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Gentle reader, I would like to introduce you to Mrs. Eva Rutland. 

I read the bio of this remarkable lady when I first started taking my writing seriously, and found it very inspiring.  It has stayed with me all this time, and I thought I’d share it with you.

Eva Rutland is the author of more than 20 novels, has had skits and plays produced on radio and television, and written a musical comedy.  She sold her first romance novel in 1985, and still writes for Harlequin/Silhouette.

She is also ninety years old.
And blind.

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Born in 1917 to a large, extended family, she was raised in a house her ex-slave grandfather built a few years after the Civil War, and proceeded to graduate from Spelman College.

Eva Rutland went on to marry, and has not only been with her husband for over sixty years, but has successfully raised four successful children.  Her eldest daughter is a social worker, her son is a lobbyist.  She also has two twin daughters.  One of them is a lawyer, and the other writes for a Sacramento newspaper.

Eva Rutland began losing her sight due to macular degeneration, ironically, around the time she began writing.
 
She says that at first she wrote longhand, then progressed to using a typewriter and tape recorder, often not realizing she’d run out of paper as she worked.  She moved on to a critique group that would offer comments for her to tape, from which she would make revisions—which would mean typing everything all over again.  She now uses a computer and voice synthesizer to write what she calls stories “filled with love and laughter and the good guy always wins.”

Eva Rutland has penned over a dozen romances for Harlequin, and in 2000 won the Golden Pen Award for Lifetime Achievement.  And yes—she is still writing.

I think she’s an incredible woman, and I have an unabashed admiration for her.

And oh, by the way…what was that excuse you had for not doing any writing the other day? :wink:

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