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Ruth Leigh Writes

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Big Words And Made Up Stories

My answer to the question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was always the same. "I'm going to be a writer." Probably the last time I said that and believed it was around the age of 8. I'm now in my 50s and I am, most definitely, a writer. What happened in between? Let's have a look. Subscribe below (right) to keep up to date with Ruth’s latest blogs.


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A window on the world

November 19, 2020

When I was a lass back in the 1870s, television was a wonderful and mysterious world apart. At our house, we didn’t have one. All my friends did and when I went over to their houses to play, we would sit down and watch the children’s programmes until it was time for the boring old news which signalled home time.

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In November 2020 Tags A window on the world
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Reviews Archive

  • December 2025
    • Dec 3, 2025 Messy Glory: A Chat With Liz Carter
  • October 2025
    • Oct 7, 2025 Janet's Back
  • November 2024
    • Nov 23, 2024 Stranger in a Strange Land
  • October 2024
    • Oct 3, 2024 On the Path with Carolyn
  • November 2023
    • Nov 17, 2023 Here Comes the Bride. Ruth reviews Joy Margett's latest book, The Bride.
    • Nov 13, 2023 A Peach of a Book: Charlie Peach’s Pumpkins and Other Stories
  • October 2023
    • Oct 21, 2023 Branching Out: An Advent Chat with Rachel Yarworth
  • June 2023
    • Jun 7, 2023 The True Meaning of Value. Ruth interviews author Liz Carter
  • May 2023
    • May 18, 2023 Crowned with History: A Chat with Author Claire Dunn
  • March 2023
    • Mar 19, 2023 Secrets and Redemption: The Dangerous Dance of Emma JJ
  • February 2023
    • Feb 25, 2023 Becoming Queen Bathsheba: A Tale of Murder, Loss and Redemption
    • Feb 6, 2023 Beneath the Tamarisk Tree: Light and Shade
  • January 2023
    • Jan 27, 2023 An Extraordinary Ordinary Story
  • December 2022
    • Dec 4, 2022 A Game of Two Halves: The Wanderer Reborn
  • November 2022
    • Nov 22, 2022 Contemplating Christmas – An Advent Resource. Ruth interviews Abby Ball
  • August 2022
    • Aug 11, 2022 East of Eden: An Everyday Story of Biblical Folk
  • July 2022
    • Jul 11, 2022 The Pilgrim’s Path: The Prequel to The Healing by Joy Margetts
  • June 2022
    • Jun 29, 2022 Funny Ha Ha. Ruth on Sophie Neville's Funnily Enough
  • May 2022
    • May 30, 2022 The Magnificent Moustache and Beyond: A Collection of Children’s Stories
    • May 9, 2022 A Wander Round Warwickshire
  • April 2022
    • Apr 11, 2022 A Creator of Worlds: Maressa Mortimer’s “Burrowed”
    • Apr 5, 2022 A Nice Cup of Tea and a Good Read
  • March 2022
    • Mar 11, 2022 The Wounds of Time: A Tangled Web
  • February 2022
    • Feb 28, 2022 Beneath the Tamarisk Tree: Light and Shade
    • Feb 21, 2022 All Things New: Inspiring Stories from Matt McChlery
    • Feb 10, 2022 From Earth to Heaven
  • January 2022
    • Jan 24, 2022 Finding Truth and Identity: A Review of “Like Him” by Julia Stevens
  • November 2021
    • Nov 23, 2021 Sourcing the Good Stuff: Poppy Denby and the Crystal Crypt
  • August 2021
    • Aug 4, 2021 All Aboard for a Murder or Two: The Shetland Sea Murders by Marsali Taylor
  • July 2021
    • Jul 22, 2021 Terrific Tartan Noir: Unravelling
    • Jul 15, 2021 Scent of Water: One woman's journey through grief
  • May 2021
    • May 13, 2021 Leah + Rachel + Jacob + Esau (Gamora + Nebula)
  • April 2021
    • Apr 20, 2021 Two by Two: A Review of “Not Knowing but Still Going” by Jocelyn-Anne Harvey
  • March 2021
    • Mar 15, 2021 A chat with Joy Margetts

Ruth leigh BLOGS

Featured
Back to School
July 8, 2026
Back to School
July 8, 2026

Sometimes I hear people saying that their school days were the best of their lives and I always think, “Really? Those were your happy times? Being put into an institution with a bunch of random people and being made to follow rules you had no control over?”

