A note from Ruth:

Meanwhile, all my books are on sale, with publication details on Borderstream Books website shop. There are also are a couple of my journalism articles at these links: Skilbeck, Ruth. 'Emotional Trauma Steals Memories and Lives', (2015) Sydney Morning Herald Skilbeck, Ruth. 'War Drums Beat Over Beckett', The Irish Times (January 2003)

BIOGRAPHY

Ruth Skilbeck PhD is an Australian-British author and artist with English, Irish, Scottish and likely distant Norwegian ancestry, who was brought up in England, Northern Ireland, and Australia. She has published two Australian Fugue series novels The Antipode Room and Sayonara Baby (also published with the title Cafe Life in the Antipodes). She holds a PhD and MA (Writing) from the University of Technology Sydney (2007) and rewrote her PhD thesis as a book, The Writer’s Fugue: Musicalization, Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity. Her first degree is a BA Honours Philosophy from Birkbeck, University of London; and she studied Philosophy, English and Drama at Flinders University, in Adelaide. She is founding editor-in-chief and publisher of the literary arts journal and anthology Arts Features International and founded a one-woman publishing house, Borderstream Books, she has also published books by others ( Behrouz Boochani translated by Omid Tofighian), and her photographs are on some of the covers, and in the journal issues and anthologies. This was an extension, which occurred due to circumstance, from her career as a freelance journalist and art writer. She edits, designs and publishes the issues and books. Primarily an author, she is a book designer and publisher, and photographer, she was fortunate to be able to buy Adobe Creative Suite software before it went fully online, and taught herself how to use it. She publishes books and anthologies by others, and herself, and is now focusing on writing, publishing, editing, and designing books. Although writing is her primary practice. She has been awarded grants for writing including an Australian Council of the Arts New Work (Visual Arts) grant for arts writing. Ruth was awarded the Pick of the Month award by BBC World Service Book Choice for highest global ratings that month for her write-and-read ‘book talk’ early on in her career, in London.

Her writings have been widely published. Her early publications included a poem in LiNQ ; her feature stories were published in The Irish Times, The Sunday Tribune, Irish Press, and Magill, age 22-23 in Dublin in 1981-1982. As writer-and-presenter for BBC World Service program Book Choice, in London, one of her book talks was awarded a pick-of-the-month award for worldwide ratings. Her journalism and arts writing feature articles, and her research articles are published in art periodicals, peer-reviewed journals, newspapers, magazines and books, including Australian Art Collector, Australian Art Review, POL Oxygen: Design, Art, Architecture; (not only) black + white; Australian Style; Mother & Baby; the Newcastle Herald; the Sydney Morning Herald; LIP magazine; City Limits; Time Out; Pacific Journalism Review; The International Journal of the Arts in Society; The International Journal on the Image; JMI; Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies; Cultural Studies of Rights: Critical Articulations (Routledge).

She has lived and worked as a writer and journalist in Dublin, London and Sydney, specializing in arts feature writing, and started by publishing her feature articles in Dublin. She has more recently worked as an editor and publisher and is the founding editor-in-chief of Arts Features International journal and anthology. She has designed and taught courses in writing and journalism. She was a lecturer and researcher at the University of Technology Sydney, and was a Lecturer B, researcher and course coordinator of Feature Writing and Writing for Media, on Master of Arts courses at the University of New South Wales (2012). She now lives and works in her publishing house as an author and artist, editor, book designer and publisher, and is writing her next book.

The latest editions of Ruth’s books can be found (and purchased) at Borderstream Books website.