We chat with Ohioana Book Award finalist Ruth Emmie Lang who returns with a new cast of ordinary characters with extraordinary abilities in The Wilderwomen!
Hi, Ruth! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born in Glasgow, Scotland and immigrated to the U.S. when I was four. I live in the Cleveland area on two wooded acres with my husband and son. Besides writing, I spend my time running, working on my house, wandering around antique stores without actually buying anything, and reading with with my one-year-old.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember, but it wasn’t until college that I really fell in love with storytelling. I remember being excited every time I got a new assignment because it gave me permission to be creative. That was a big period of growth for me. I learned what kinds of stories made me excited, what stories I wanted to tell.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
- Bunnicula is the first chapter book I remember reading by myself
- The Lord of the Rings made me want to be an author
- The Barn at the End of Our Term, a short story by Karen Russell in which ex-presidents are reincarnated as horses!
Your latest novel, The Wilderwomen, is out November 15th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Mysterious, Strange, Wistful, Witty, Moving
What can readers expect?
The Wilderwomen is a magical realist road trip story that follows two sisters with psychic abilities on a journey to solve the mystery of their mother’s disappearance. Their trip takes some strange, supernatural twists as turns as they discover more about their mother’s life and are forced to face hard truths about their relationships with her and eachother.
Where did the inspiration for The Wilderwomen come from?
It is loosely based on a screenplay I wrote when I was in college. It wasn’t a very good screenplay, but I thought the characters had promise so I decided to dust them off and build a new story around them. It just goes to show that sometimes it’s worth revisiting old projects, because there might be a good idea in there that you can pluck and spin off in a new direction.
Can you tell us a bit about the challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
I was thirty-seven weeks pregnant while I was working on the final draft of The Wilderwomen. I thought I had three weeks to get it finished, but my baby surprised me by showing up early! I ended up finishing the book while my newborn slept on my chest. It’s not the way I had planned it, but I think the experience gave me a deeper insight into motherhood which made the story stronger as a whole.
Were there any favourite moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I really enjoyed writing the moments when Finn slips into someone else’s memory. I wanted those sections to be stylistically distinct, so it allowed me to write in a way that was a little less literal, less linear. I’m not a poet, but it was fun to get to play with language in that way.
What’s next for you?
I’m working on something new that I’m excited about but that’s all I can say!
Lastly, what have been some of your favourite 2022 reads? Any 2023 releases our readers should look out for?
Some books I read this year that I enjoyed are The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd, Unlikely Animals by Annie Hartnett, and Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian.
