FEATURED AUTHOR: Maria Ruiz

Maria Ruiz is a writer living in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico after spending ten years traveling around the world. She is the moderator of the Puerto Vallarta Writer’s Group, and is currently working on a collection of short stories about the people and troubles she has encountered in her seventy years. She chaired the committee that produced an Anthology of short stories written by the members of the PVWG. Coast Lines Short Stories is available at Amazon and Amazon Kindle.

Her book, I’ll be in the Fourth Grade Forever!, is the memoir of a precocious army brat dragged from Pasadena to a war ravaged Europe, and on to the tender mercies of Junction City, Kansas by her father, a military aide to General Eisenhower. She has been published in Kings River Life Magazine, Green Prints other national magazines.

Her blog can be found at: http://pastprimetravelers.blogspot.com/

How did you start out your writing career?

As a child, I would make up stories for all the neighborhood kids to explain things like rain and thunder. I continued to tell stories to my siblings and wanted to be a writer. Life got in the way and I raised children and became a math teacher. Finally when I had the time, I wrote a book for my five year-old granddaughter.

What did you learn while writing this book?

How much fun it was to explore my imagination.

What did you hope to accomplish with this book?

To share the joys of childhood discoveries with my sisters.

What came first with this story, the characters or the plot?

It is a memoir and so the plot was done.

What has surprised you most about becoming a published author?

The great ego boost.

What aspect of writing do you love best, and which do you hate most?

I love the adventure of discovering where my characters go. I hate the editing part.

What are three things you wish you’d known before you reached where you are now?

1. That I waited so long to start. I could have been doing this for years.

2. How life can lead us in so many different directions from our original plan.

3. How much fun I can have.

Can you give us one do and one don’t or those aspiring to be a writer.

First, Do be able to tell a story well. Second, don’t bore the reader.

What one thing about writing do you wish other non-writers would understand.

Sometimes it’s difficult to make sure I’ve written enough to explain and not too much to lose the reader.

Tell us something few know about you?

What a lousy person I can be.

When you’re not writing what do you like to do in your spare time?

Good television, Logic and Math Puzzles, Sewing and Gardening.

What do you do to interact with your readers?

Facebook, Booklink,  and other writer’s blogs. Plus email all my friends.

Our theme for this month is Freelancing. What type of freelancing have you done and any advice for someone interested in breaking into freelancing.

I haven’t done much after I graduated from the University. I think the best advice is research, research and more research.

Who was the first author you ever met?

Peter Straub.

Oprah always asks, what do you know for sure?

Almost nothing. Life-long learning is one of the best things any intelligent person can do.

Can you give us a sneak peek of your next book?

Karen Beth, a six year-old girl is pulled down between the wall and the floor into the land of you lost it and we found it by the dust bunnies under her bed. There, she meets many wonderful creatures while trying to find her friend Soldier Sam, a boy doll and return him to his owner. She is attacked by the old woman in the Land of Bad Manners and Bad Tones. In the land of Lost Tempers, she’s rained upon by bad feelings. Her 

friend Henry 2 Osborn, H2O to his friends, is a boy made of water.

How can readers get in contact with you?

Visit my blog site, PastprimeTtravelers at : http://pastprimetravelers.blogspot.mx/ or on the Puerto Vallarta Writers PVWG.com webpage.

I’ll be in the Fourth Grade Forever is a fast read about a child born in 1940 and who lived in Pasadena during WWII. Here she was exposed to all the cultural and educational advantages Los Angeles could offer. She watched as her uncles, one by one, left to join the war.

After the war, her military father took the family to live in Austria during the reconstruction of Europe, and it was at this time that she began to explore both books and forbidden places. Going through a trunk found in the attic, she discovered and flew a giant silk Nazi flag and it was soon spotted by General Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie.

After Austria, the family moved to Fort Riley, Kansas and she tried hard to fit into a place isolated from extended family and culture. It was while her father was assigned to Japan during the Korean War, that she found herself alone and in charge of saving her younger sisters and new baby brother while her mother was in the hospital, fighting for her life.

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