Bio: Ruchti, Cynthia - Central Wis. Author to Visit NPL (2022)

Contact: Dolores (Mohr) Kenyon
E-mail: dolores@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Ruchti, Brooks

----Source: Clark County Press (Neillsville, Clark Co., WI) 4/20/2022

Central Wis. Author Cynthia Ruchti to Visit NPL (2022)

Central Wisconsin Author Cynthia Ruchti to Visit Neillsville Public Library



Area author Cynthia Ruchti will visit the Neillsville Public Library May 2
to share about the inspiration behind her stories. Submitted photo

By Valorie Brecht

Author Cynthia Ruchti offers stores ‘hemmed in hope,” as she puts it, to encourage and inspire readers.

Ruchti will visit the Neillsville Public Library May 2 at 6 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Ruchti lives in rural Pittsville. She spent 33 years writing and producing a scripted inspirational radio broadcast, “The Heartbeat of the Home.” The broadcast retired in 2012, but just prior to that, Cynthia published her first of what are now more than 36 books – fiction and nonfiction, many of them award-winning, some bestselling.

People are invited to come hear how Ruchti crafts her novels and what it’s like to be an author.

“Most readers love to hear the stories behind the stories. How does a novelist take a thought from idea to book? What personal events intersect with the characters?” wrote Ruchti in an email.

Those are some of the questions she will answer at the May 2 event. She will also share about the impact of story on mental health, anxiety reduction, empathy and more as she talks through her own writing and reading journey and answers attendees’ questions.

Ruchti answered a few questions to help readers get to know her a bit better. The following are her responses.

Q: What are some of your most popular books and what are they about?

A: People often list my first novel, “They Almost Always Come Home,” as their personal favorite. It’s the story of a woman whose husband doesn’t return from his two-week solo trip to the Canadian wilderness and she’s not sure she wanted him to. But she has to retrace his steps, or paddle strokes, through the wilderness to find out what happened to him, to their marriage and to her faith.

Another favorite often mentioned is “As Waters Gone By.” Set on beautiful Madeline Island (near Hayfield), the area itself again serves as a character in the story as a woman and her husband prepare to reunite after his five-year prison sentence that changed her life as well as his. Some of the secondary characters in this story are perhaps among the most memorable, like the quirky Bougie Unfortunate.

“Miles from Where We Started” is the story of a millennial couple nearing their one-year anniversary, but they’re ready to call it quits. This marriage thing is hard! They’re forced into a three-week, three-thousand-mile cross-country trip in a teardrop camper – with an 11-year-old foster boy who has a lot to say about life.

“Afraid of the Light” often comes up in conversations with readers because of its unique Premise. Camille Brooks is a psychologist who counsels hoarders and their families. But because of her past, she’s hoarding emotions with as much fervor as her clients [hoard possessions]. And when the trash hauler she’s hired turns out to be both nemesis and friend…

My recent release, “Facing the Dawn,” is a book that one reviewer said, “ripped her heart to shreds, then put it back together again.” A woman who is practically a single mom to three (in her words) “delinquents” faces more grief than she thinks she can bear. With the help of a couple of unexpected friends, she begins the slow crawl back to mental and emotional health. [It’s] a sensitive look at grief and loss in story form.

Q. What do you hope readers take away from your books?

A: My tagline is “I can’t unravel, I’m hemmed in hope.” That concept makes its way into everything I write, whether it’s women’s fiction or romantic comedy or tender nonfiction. If readers walk away with a sliver or a bucketful of hope, they’ve carried away something of value.

Q: Where do you find inspiration for your writing?”

A: I’m an observer, a noticer. Finding inspiration for a story is like picking up sea glass on a shore or collecting heart-shaped rocks. I look for those elements of beauty or uniqueness or curiosity in the people around me and what matters to them. Nature is always inspiring. Survival and endurance, courage, strength and even points of pain or distress can serve as inspiration for a plot line or a character.

Q: What do you enjoy most about being an author?

A: I most enjoy exploring how far creativity can take us in our approach to what we face in life. I love watching characters take on a life of their own and informing or challenging me, the author.

Q: What projects are you currently working on?

A: I’m playing with the beginnings of a novel set in southwest Wisconsin, where I grew up. It has a charming setting that keeps me awake at night imagining living on that piece of property, counting those unique characters as my friends. The story is still forming, but they’ve won me over.

Q: Tell us a little about yourself.

A: My grade school sweetheart husband and I live in the heart of Wisconsin, not far from our three kids and six (to-date) grandkids. In addition to writing books, I’m a literary agent for Books & Such Literary Management, so I’m swimming in books, proposals, negotiations [and] editing, working with words all day every day. Music is both hobby and soul-health for me. Most of my other hobbies – other than amateur photography – are memories for me now in favor of playing with words.

Q:Anything else you would like people to know?

A: “It’s a joy to have an opportunity to connect with library patrons. In addition to being surrounded by books as a young child, my love for the power of story started with the weekly arrival of a bookmobile in the small village in Minnesota where we lived when I first learned to read. One of the other places that influenced my love of story was every local library that opened its arms to readers like me. So having books that might inspire others like I was inspired as a child and talking about them in a thriving library is truly a dream come trye,