When Cassandra arrives in Zaire with her physician husband and two small sons, she begins to hear stories… stories that arouse her innate gift for detecting injustice and desire to set the country right. Mimosa Road follows two young mothers as they navigate the brutal world of Mobutu’s Zaire.
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About Ruth
Ruth Linnea Whitney lived two years in Zaire, now DRC, and, with husband David, has made lengthy sojourns volunteering in other countries of Africa. Those years inform her new novel, Mimosa Road (Adelaide Books, July, 2022). They also animate her debut novel, Slim (SMU Press, 2003), which received the First Book Award from the Writers Guild of Presbyterian Church USA.
Ruth’s short stories and essays appear in The Threepenny Review, Kaleidoscope, Natural Bridge, Assisi, and elsewhere; poetry in Raven Chronicles and Ancient Paths; journalism in Chicago Tribune, Town & Country, Seattle PI, and elsewhere. Professional memberships include: The Authors Guild, International Women’s Writing Group (IWWG), Pacific NW Writers Association (PNWA), and Writers Guild of PCUSA. She has taught primary school subjects to AIDS orphans in Uganda, ESL to nurses in Vietnam and to immigrants at Peninsula College in Port Townsend, WA, where she lives with David. They have two adult sons, a daughter-in-law extraordinaire, and two remarkable grandsons.
For Ruth, writing is a spiritual practice. Contemplative prayer illuminates the subjects she explores, drawing wisdom from Franciscan Richard Rohr, who writes that “prayer is not one of the ten thousand things. It’s that by which we see the ten thousand things.” Her love of singing harmony plays into her writing, where she seeks paths to harmony in a discordant world and gives voice to those seldom heard.