Background

Ruth Pennebaker has written adult fiction (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough, 2011), as well as three highly acclaimed young-adult novels, Don't Think Twice, Conditions of Love, and Both Sides Now. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Texas Monthly, The Dallas Morning News, Parents, Redbook, McCall's, Cooking Light, and other nationwide publications.

​

You can find her most recent work on Substack in Just Another Blue Hour Dame, where she continues to write about everything from feminism to wrinkles, lamentable obituaries to dislike of vegetables, politics to marriage.​

​

Ruth and her mad-scientist husband, both of whom seem to be aging somewhat, live in downtown Austin, hoping this will make them look cool. They are parents of an adult daughter and son and have four grandchildren. So far, anyway.

​

Ms. Pennebaker's hobbies are reading, yoga, social criticism, and free-form worrying. A card-carrying member of the Chickasaw Nation, she was born in Ponca City, Oklahoma, close to a refinery. She holds a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Eckerd College and, for reasons that now elude her, a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law.