Ruth Gresty

Ruth has worked in Marketing for twenty-seven years and has always loved writing and storytelling. Understanding people and their behaviour, creating stories that resonate and developing engaging and enduring narratives have all been key to success in her professional background.

From a personal perspective, Ruth is a Manchester born, bred and based menopausal mum of three boys (twelve, fifteen and twenty seven). She spends most of her weekends trying to manage the family mayhem with her partner Simon and watching their younger boys on the sideline of various sports pitches hunting for a loo (occasionally having to resort to a wild wee), a sausage sandwich and a brew while trying to keep warm in doubled-up big socks (mainly stolen from the males in her house) and multiple layers (having had it drilled into her since childhood that it is the number of layers that count, not the thickness of each layer - the complete opposite of friendships).

A nasty accident on Good (Bad) Friday in 2024 meant she spent several months sat on her arse with one leg having to be perpetually higher than said arse. As an energetic, self-confessed curator of chaos, she needed something to focus on and keep her from going frankly crazy. And keep her family from going crazy too. She found that you can’t do much when you're in acute pain with one leg in the air (including the jigsaws and ‘paint by numbers’ well-wishers had kindly gifted her). But you can read, reflect, think and you can definitely reminisce and daydream. And you can write. Which is what she did.

Her debut novel, Paper Over It, combines her sometimes over-enthusiastic imagination with insights gained from growing up in the 80s and becoming a young mum in the late 90s, her silent struggle with eating disorders in her earlier years, the power of some relationships and the destructive nature of others, and the joy of family, friendship, loyalty, hope and laughter.