Let's Do Lunch! Interview with Sandra Ruttan

I am very pleased to introduce you to Sandra Ruttan, one of the editors of Spinetingler Magazine. Sandra is also the author of several short stories and the novel Suspicious Circumstances, due to be released later this fall. Sandra and I met through J.T. Ellison and the Internet, although I look forward to having the opportunity to meet her in person someday. I asked Sandra a few rather personal questions, and she was gracious enough to answer them with unabashed candor. Fasten your seat belts, sit back and enjoy our Let's Do Lunch ride with this fascinating lady.

JB: Is it true you actually saw the Berlin Wall come down? Can you give us a snippet of what that experience was like?

SR: I was in Berlin when they were carving it up. I’d been in Austria, living in relative isolation, with five minutes of English news each morning. It was intense because they were talking about sealing the borders and already then, in 1989, there were problems in Yugoslavia and people were trying to get out.

This was pretty hard for me, because my German wasn’t up to being able to follow the news fluently, and I’m a news junkie. Everyone was on edge, things were happening, and it was hard to find out exactly what was going on.

I still get shivers, thinking about going to Berlin. You had to cross East Germany, and although things were changing there was this palpable tension in the air. I was sitting on the bus sneaking pictures of the border crossing and turned to find an East German soldier standing beside me, staring at me. He made it pretty clear taking any more pictures would be a bad idea.

You could feel the energy in Berlin. When I went through Checkpoint Charlie, you had to go in alone and have your passport stamped and then walk between two armed guards. It was the strangest thing. On one side, the wall was covered with graffiti, and on the other side it was blank. Then, with the collapse of the eastern bloc, people started cutting up the wall. There was talk that it had chemicals in it so if you breathed it in you’d get sick, which had been part of the propaganda to keep people away from the wall before it came down, I guess. Still, a lot of German people wouldn’t let you in their house if you had a chunk of it. There were all these deep-rooted fears and uncertainties and although it was very exciting, it was also tense.

I stayed in Berlin until New Year’s Eve, the night some people died near Brandenburger Tor, partying got out of hand. The train station was filled with people saying it was time to get out before something bad happened. It’s hard to explain why that wasn’t surprising, but some of the people in East Germany were walking across the border for the first time. You could tell immediately, because they would stop and stare at the things you and I wouldn’t even give a second glance. And not everyone was happy about it, people were scared. Nobody knew what this meant for the future.

One of my favourite experiences was a few months later, when I was with a German friend. We went to a border town in southern Germany and went to talk to some East German border guards. They laughingly told us a few months ago we would have been shot. They wouldn’t let me cross the border there because Canadians weren’t authorized, but my friend walked right up to the Iron Curtain and ripped a huge chunk of it off. She gave me a small piece and I still have it. My own little piece of history.

JB: Wow, what an incredible story. What made you decide to spend a year in Europe? What were some of the things you did while you were there (places you visited/lived, things you experienced, etc.)?

SR: I went to Europe because I was running away. My teen years had been very stressful. I was assaulted when I was 14 and I went through counseling, switched high schools, but there were family problems that had been hard for me to deal with. I didn’t consider myself to be a strong person, and by the time I was 18, I was desperate to get away from it all. Other friends had gone to Europe after high school, so I did too.

I did so many things. We could be here all day. The things that I really remember? Reading Heart of Darkness in the train station in Berlin. Walking through Lisbon, Portugal, on a glorious, sunny day and going to see a movie for the first time in months. Experiencing the midnight sun in Sweden. Looking up places mentioned in the Ruttan family records in Luxembourg. Having a beer by the Rhine. Watching Italians drinking beer in McDonalds. Fish and chips in Eastbourne. Seeing the Coliseum with my own eyes. Getting seasick on the ferry from France to Ireland, and to make matters worse being surrounded by Germans and Brits while England played Germany in a world cup soccer match. Having my luggage lost in France.

Learning that no matter where you go, your problems go with you and running away doesn’t solve them.

I did have to explain I wasn’t a terrorist because I was waiting in the train station in Dublin. It’s laughable now, but then it wasn’t. Then driving up north, crossing the border and knowing real fear when we ended up beside military trucks in Belfast. It was a real shock to see what people were accustomed to living with in Ireland.

I’d go back in a heartbeat. I love Italy, love the art, the culture. Of course, I had my first marriage proposal that year from an Italian man and, well, let’s just say now I know to never talk to Italian men. Ever.

JB: You have an extensive career as a journalist, now adding reviewer and interviewer to your list of credits, and you’ve written several short stories. How difficult/easy was it to pour all that energy into writing novels?

SR: Funny, I think of myself having more of a play career as a journalist. When I was in college a guy two years ahead of me went to Yugoslavia and came back in a body bag. I got sent to the college seminar on dealing with death to do an article for the newspaper. Although I personally didn’t know this guy, it hit everyone hard, and I never really felt comfortable with ripping people’s lives apart and prying into their pain. I pretty much never had what it took to be as ruthless as you sometimes have to be to be an investigative reporter. People always come first, but I couldn’t see myself writing features for a lifetime.