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July 8, 2026
Flushed With Success
June 5, 2026
Flushed With Success
June 5, 2026

One of the most common questions asked of authors is this:

 “Where do you get your ideas from?”

 From my actual life, is the answer.

When all my children were still at primary school, I helped to run an ambitious Christingle. We had around twenty-five angels of varying sizes, seven Wise Men, eight shepherds, an innkeeper and the Holy Family, comprising Mary and Joseph plus the Baby Jesus played by somebody’s doll. At the dress rehearsal, there was a punch-up between the innkeeper and one of the shepherds. Central Casting (me) had forgotten that they loathed each other. A wrangler was appointed for each people group to ensure there was no recurrence of violence. Nits broke out amongst the heavenly host. There was a lot of scratching.

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June 5, 2026
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April 22, 2026
The Writer's Life
April 22, 2026

April is one of my favourite months for several reasons. It’s Mr Leigh’s birthday, the bluebell wood next door bursts into bloom with its intensely blue fragrant carpet, daffodils are over, camellias are on their last gasp, but the wisteria is starting to come out as are leaves on the trees and the forget-me-nots which I definitely didn’t plant last year. 7th April is the anniversary of the creation of Isabella M Smugge and reminds me of that moment when a ludicrously self-satisfied woman with everything money could buy sprang into my mind and started off my fiction career.

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April 22, 2026
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March 13, 2026
Don't Get Involved
March 13, 2026

Since I became a fiction writer, I’ve been privileged to go and help with Year Nine and Ten Careers Days around Suffolk, to give talks on World Book Day and to deliver inspirational workshops. What, you might be asking, has a woman in her riper years got to say to a bunch of GenZs who know more about technology than she ever will, who are inheriting an earth which looks entirely different to the one she inhabited at fourteen and fifteen and who, we must hope, will make decisions as adults that mean that love wins over hate and compassion over greed.

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March 13, 2026
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February 17, 2026
No Call for Buckets
February 17, 2026

Back in 2001, along with much of the rest of the UK population, I started watching a new kind of television show. It purported to be a documentary, set in a fairly ordinary, Slough-based company. The camera lingered too long on participants’ awkward expressions, it picked up whispered conversations which weren’t meant for public consumption and it kicked off one of the most hotly debated, “Will they, won’t they?” office relationships in the shape of Tim and Dawn. 

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February 17, 2026
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January 23, 2026
A Good Clear Out
January 23, 2026

This month marks the fifth birthday of the publication of my first novel, The Diary of Isabella M Smugge. I made her up as a joke for a blog I wrote in April 2020, sick of people on Instagram banging on about baking banana bread, living their best lives, making memories and doing Joe Wicks every morning. There was a point when I was publishing four blogs a month. I was rarely stuck for ideas. Fifty-four years of life experience and obsessive reading had filled up the header tank in my brain to the very brim.

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January 23, 2026
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December 12, 2025
On What I Hate I Feed Not: Or The Strange Case of the Medlars
December 12, 2025

Welcome back to the Ruth Leigh Writes blog! If you’re reading this, it’s because you subscribed (thank you), you follow me on the socials, you read my books or we’ve met at an event. However you know me, it’s good to have you along.

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December 12, 2025
July 21, 2025
July Newsletter (2025)
July 21, 2025

Newsletter Time! Sparkles, School Talks and Colin’s Antics
Welcome to this month’s round-up from your friendly neighbourhood author (that’s me, Ruth Leigh). I’ve finally handed over My Own Darling Child for editing—yes, it’s happening—and I’m already plotting the next book with some familiar Issy Smugge flavour stirred in. Between literary festivals, creative writing workshops, school visits and the ongoing adventures of Colin (who is, once again, upright and adored), it’s been a joyful whirlwind. There’s even a surprise book review and a chance to meet me (and possibly Colin) in person. Pop the kettle on and have a read…

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July 21, 2025
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April 21, 2023
Peaks and Troughs
April 21, 2023

I’m back! It’s been a while since I wrote anything for my own blog. I’ve been busy writing the three Isabella M Smugge books, my first collection of Jane Austen short stories (I’ll tell you about that in the next blog) and generally throwing myself headfirst into the life of a full time writer. Back at the end of 2021 when I considered what that would look like, I visualised days full of ideas and creativity, books selling in huge numbers, people coming up to me in the street and murmuring, “Aren’t you – Ruth Leigh?” Lots of fun stuff has happened and it’s been great, but glamorous it ain’t.

