Ruth Goring

Ruth Goring is a poet, writer, translator, activist, and visual artist. Dearworthy: Little Meditations on the Revelations of Julian of Norwich (Anamchara Books), illustrated with her botanical art, launched in 2024. Her collage illustrations of seven psalms appear in The Peace Table: A Storybook Bible (Shine/MennoMedia, 2023). She translated Sin remitente, Aurora Posada de Gregorio’s memoir of exile from Chile, into English as No Return Address (Fig Factor Media, 2023), and Marlena Graves’s The Way Up Is Down, a book on spiritual formation, into Spanish as Para subir hay que bajar (IVP Español, 2024).

Isaiah and the Worry Pack released in 2021 as an inaugural title of the IVP Kids imprint. Picturing God (Beaming Books, 2019) is her author-illustrator picture book debut and was honored as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection for January 2020. Her earlier picture book, Adriana's Angels / Los ángeles de Adriana, was released in 2017 (Sparkhouse Family / Augsburg Fortress); the Spanish edition won a silver Moonbeam Award.

Ruth's first poetry collection, Yellow Doors, was published by WordFarm (2003); her second is Soap Is Political (Glass Lyre, 2015). Her poems have also appeared in CALYX, Pilgrimage, Comstock Review, RHINO, New Madrid, Crab Orchard Review, Reunion, Iron Horse Literary Review, and elsewhere. Having grown up in Colombia, in recent decades she has provided accompaniment and advocacy to Colombian peace communities and human rights defenders. Her lifelong career was in editing; in 2021 she retired from the books division of the University of Chicago Press and from teaching advanced manuscript editing in the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

Her favorite memories include donning a swimsuit to jump in the rain barrel under tropical downpours in southern Colombia; reading and singing with her kids, Claire and Graham, at bedtime when they were little; and, more recently, camping solo and cooking over a fire near the Illinois River.