Interview with an Author: Dr. Emily Ruth Rutter
Our March guest author here at Capturing Your Confidence is Dr. Emily Ruth Rutter.
Emily Ruth Rutter is an Assistant Professor of English and a Ball Brothers Honors College Faculty Fellow at Ball State University. She is the author of Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line (University Press of Mississippi, 2018) and The Blues Muse: Race, Gender, and Musical Celebrity in American Poetry (University of Alabama Press, 2018), as well as a co-editor of Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era (Routledge, 2019).
Her numerous essays have been published in African American Review, Aethlon, and MELUS, among other journals. Her book chapter on African American women poets appears in A Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century American Women’s Poetry, and a book chapter on Amiri Baraka and sports is forthcoming in Some Other Blues: New Perspectives on Amiri Baraka (Ohio State UP, 2021).
Published author
We connected with Dr. Rutter about her writing & teaching experiences, and what advice she would give to aspiring authors.
Tell us about your writing journey. Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Yes, I think I have always wanted to be a writer, but I didn’t gain the confidence necessary to become one until graduate school.
Where did the idea for your edited collection, Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, develop from?
The late poet-scholar Tiffany Austin (may she rest in peace) and I had been discussing the raft of elegies mourning victims of police killings and other state-sanctioned murders. We had also been noticing that many of these poems invoking Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Sandra Bland and so many others were not making the expected elegiac turn toward consolation but instead were using the poetic page as a tool of resistance to anti-black violence and ideologies.
I published two books before..., but I can honestly say that this collection has been the most meaningful, both in that it has given us the opportunity to honor Tiffany and that it signifies my aspirations to work in community and solidarity in the struggle for black liberation.
Tiffany and I then began to conceive of Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Eraas a book that would interlace contemporary Black Lives Matter elegies with critical essays about elegiac writing. We issued a call for papers, received a lot of incredible critical abstracts and poems, and then signed a book contract with Routledge. Tiffany died very unexpectedly shortly thereafter, and two of the book’s poet-scholars, Sequoia Maner and darlene anita scott, signed on as co-editors.
I published two books, The Blues Muse: Race, Gender, and Musical Celebrity in American Poetryand Invisible Ball of Dreams: Literary Representations of Baseball behind the Color Line, before Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, but I can honestly say that this collection has been the most meaningful, both in that it has given us the opportunity to honor Tiffany and that it signifies my aspirations to work in community and solidarity in the struggle for black liberation. If your readers are interested, they can purchase the book here and visit our website here.
How does the process of collaboration work between multiple editors? How does it differ from working on a piece of your own?
Working with multiple editors requires a dialogic model that I really appreciate. As much as I love writing, it can be a rather solitary activity. I find that the more my writing and ideas more generally are developed in communities the stronger and more meaningful they become.
What was your process for putting the collection together?
As I noted, Tiffany and I issued the initial call for papers and poems, and then Sequoia, darlene, and I worked with all of the poets and essayists to polish and arrange the pieces into what we hope will be a volume that resonates with people and reading groups both in and outside of the academe.
Describe your biggest writing obstacle and how you overcame it.
My writing obstacle is always sitting down and doing it. I try to set the bar really low when I sit down to write and then pleasantly surprise myself if I surpass my expectations.
How do you balance teaching and writing? Where, if any, do you see intersections between your work and your writing?
My teaching and writing work very reciprocally. I write about texts and ideas that I then share with my students, and their feedback likewise works itself back into the writing. Even the task of preparing to teach a text often engenders fresh insights.
My teaching and writing work very reciprocally.
Moreover, since I teach writing, it’s helpful to be co-laboring with students, commiserating about the challenges but also sharing in the rewards of writing as a way of thinking and expanding our worldviews.
What is the part of the book (or process) you are most proud of?
I am proud that Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era showcases a wide range of voices and that, unlike my previous academic books, this volume is approachable for non-academics. Also, Sequoia, darlene, and I have agreed to donate any book proceeds to the Movement for Black Lives.
Do you have plans for another book or additional published writing in the future?
I am in the process of completing my fourth book, Black Celebrity: Creative Recuperations of Postbellum, Pre-Harlem Renaissance Athletes and Artists, which examines the recent literary interest in the black athletes, theatrical performers, and musicians that gained fame during the crucial decades between the end of the Civil War and the launching of the Harlem Renaissance (1865-1919).
In particular, I argue that contemporary novelists Caryl Phillips and Jeffery Renard Allen and poets Kevin Young, Frank X Walker, Adrian Matejka, and Tyehimba Jess: 1) use innovative formal strategies to recover multifaceted subjectivities in the face of racialized objectification and erasure; 2) engage with archival materials while evincing their biases and lacunae; 3) highlight their own modes of artistic excavation in order to remind readers of the human hands that shape all historical narratives; 4) draw parallels between the experiences of the first wave of black stars and their contemporary counterparts.
I am in the process of completing my fourth book, Black Celebrity: Creative Recuperations of Postbellum, Pre-Harlem Renaissance Athletes and Artists
Creative recuperations, I conclude, both revise understandings of black celebrity history and make legible the through-lines between the postbellum, pre-Harlem Renaissance era and our own time.
I also have a few articles and book chapters forthcoming and have plans for a future book project about representations of white allies in contemporary television and film, tentatively titled White Allies: Representations and Ruminations.
Do you write creatively, or would you ever consider doing creative writing? If so, how do you think that differs from your academic writing?
I dabble in poetry and creative nonfiction now and again. At this point, I’m still primarily focused on my academic writing projects.
What do you want the world to know about you as an author?
In The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin notes, “To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it. It is learning how to use it.” As a writer who is especially interested in the relationship between America’s sociopolitical and cultural past and present, I heed these words of wisdom.
I attempt to face America’s often brutal past unflinchingly and then to consider how artists grapple with both the specter and the lessons of history. Moreover, I strive to recognize the limits of my knowledge and to be forthcoming about them.
I attempt to face America’s often brutal past unflinchingly and then to consider how artists grapple with both the specter and the lessons of history.
Along these same lines, I see my writing as a series of possibilities for forging new bonds and elucidating fresh ways of knowing. Perhaps those aims are not always realized, but I’m deeply invested in the process and potential that writing offers us.
What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to aspiring writers?
Every writer has to chart her/his/their own course, but I’ll pass along the practices that keep me focused and motivated.
First, cultivate a community of fellow writers with whom you can share your work and solicit feedback.
Second, attempt to marry your goals and values as a person with the aims of your writing. In short, integrate writing into the social and political fabric of your life.
Want to interact with the editors of this text? Check out their awesome event! Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this event is rescheduled for Fall 2020. Stay tuned for updates as I get them!
Black Lives reading event
If you would like to purchase Dr. Rutter's book to use in your classroom, or just to read, you can find a copy here.
If you know an author, or of an author, you would love to read an interview with, email me at rachel@capturingyourconfidence.com!