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April 21, 2023
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October 10, 2022
Andy Chamberlain interviews Ruth Leigh as part of the blog tour for The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge
October 10, 2022

Writer, Andy Chamberlain, interviews Ruth Leigh as part of the blog tour for The Continued Times of Isabella M Smugge.

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October 10, 2022
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September 19, 2022
Creating a World: Hashtags, Selfies and Self-Plumping Pillows
September 19, 2022

It’s been quite a while since I published anything on here. In my defence, I have been quite busy, writing novels (three published in eighteen months), doing my freelance work and keeping the family alive. But you know, it’s time! It really is. These days, all the evidence points to me being a Proper Writer.

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September 19, 2022
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May 9, 2022
Happy Second Anniversary, Isabella!
May 9, 2022

Just for a laugh, I made up a woman who was the complete opposite of me. Rich, posh, skinny with an agent and a publisher and a gorgeous Grade II listed house. Out it went in April and got good comments. On 7th May, I wrote about her again and to my utter amazement received the following message from Tony Collins, a literary agent.

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May 9, 2022
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February 24, 2022
And She's Off!
February 24, 2022

The online book launch for the Trials of Isabella M Smugge. Back in the day (by which I mean when we didn’t routinely wear masks and bandy terms like, “LFT” and “PCR test” around), authors, what had written books, would have book launches. These would take place in bookshops, or pubs, or libraries, they tell me. Lots of people would come, buy their signed copy, listen to the author speak and sip fizz and nibble canapes. It was all jolly good fun, apparently.

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February 24, 2022
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January 14, 2022
No More Eeros Anymore
January 14, 2022

Simple elements of modern life, which everyone else takes for granted, pass the Leigh household by. Suffolk isn’t known for its fast internet speeds, and that’s fine. If I wanted super-duper all-singing all-dancing full-fat broadband I’d have stayed in Essex. However, even by the county’s standards, out here it’s lamentable. It drops out at least twice a week. Even when we upgraded to the Very Posh Router it still disappeared from time to time, waiting until I was up against a deadline and then deciding to go off and do something else.

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January 14, 2022
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December 20, 2021
#shoplocal
December 20, 2021

Only a few days till Christmas. How did that happen? It seems like yesterday that we were struggling through yet another lockdown, unsure of what the future would bring. It’s been quite a year. Queues at petrol stations, new Covid variants, Christmas parties that happened, then didn’t happen, then probably did happen but it was OK because everyone stuck to the guidelines and they were really, really tired with running the country and all, so they deserved to let their hair down.

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December 20, 2021
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November 18, 2021
Shameful is the head that wears the crown
November 18, 2021

A lifelong Guardian reader, I followed the links my friend sent me. The embers blazed up into those old familiar flames as I read about the shameful part the then Foreign Secretary (our current PM, bless his fluffy little blond noggin) had played in Nazanin’s incarceration. Anger grew in my heart as I did the background research I should have done when this story made headline news the first time around.

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November 18, 2021
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November 10, 2021
Isabella Smugge says #challengeaccepted Part Two
November 10, 2021

PART TWO - I love a challenge and so does my heroine, insanely successful lifestyle blogger Isabella M Smugge. Some kind person (I know not who) came up with a book challenge, helpfully named #31daysofoctoberchallenge. The idea is that you post every day on your socials with that hashtag, in whatever style you like. Top mate and writer Wendy H Jones alerted me to the challenge – thanks Wendy!

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November 10, 2021
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November 3, 2021
Isabella Smugge says #challengeaccepted Part One
November 3, 2021

I love a challenge and so does my heroine, insanely successful lifestyle blogger Isabella M Smugge. Some kind person (I know not who) came up with a book challenge, helpfully named #31daysofoctoberchallenge. The idea is that you post every day on your socials with that hashtag, in whatever style you like. Top mate and writer Wendy H Jones alerted me to the challenge – thanks Wendy!

So for every day in October, I celebrated a National Day and look at how it ties with Isabella’s world. Welcome to the ride!

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November 3, 2021
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October 21, 2021
Trials, Tribulations and Hashtags
October 21, 2021

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.” These wise words are ascribed to Saul Bellow, a multi-award-winning man of letters and general Very Clever Chap, and if he thinks it’s true, it probably is.

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October 21, 2021
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September 30, 2021
Hashtag Heaven Winners Announced!
September 30, 2021

With Hashtag Heaven, Ruth Leigh invited her readers and viewers to think of a hashtag Issy might use in her next adventure. The winning hashtags feature in the trials of Isabella M Smugge (now available to order) and their creators also make an appearance in the book.

