try to capture the ordinary, everydayness of it all—not just so my stories will “feel real” but so they will help readers make sense of their own realities.

Ruth Buchanan

Author of Unseasonable – A Christmas Holiday Extravaganza