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Ruth Smith Meyer is an Author and Inspirational Speaker who likes to learn from life and share her growth for the inspiration of others.

Ruth was born and raised near Toronto.  From an early age, books have been Ruth’s constant companions. Reading not only helped her understand people and human nature, it transported her to places, times and into ideas that expanded her world and stimulated her imagination.

Married to Norman Smith in 1960, she and her husband ran a registered Holstein dairy farm until 1970. They and their three children then moved to Ailsa Craig, where a fourth child was born.  Ruth took advantage of Fanshawe College courses and many other seminars and workshops in her quest for knowledge.  She was also involved in the community, helping to develop a careers guidance program for students, helping with speech therapy in the kindergarten classroom, and developing many resources under the guidance of school board staff.

Ruth and Norman wrote and presented talks at Marriage Encounter weekends until his death in 1999.  While no longer presenting, she still has a burning passion to help couples make the most out of their marriages, a theme which readers resonate with in her books. 

Ruth always tries to welcome life's obstacles as exciting opportunities to grow and test her endurance. One of the greatest of these challenges was the death of her husband of thirty-nine years, the subsequent grief journey, and finding a new way to enjoy life.

Ruth is the mother of a son and three daughters who combined to make her grandmother of five.  After the death of her first husband in 1999, her second marriage, in 2005, to Paul Meyer enriched her life with another three daughters, one son and thirteen more grandchildren.  Together, they alternate living in Listowel and Ailsa Craig, ON.

Word Alive Press interviewed Ruth to learn about her writing experiences and inspiration.

• Can you tell us when you began to write?

Writing always has been an outlet and a way of sharing what I learned. Both reading and writing are as crucial to my daily sustenance as food.  I have had articles and poems published in several magazines. For thirteen years Keen-agers Korner, comments and observations from the Seniors Day Centre where I worked, was published in four local weekly papers. I’m also a regular contributor to REJOICE! a daily devotional magazine. But it wasn’t until my first WRITE! Canada conference that I began to think of myself as an author.  I felt rejuvenated by the idea, and because it was only a year and a half after the death of my husband, I felt as though I had discovered a reason to go on living!

• You have published three books now, can you tell us what inspired each of them? 

I always had a dream of writing a book.  At the Adult Day Centre where I worked, I interviewed Freda Litt for a book I compiled (to help the seniors to get to know each other better).  She told me the story about her mother, and I knew I had the seed for a story.  I asked her permission to use it if I ever wrote a novel.  Not Easily Broken was born. That story appealed to me because of the passion I have for marriages and the belief that if a couple is willing to work at their relationship, it can blossom even through the most difficult of circumstances.  Ellie and John most certainly beat the odds and succeeded in having a happy and intimately satisfying relationship.

The family appreciated the story so much, they asked if I would write one about their mother too.  That is how Not Far from the Tree came into being.  Ellie’s daughter, Rina faced different circumstances, but she too, loyally persevered to bring her a satisfying relationship in her later years. Having known her personally, I know how much she loved her husband and family.  She was a real inspiration to me and I hope, through the book, to many others.

When my daughter’s best friend died at the age of thirty-nine I looked for a book to help her young niece and nephew cope with their grief.  I couldn’t find any books dealing with the loss of a loved one, aside from pets or perhaps grandparents. A poem began to come to me during the night, so I got up and wrote Tyson’s Sad Bad Day.  Illustrating the book was another challenging stretch for me, but one that gave a great deal of satisfaction. My website www.ruthsmithmeyer.com  has a page with further help for parents to gently assist their children in dealing with grief.

• What do you hope your books will accomplish?

I hope that people will find inspiration to face their own difficulties with courage and determination—to use the difficult times in life to stretch and grow to use them as stepping stones rather than let them be stumbling blocks.

• What response have you had from your readers?

Many who have experienced the death of a spouse have affirmed me for my honesty in writing about that in Not Easily Broken. Many have come away from their reading feeling empowered to face their own difficulties with courage and hope.  The most rewarding is that a few people actually came to faith in Christ through reading them. That alone makes it all worthwhile.

• What are you currently working on?

Over the years, I have been vitally involved with worship in my church and elsewhere.  I have written many dramatic, responsive and creative scripture, litanies and other readings as well as calls to worship and prayers for different parts of the service. At the request of many, I am working on compiling those into an easy-to-use resource for other worship leaders.

 For my children and grandchildren, I would like to write an account of my own life and experience as a legacy for them.  In addition I have several ideas for other novels that are waiting to be written.

Speaking engagements also keep me busy, especially through the winter months. I thoroughly enjoy those opportunities and incidentally they are also one of the best ways to sell my books.  My speaking engagements are usually posted in the calendar on my website: www.ruthsmithmeyer.com.

• What advice would you give to new authors?

If you feel a deep passion for what you are writing, chances are you have something worth sharing, but you need to learn how to share it effectively. Join a writer’s group to get used to critiquing and being critiqued.  Carefully weigh the advice you get, implementing the advice that feels best to you and what makes your writing more concise and improves the flow.  Even then, get a good editor to go over your finished writing, and again weigh the advice carefully.

Not Easily Broken, Not Far from the Tree and Tyson’s Sad Bad Day are all available where fine Christian books are sold.