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September 30, 2021
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September 24, 2021
Issy Rides Again
September 24, 2021

It’s been a while since I wrote a blog for my own website. My staggeringly successful creation, top lifestyle blogger and mumfluencer Isabella M Smugge would be horrified and her recently Botoxed agent Mimi Stanhope would be apoplectic with rage. I hope you, dear readers, will overlook this silence as I have been rather busy getting Issy’s continued adventures down on paper.

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September 24, 2021
Book Cover Reveal for The Trials of Isabella M Smugge
August 13, 2021
Book Cover Reveal for The Trials of Isabella M Smugge
August 13, 2021

Here, at last, is the long-awaited book cover, the sequel to Isabella's adventures, the trials of Isabella M Smugge. You can get your hands on a signed first edition in late September if you sign up here on my website (below), or get it in all good bookshops and on Amazon in early October.

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August 13, 2021
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August 10, 2021
Island Life
August 10, 2021

Nearly sixty years ago, two people decided to go away on holiday. Both were in their thirties, both single, and both had decided that they were never going to meet “The One” so might as well resign themselves to the single life. They travelled to Shetland, the archipelago flung out into the sea, nearer Norway than Scotland. In the guest house, the woman noticed a good-looking man glancing across at her. Whichever trip she booked up, he would be at her elbow, chatting. By the end of the week, they were going out and two years later they got married. They were my parents (pictured above in 2008). Without Shetland, I wouldn’t be here, so it seemed appropriate to have a family holiday there this summer.

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August 10, 2021
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June 24, 2021
From Pawnee to Bloomington: Indiana Stories
June 24, 2021

And that’s how we find ourselves in the fine state of Indiana. One of my favourite films is set there (Breaking Away), as are two of my favourite TV shows (Parks & Recreation and Stranger Things). Watching the Parks and Recreation Department of fictional Indiana town Pawnee (America’s fourth fattest town!) I started musing about the state…

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June 24, 2021
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June 10, 2021
In Which Ruth Wields a Lance
June 10, 2021

Do you ever find yourself writing a word or phrase then looking at it as if it were the first time you’d ever encountered it? Every so often, I’ll write that something is full to the gunwales and think, ‘Heck, I need to know exactly what that means and look it up. (It’s a nautical term referring to the upper edge or planking of the side of a boat). I was reading a novel not that long ago, traditionally published by someone quite famous and it was spelt as gunnals. Which made me very cross because I am such a pedant.

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June 10, 2021
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April 21, 2021
A Tale of Two Extraordinary Gentlemen
April 21, 2021

I read nearly everything in the paper and the supplements and over the past few weeks, two stories have leapt out and smacked me between the eyes. They were fascinating, surprising and gave me a window into someone else’s world. Here they are. I hope you enjoy them.

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April 21, 2021
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April 8, 2021
The Rational Elasticated Waist Movement
April 8, 2021

I sit here, in my draughty Victorian house, at a mid-19th century kneehole walnut desk, writing. The room in which I sit was built in 1892, its only heating an open fire. My feet rest on the original red tiles and my little writing nook is nestled in the corner of the room, by an exposed brick wall.

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April 8, 2021
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March 25, 2021
Half the World is Saying This
March 25, 2021

I’ve asked myself the question “What is writing for?” on a number of occasions since I started blogging. Most of the time, for me at least, it’s to entertain and amuse. I love making people laugh and let’s be honest, for the last year, laughter has been needed more than ever. From time to time, however, I find myself sitting here angry, incensed, burning with a desire to make a change with my words. Today is one of those days.

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March 25, 2021
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February 18, 2021
Jane and me
February 18, 2021

It is a fact universally acknowledged that Jane Austen is a genius in a bonnet. If you disagree or would like to start a fight (Austen-related only, if you’d be so kind), please indicate your intentions in the comments. Otherwise, let me take up my pen and a sheet of hot-pressed paper and commence.

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February 18, 2021
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January 31, 2021
In which Ruth writes a novel
January 31, 2021

I remember sitting at home aged around four while my mother read me a story. It was a large print version of Little Red Riding Hood and I can still remember laughing uncontrollably at the picture of the wolf in retreat (why do children find bottoms so funny?) and then being surprised as the black squiggles on the page re-arranged themselves into words I recognised. There was no stopping me after that.

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January 31, 2021

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