Zelly Ruskin: How I Became An Author

Zelly Ruskin: How I Became An Author

I worked in adoption in the 80s, became a mother in the 90s and had fertility issues. In writing my book, Not Yours to Keep, I drew from each of these emotional and personal experiences, but they aren’t how my author story started.

It begins at the most demoralizing and isolated moment of my life. Unable to turn to friends or family, I took pen to paper to express my feelings and gain clarity. What developed was an exploration of how I’d ended up there.

I’d heard a sermon once about retrospect that stuck with me forever. The essence of it was that retrospect is only that. You can look back on your behavior and the choices you’ve made and wish you’d done something differently, but you can’t. If your intention was to do something good, but you didn’t follow through, what good were your intentions?

It became clear, as the growing pile of illegible pages scattered around me, that retrospect was not always meaningless, for it allowed weakness and mistakes to reveal themselves so as never to be repeated. And in those pages of a not-yet-aspiring author, the foundation for how to regain my power developed.

I titled the story “Retrospect” and, while farfetched to think it would get accepted, submitted it to a writing workshop. The goal wasn’t to publish, it was to finish something. I was in a take risks phase of life and the workshop instructor took a chance on me. 

After six-years, Retrospect got trashed. Its epitaph lovingly reads: “a brilliant character study.” Do not mourn for her, for during her death a new seed was planted, and, full of newfound writerly courage, Not Yours to Keep, was conceived.

The idea originally came from a photo of a child. I’ll explain: I was in a long-term relationship that had run well past its expiration date (that’s a story for a future book). One day, before taking his coat to the cleaners, I checked the pockets and found a photo. Curious, I asked him about it, and he told a ridiculous lie. But here’s the thing, I was so used to his untruths that I didn’t really care. I just stared at the photo, thinking, there’s a plot in there somewhere.

Writing a book was nowhere on my radar. Sure, I’d write a speech for you, or edit a paper, but an author? Me? Laughable. Yet that little plot festered in my head for years and started taking shape about a man with a secret family (trope, right?). When I finally began writing it, one of my kids challenged me not to write about infidelity. Tough because cheating sells. I wasn’t so much after what would sell as what would be fascinating. How would one incorporate the photo if the man wasn’t having an affair? We were in the back seat of an Uber-ish car during this philosophical conversation and, as we threw around ideas, the driver chimed in. By the time we’d reached our destination, he’d outlined a fantastic historical novel about a wounded war hero who’d fallen in love during his service but, heartbroken, had to leave her and the child he’d fathered to return to his family in the U.S. Marvelous concept, right? I hope he wrote it. Of course, it had nothing to do with my story, but I’d found my angle and excitedly tied it to something I was passionate about—adoption.

My very first job was as an adoption consultant. I loved it. Few people get to say they love their work, and the intention was to make a long career of it, but life opened new possibilities, which had to be followed. It was then I learned I had fertility issues. Knowing many stories of couples who’d been through the emotional and physical turbulence, I’ve always had an extra appreciation that I responded to minimal treatment and, in-between some miscarriages and high-risk pregnancies, I raised two amazing (now adult) children. But I never forgot my clients—not the couples, not the adoptees, and especially not the birth parents, and I carried their stories with me.

It had always seemed so important for others to know the complexities of adoption, the emotional roller coaster and toll on all the players, rather than the stereotypes depicted in books and movies. The photo that had inspired me developed a purpose. My clients’ voices drove the story, and it all combined with the what ifs of suspense: What if I’d known I had fertility issues when I worked in adoption? What if my morals and ethics faltered? What if my husband had a photo and lied about it? What if a birth mother found her baby? What if they were all connected?

The debut novel is the one that says, hey, she’s not just a decent writer after all, but an author no less. What’s funny is I found a decades-old and long-forgotten article I’d written about adoption and submitted to a magazine. A one-off. The message of that rejected article very much matched the motivation for Not Yours to Keep. Maybe I’ve become an author. Maybe I always was.

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Zelly Ruskin is a social worker who worked in adoption and foster care. She loves traveling, hiking with her (now adult) children, and, as a survivor, is passionate about and volunteers for Brain Aneurysm Awareness. Zelly and her ridiculous doodle, Strudel, currently live in New York City. 

NOT YOURS TO KEEP

Called a “sensational debut” by Rea Frey, this psychological thriller delves into themes of reproductive rights and healthcare, confronting the complexities that define family—or the risks that lose it all.

Billie Campbell, a Massachusetts adoption specialist grappling with fertility issues, dreams of adopting a baby, but not just any baby—her pregnant client’s baby. While her longing threatens to send her down a dark path, her husband, Tyler, is keeping secrets: he’s full of doubts about becoming a father, and he’s also trying to figure out who is sending him upsetting anonymous texts and photos. On the other side of town, Anne, a woman scarred by childhood abuse, obsesses with a second chance at becoming a family with the two people she regrets ever having let go of: the baby she gave up for adoption twenty years ago and the man of her dreams.

Their lives become entangled when the client’s newborn is abducted, and Billie becomes a prime suspect.

Amid the chaos unleashed by the abduction, Tyler uncovers a link between the person tormenting him and the abduction—but now Billie has disappeared too. The race to find both her and the baby is on; but will they find them before it’s too late?

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Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing