Ruth Ware

I believe at bottom we’re all unreliable narrators—whether by accident or choice,” Ruth Ware said.

- John B. Valeri

“We are fallible, with memories that recast events for better or worse—either in the light of what we wish had happened, or to fit with our belief system, or because what we fear looms large in our imagination. And we all have an agenda—which I don’t mean in a sinister sense, but we all have a particular way of looking at the world and we present narratives that reflect that.”

Ware’s agenda is simply this: To write stories, regardless of who reads them.

“I truly think it’s innate. I was telling stories long before I could read or write…that initial urge came from somewhere deep inside me,” she said. “Even if civilization collapsed entirely and the publishing industry with it, I think I would still be the person sitting around the campfire trying to make sense of our new reality by creating fiction out of it.”

Fittingly, Ware, who studied English at the University of Manchester, wrote devotedly while working a series of day jobs—including positions within the book trade—and raising her two young children. She didn’t seek publication until her thirties, when she realized she no longer had the time to continue treating writing as a hobby.

“Writing is rather different from publication—and it took a change in circumstances to make me knuckle down to the business of trying to get published,” she said. “Before that I did want to be an author, but only in the same way as I quite fancy being a concert pianist—not to the extent of really trying to do very much about it.”