I do love doing the author interviews, because it gives me a chance to ask the questions I have always wanted to know the answer to but haven’t seen asked. But I also always try to read some or all of the author’s work first, and other interviews they’ve done, so it’s a lot of work. Still, it’s a nice mental break from the other writing, and I enjoy it.

When you write short stories they have to be tight, every word counts. In a novel, you have some room to set the stage and my mind always goes to the subplots. When I write short stuff, I’m forever telling myself to stay on target, because I always want to explore the character in greater depth.

I completely lose myself in writing a novel. I live and breathe it for the six weeks or so while I do a first draft. I’m not saying it doesn’t have challenges, but I guess there’s a passion for it that compels me. I can easily procrastinate on other stuff, but I can’t stop myself from working on a novel. I even keep pen and paper beside the bed and will wake up in the middle of the night and make notes. My mind is so consumed by it I dream scenes and that’s why between edits I need to blow off steam doing frivolous stuff.

And I think there’s more of me in the novels than my other work. Particularly the first novel, Suspicious Circumstances. Lara Kelly is a journalist. Tymen Farraday grew up overseas, so he has a different perspective on things. If it survives final edits, there’s actually a conversation between them about traveling, and Lara talks about always wanting to go far away, to run away from her life. She’s not me, but we do have some things in common.

JB: How did Spinetingler get started?

SR: My husband decided to start an ezine. I told him he was an idiot. It was another beautiful marriage moment in our household, but he eventually persuaded me.

I’ve found it hard, because I didn’t want to have a high profile. The original issue, I had a short story in it because we didn’t have a lot of submissions to work from, but I was never eligible for our contests and never got paid. Still, it felt awkward for me.

It was much easier when I could focus more on the interviews and editing. My husband’s really busy, because he works full-time and is a full-time volunteer firefighter plus he’s in training this year to be a fire investigator, so I almost run Spinetingler myself now. I’ve had to recruit editors, usually from people who submit top-quality work and people I’ve gotten to know who have credentials. That way, when stuff comes in from writers I know of, I stay out of the selection process.

Last year, Stuart MacBride promoted us a lot on his blog, and the interest in the ezine took off. Our hits started going from a few hundred per issue to a few thousand. Then Sarah Weinman mentioned my interview with Laura Lippman on her blog. We started off averaging a few hundred downloads of each issue, plus online reads, and now the latest issue’s been downloaded 4000 times. It’s incredible.

We only really started promoting in November when I started blogging and finally put notices on DorothyL, and we had over 180,000 hits on the site last year, which is amazing. Obviously, there’s a demand for good short fiction out there, and it’s great to see how excited people get when they hear their story is accepted. We’ve added a Canadian issue again this year, and are running a double issue for Fall, and the submissions just keep pouring in.

JB: There are some beautiful shots on your website. Is the photography a professional or personal activity?

SR: I have worked as a professional photographer but I consider it more of a hobby than anything, it’s one of my escapes.

When I studied photography, one of the things we were taught was to always look for the fresh angle. Sometimes I lie on the ground or climb into a tree to get a different perspective on a shot. And that’s a good philosophy as an author. Step outside the situation and look at it from another perspective. You see different things that way, and if you can bring that out in your photography or your writing, I think it really adds something to your work. It’s what I aspire to. There’s a lot to learn in writing, as well as photography. Always room to grow.

JB: Great advice, and thanks so much for sharing your personal experiences with us. Now we'll get into the "just for fun" questions.

Hot bubble bath, glass of wine, good book. Yes or no?

SR: Absolutely! Last time my husband and I went away, I was reading Pelecanos in the tub by firelight with wine. Kevin isn’t much for bubble baths but he was off reading one of my Simon Kernick books. That’s a perfect getaway for me.

JB: What’s your favorite kind of food (ethnic or otherwise)?

SR: Costa Rican food, probably. Similar to Mexican, not as spicy. There’s this place on the coast of Costa Rica that makes the best lemon chicken in the world. And the fresh fruit. Yum. I love Mexican food as well. And Italian food. But I have a health issue that requires me to try to avoid grains and spice, unfortunately.

JB: Father of the Bride or The Godfather? Top Gun or Young Guns? Sleepless in Seattle or The Big Sleep?

SR: Oh boy. I’d have to say The Godfather, Young Guns and The Big Sleep. I’m not really big on romance movies or comedies. I prefer darker dramas, like The Usual Suspects, Mystic River, Heat, The Ghost and The Darkness, Shawshank Redemption, LOTR The Two Towers. There’s no better show on television than The Wire.

JB: [grin] I know folks who would agree with you.

Thanks again, Sandra, for taking the time to visit with us today. What a great story you have to tell!

Be sure to visit Sandra's website and mosey on over to her blog as well - but be warned, this stuff is not for the faint of heart!

Canadian Sandra Ruttan has worked as a reporter and written a wide range of articles but says her passion is the mystery/crime genre. She uses the forum of fiction to explore social issues in her stories. Now living in western Canada with her husband, she now devotes herself to working on manuscripts, articles, interviews and reviews full-time.