Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Ruth Perkinson's blog




Ruth Perkinson, a really wonderful author, posted on her blog today about the fact that she is going blind. This is the link for the blog Going blind . . .

Ruth is a friend. We've known each other a number of years and, since she lives in Virginia, we've met up a couple of times and at the GCLS conference. Her books and our shared experiences with teaching brought us together. If you haven't read her work, you should. Ruth was one of the first lesbian authors, in our current crop, to veer off from the thin romances, mysteries and other types of stories to write what I guess we would call "literature." Her books have depth and complexity and require you to think.

I'm not trying to insult anyone, but, when Ruth showed up, too many lesbian "novels" were still stuck in the Xena fan fic arena (I swore if I read one more book with a tall, stoic dark haired woman and her spunky, shorter blond girlfriend that I would start a bon fire and burn them all) or suffered from the belief that 120 pages was a long book. I was constantly posting on here, the GCLS site and anywhere else I could rant that we needed to do better. I would use Ruth as my example. Fortunately, we're moving more and more in that direction, but I hate the thought that we may lose Ruth from this community because she can't read to write anymore.

If you do a search, you'll find her books. My personal favorites are Piper's Someday (dog lovers will have a special interest in this) and The Mystic Market. I have reviews of them posted here. If you're looking for good reading with some real substance and texture to it, give Ruth a try.