Ruth L. Schwartz
Ruth L. Schwartz, Ph.D., University for Integrative Learning; M.F.A., University of Michigan; B.A., Wesleyan University, received the 2004 Autumn House Poetry Prize for her fourth collection of poetry, Dear Good Naked Morning. Her other collections include Edgewater, (HarperCollins, 2002) a National Poetry Series winner; Singular Bodies, which received the 2000 Anhinga Prize for Poetry; and Accordion Breathing and Dancing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), which won the 1994 Associated Writing Programs Competition. Schwartz’s memoir, Death in Reverse: A Love Story, was published by Michigan State University Press in 2004, and her other nonfiction pieces have appeared in numerous anthologies and periodicals. The recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Astraea Foundation, Schwartz has taught at numerous colleges and is currently a faculty member of the M.F.A. program at Ashland University. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she teaches writing workshops and maintains a private practice in psychospiritual healing. For more information about Ruth, visit www.RuthSchwartz.com.

How and why did you become a writer?
I always wrote, even as a small child. It wasn't so much because I loved words, but because I loved—and was fascinated by—the world. My first poem, “Ode to a Raccoon,” was published when I was five. As I grew older, I encountered more difficult subject matter, which required more difficult odes. Writing became a way for me to confront and embrace what mindfulness meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn calls “the full catastrophe:” the beauty and brutality, damage and redemption of our lives. In that way, writing became, and has remained, a form of spiritual practice for me.

In which literary forms do you most often work?
For more than twenty years, I primarily wrote poetry. Then life brought me a much bigger story to tell, and I wrote a memoir. Now, I find myself drawn to varied forms of creative nonfiction because I want to encompass greater detail and specificity, while still making associative leaps..

Who are some of your favorite writers?
Walt Whitman, Galway Kinnell, A. R. Ammons, Mary Oliver, Tess Gallagher, Stephen Dunn, Bruce Weigl, Adrienne Rich, Tim Siebles, Robert Hass, Audre Lorde, Joy Harjo, Sheryl St. Germain, Anais Nin, Robert Olen Butler, Lauren Slater, Michael Cunningham, James Baldwin, and many, many more!

How would you define a successful work of literature?
Different works of literature have different aims; different readers look for different things. I don't claim to be able to define what is “successful” in literature, but what I personally strive for—and look for—are some of the following characteristics: work that connects emotionally with the reader, articulating things s/he has sensed but perhaps never put into words; work that expands the reader's emotional, intellectual and/or spiritual parameters, letting him/her to see and feel more widely and deeply; work that helps the reader understand more acutely what it is to be human; work that leads the reader to love the broken world; work that is deeply honest, unflinchingly so, and also deeply compassionate; work in which the form and content work together to create a whole more powerful than the sum of its parts.

What are the most rewarding parts of the writing process for you? What are the most difficult?
What's most rewarding is rewriting a poem or line or paragraph again and again and again, until it finally holds both the music I love, and the largeness of the truth I feel compelled to tell. Of course, that's also what's most difficult. However, the technical skills required are always secondary to the labor of stretching the soul.

In which parts of the world have you lived?
Many places in the U.S.: Philadelphia, rural western Massachusetts, Ann Arbor, Albuquerque, Seattle, Cleveland, the San Francisco Bay Area.  I've also traveled and briefly lived in Mexico, Guatemala, Puerto Rico and Ecuador, and am fluent in Spanish.

Which literary forms do you prefer to work on with clients?
I love working with someone on any literary form she or he is excited about—whether prose, poetry, or some hybrid of the two.

How much and what kinds of background or experience would you expect your clients to have?
What's important to me is not background or level of expertise; rather, what matters to me is that someone be willing to deeply engage in the process of reading, writing, thinking, feeling, discussing, learning, growing and revising (“re-visioning,” re-seeing).

Do you have some ground rules that you would expect clients to follow?
Not so much “ground rules,” but some hopes. I would hope that those with whom I work can value their process, as well as their product; can allow both the process and the product to become more important to them than their pride; can engage in open dialogue about their work; can accept feedback while still holding fast to their own vision; and can treat themselves with compassion—writing is hard labor!.

What advice would you offer prospective clients as they consider choosing a mentor?
Read the writing of your prospective mentor(s); read interviews with them, too, to try to get a sense of them as people; think about what you most want and need at this stage of your development; ask questions; follow your instincts.