“Capture a Feeling of Place” RPLA Showcase: Ruth Coe Chambers

The beauty and heritage of the panhandle live in the heart of Ruth Coe Chambers and pour out as she builds the setting in her work. Growing up on the coast gave her memories and impressions she uses to create a true sense of place. Her novel, House on the Forgotten Coast, set in Apalachicola won First Place for Published Mainstream Fiction in the 2018 Royal Palm Literary Awards. Ruth discusses the importance of motivation, weaving a realistic setting, and the importance of reading in this week’s RPLA showcase.

Ruth’s Writing Journey

I can’t recall a time when I didn’t like to write. Writing is part of the very air I breathe, so even when my hands are still, I’m registering, describing, pairing words—writing. No one encouraged me until I studied creative writing under the direction of a professor at the University of South Florida. He was brutally honest but very supportive once I found my “voice.”  I wasted years writing material without merit, not understanding the value of a knowledgeable mentor.

I did learn from my husband’s creativity research the importance of motivation, and it keeps me writing through the disappointment of rejection. Acceptance has come via my search for learning and refusal to give up, to realize that not everyone shares my journey and won’t necessarily understand or appreciate what I have to say. I try to write well and to persist.

The Winning Entry, House on the Forgotten Coast

Logline: Annelise Lovett Morgan dies with a terrible secret on her wedding day and returns one hundred years later to clear the name of her beloved, wrongly accused of murder.

I have always been grateful for life, taking a special interest in people and places, no doubt because my mother died when I was born. Growing up in a small town on Florida’s Gulf coast, I was blessed with the freedom to explore the town and its people. As a child I remember sitting on neighbors’ front porches on warm summer evenings listening to the grown-ups talk as distant thunder rumbled softly. I try to capture this feeling of place and comfort in all my novels.

My interest in people resulted in a degree in psychology, and I have written novels about the places in the Florida Panhandle that hold my heart. House on the Forgotten Coast is set in Apalachicola, less than thirty miles from where I grew up. I loved the town, my relatives who lived there, and the unique and colorful people who make it Apalachicola, a location the Native Americans had called a place of friendly people. In House, I tried to create a fishing village caught in a period of change with differences among good people, much as we see today. The people I write about are real and vulnerable, people torn by complex pasts that cause them to question what is real and what is delusion.

Read and excerpt of House on the Forgotten Coast here

Two Truths and a Lie, Writer’s Edition

Write every day.

Reading is essential to writing.

Rewriting can make a mediocre piece outstanding.

This bit of advice is nearly universal—write every day.  For me, it is a lie. I have never written every day. There are too many demands on my life, but I am always thinking about writing.

The first and most important for someone who grew up without a library is the emphasis on reading. I am what I read and what I write. The creative writing professor at USF stressed the necessity of not just reading but of reading well. Such reading nourishes discriminating taste. This advice changed my life, and I see how good writing follows some rules, that writing has its own etiquette.

Truer words were never spoken than the advice to rewrite. Regardless of how perfect a piece may seem, no writing of mine is nearly perfect on the first blush. So many times I have written what I love and think I nailed it the first time. I let the piece rest while I go on to something else, only to return and find what I have written can be improved by a country mile. Rewriting may require countless attempts, but it can make a mediocre piece outstanding.

Other Works by Ruth

I have two published novels, The Chinaberry Album and Heat Lightning, written prior to House on the Forgotten Coast and others that will never see print. To my credit are two prize winning plays as well as short stories and articles in print and on-line magazines and anthologies.

One thing I have learned is that time is crucial to writing. Once you have written something it may take longer than you anticipate to hear from an agent, publisher, editor or anyone involved with your journey. Never disregard the time at your disposal. This makes the policies of RPLA so meaningful in that they recognize and reward unpublished submissions. If an author doesn’t have the weeks, months or years to wait, RPLA respects time and provides anyone who submits an unpublished submission that is accepted the chance to have that work eligible for an award. What a gift to the hard-working author.

Coming Next from this Author

Current work continues on a novel with the working title of “The Receding Tide.” It will complete my Bay Harbor trilogy and free me to work at marketing some plays and writing more short stories.

Connect with Ruth

I can be contacted through my website at  www.ruthcchambers.com. My publicist is listed on my website, and just this week someone reached me through her. I think the webmaster I hired did a wonderful job. Please take a look if you have time. I also use Facebook but not too often.

More about RPLA

The Royal Palm Literary Awards competition is a service of the Florida Writers Association established to recognize excellence in members’ published and unpublished works while providing objective and constructive written assessments for all entrants. Judges include literary agents, publishers, film producers, current or retired professors, teachers, librarians, editors, bestselling and award-winning authors, and journalists from across the nation. Entries are scored against the criteria set by RPLA using rubrics tailored to each genre. Winners are announced at the annual FWA conference during the RPLA awards banquet. To learn more about RPLA, click here for the guidelines.