You might not know it to talk with her, but Ruth Schiffmann loves words; written preferred over spoken. She collects them in notebooks: pitter-patter, mellifluous, bioluminescence, and strings them together into stories, hoping to discover their emotional weight.

More than two hundred of her short stories, poems, essays, and flash fictions have been published in The Boston Globe Magazine, Every Day Fiction, Highlights, and elsewhere.

Growing up, not once did she stay up late reading by flashlight under tented blankets. She almost never went to the library, and her mother once told her she need go no further than the jacket copy to write a decent book report. She received many A grades by embellishing with her own hand-drawn illustrations. When she finally discovered the magic of reading (thank you Paul Zindel, William Sleator, and Stephen Menick) she made up for lost time, devouring well over a hundred books a year. Now a good book takes priority over cooking for her family, housecleaning, and a social life.

Her favorite stories are ones whose characters leave their fingerprints on her heart. She will read anything by Amy Harmon, Cath Crowley, and Melina Marchetta.