Ruth Leigh may be an author, speaker and freelance writer, but she has had an extremely varied career over the years. Today, she is best known for her series of satirical, diary-style novels following the life and fledgling faith of Insta mum Isabella M Smugge, but also writes Austen-inspired stories and poetry. While Ruth may have dreamed of being a writer, she never thought it would become a career for her. She tells Claire Musters how things changed for her.
Tell us a little about your career path – and are you doing something else alongside writing now?
I’ve had a long and interesting career. I’ve been in sales, hospitality, worked at two universities and a law firm, run my own catering business and done lots of other bits and pieces along the way. My freelance writing career in the Christian charity sector began in 2008, but I didn’t start writing my first novel until May 2020. I was managing quite well with a combination of freelance writing, book sales and speaking, but AI recently put paid to a writing job. I also worked in a bar, but that has shut down, so a new side hustle may be needed for a couple of days a week until the BBC sees sense and starts serialising me.
How did you land your first book deal?
In a really unusual and unexpected way. I had no intention of writing fiction (although I’d always dreamed of being a writer). I started contributing to the Association of Christian Writers’ More Than Writers blog late in 2019 (morethanwriters.blogspot.com). For my April 2020 piece, sick to the back teeth of pretentious show-offs on Instagram banging on about baking sourdough bread and living their best lives, I created a dreadful woman called Isabella M Smugge (I Am Smug) for a laugh. I referenced her in my May blog too and heard from literary agent Tony Collins that afternoon. He asked me to start writing the novel while he pitched it around. Everyone said no, obviously, until Instant Apostle, God bless them, took a chance on me.
What genre do you like writing in most?
That’s a tough question. When I’m writing the Issy Smugge books, I really enjoy being in the present, writing about trends, finding new ludicrous things for my heroine to talk about and weaving a tapestry around her. But then when I return to Austen and write a collection of short stories around one of her novels, I’m in heaven. I love all the research and footnotes and finding that 18th-century voice telling the story. It’s probably 50/50.
What is your writing approach? Do you carve out time each day, or do you simply write when the mood takes you?
I’m a full-time writer and very deadline-driven. I write freelance for several Christian charities, so if a job has come in, I’m busy scripting questions, interviewing people and writing up pieces. I have to use a different tone and voice for each client and observe their house rules, and that can mean a solid day of Zooms and writing. With fiction, I follow Somerset Maugham’s advice: “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
I don’t hang around waiting for the muse to descend. I open up the laptop and start writing. Even if it’s awful, the act of typing gets my creative brain working and something half-decent will eventually emerge.
Could you give our readers a flavour of your latest book?
The Deliberations of Isabella M Smugge is my final novel in the series (although I’m planning a collection of short stories written by other characters in Issy’s world next year). Our heroine is now the single mother of four children, hosting her mother and her second husband in the well-appointed family room at the Old Rectory, struggling with playground enemies and learning more about what faith looks like. In this book, her relationships with her homegroup become deeper, she really starts hearing from God and she makes some difficult decisions, hence the title. I had a lot of fun writing it and early readers have called it the most poignant yet, although very amusing.
How does your faith impact your writing?
Considerably! I pray that God will send me the right words and often, when I’m stuck, they appear. My Isabella M Smugge series has a gentle faith element and I love writing about someone who is looking into the Church from the outside, which gives me lots of scope for humour, but also authenticity. I’m not a fan of preachy books, and my own faith journey has been relatively unorthodox, so I like writing faith in a way that anyone can understand. Many of my readers are not people of faith, but they find Issy’s struggles with prayer, forgiveness etc. fascinating.
What type of books do you like to read in order to unwind, and do you have a personal recommendation for our readers?
I’ve got lots of beloved favourites which I return to regularly. The Rosie Trilogy by Graeme Simsion, Excellent Women by Barbara Pym, Cuckoo in the Nest and Home Bird by Fran Hill, the Mapp and Lucia series by EF Benson and, of course, Jane Austen’s novels. If I had to recommend one book to readers right now, it would be Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which I absolutely loved.
Connect with Ruth:
@ruthleighwrites on Instagram, Facebook, Threads and TikTok
http://ruthleighwrites.co.uk
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