Ruth EJ Booth is a multiple award-winning author and non-fiction writer, and academic (as Ruth Booth). All are currently based in Glasgow, Scotland.
Short Biography (for fiction magazines)
Ruth EJ Booth is a multiple award-winning writer and academic of fantasy based in Glasgow, Scotland. Her poetry and fiction can be found in Black Static, Pseudopod and The Dark magazine, as well as anthologies from NewCon Press and Fox Spirit Books. Winner of the BSFA Award for Best Short Fiction and shortlisted twice for the British Fantasy Award in the same category, in 2018 she received an honorable mention for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, Volume 10. In 2019, her quarterly column for Shoreline of Infinity, ‘Noise and Sparks’, received the British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction.
Full Biography (for everyone else)
Ruth is a multiple award-winning author and non-fiction writer, editor (as Ruth EJ Booth), and academic (as Ruth Booth). All are currently based in Glasgow, Scotland.
A member of the Glasgow SF Writers’ Circle, in 2015, Ruth won the BSFA’s Best Short Fiction award for ‘The Honey Trap’ (in La Femme, NewCon Press). In 2019, she was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award for Best Short Story (‘Telling Stories’, The Dark 43), one of two categories she was nominated in that year. In 2018, she was shortlisted for the British Fantasy Awards’ Best Short Story category for ‘The Anniversary’ (Black Static #61, TTA Press), which also received an Honorable Mention for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, Volume 10. Her publication credits include stories and poetry for Pseudopod, Black Static, The Dark and anthologies from NewCon Press and Fox Spirit.
Ruth is an experienced non-fiction writer and editor. Her column for Scottish SF journal Shoreline of Infinity, Noise and Sparks, won the British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction in 2019. Noise and Sparks was also shortlisted for the BSFA Award for Best Non-Fiction in the same year. From November 2017 to November 2018, Ruth was an editor for From Glasgow to Saturn, the University of Glasgow’s creative writing journal. As of July 2022, Ruth working on the first ever special issue of the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal, with Charly Harbord (Global Games Jam).
Ruth has also made award-winning contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community. In 2018, Ruth was MC of the British Science Fiction Association’s BSFA Awards. She has previously hosted fiction and non-fiction book launch events for Waterstones Argyle Street and Waterstones Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow, Shoreline of Infinity, and Glasgow in 2024, as well as co-hosting and co-organizing November 2020’s video game special from Shoreline of Infinity, sponsored by Glasgow in 2024.
Ruth was also Guest of Honour Liaison for the Programme Committee for Eastercon 2019: Ytterbium. Ruth is a regular jury member for some of UK genre’s biggest awards. She has served as juror for the British Fantasy Awards: on the Best Novella (2019), Best Artist (2018), and the Best Non-Fiction (2016 and 2017) juries. Ruth was also on the 2016 judging committee for the James White Award Short Story Competition. As a former ‘Redcloak’ for Fantasycon, Ruth shared the 2016 British Fantasy Awards’ Karl Edward Wagner Award, the special award for contributions to genre. She has participated in and moderated panels at various European Worldcons, Eastercons, Fantasycons and at the 2019 debut outing of the CYMERA festival. Ruth was on the Promotions Team the Glasgow in 2024 Worldcon from Autumn 2020 to Winter 2022 (including a brief period in early 2021 as interim Area Head of Social Media). She currently runs the social media accounts for the Glasgow SF Writers’ Circle.
Ruth has experience of running creative writing workshops and events. In 2018 and 2019, Ruth gave a series of writing workshops on ‘Discovering New Worlds Through Creative Writing’ with Science Fiction author Oliver Langmead. These were held at Edinburgh Science Festival in 2018 & 2019, the inaugual Cymera Festival in 2019, the Glasgow Science Festival in 2018, and GIFCon in 2018. Ruth also served as lead for the Creative Writing station at Night at the Museum: Fantasy Scotland event at the Hunterian Museum in 2017. Ruth and Oliver hosted a brand new series of workshops on Fantastic worldbuilding at Fantastic Texts and Where To Find Them, the University of Glasgow Fantasy Summer School 2021.
Ruth is a Fantasy Literature academic. She co-organized Glasgow International Fantasy Conversations (GIFCon) symposium over 2017-2019, taking over social media accounts for the event itself in 2017, serving as Social Media Manager for the second year (2018 event) and Facebook account manager for the third (2019 event). She has presented papers and posters at Eastercon 2018: Follycon, Worldcon 75, GIFCon 2017 and 2018, and the 2020 Digital Heroisms symposium. She has also chaired panels at GIFCon 2017 and 2018. More recently, Ruth played a key role in founding the University of Glasgow Centre for Fantasy and the Fantastic’s Discord Server as part of the Centre’s ongoing outreach policy, constructing the server and putting in place many of the early standard practises, handbook creation, organizational structure, and serving as Server Administrator from October 2020 until May 2021.
Ruth is a graduate of the University of Glasgow’s MLitt in Fantasy, and is currently working on a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde, funded by Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
Ruth is a former music writer and photographer whose work has appeared in The Independent, Kerrang! magazine, The Mirror online, Virtual Festivals, Big Cheese magazine, and more.
She currently spends her spare time as a yogini or half-marathon runner. She can only whistle backwards.
You can find her at the following:
Bluesky: @ruthejbooth
Email: ruth [dot] booth [at] gmail[dot] com
“I might also name Anna Tambour, Amal El-Mohtar and Ruth Booth as must-read writers…” – Hal Duncan, author of The Book of All Hours series, on The BRSBKBLOG.
“Beautifully written, it is elegant, timeless, and deeply painful in all its tragedy… It is the high note within this issue.” – ‘The Anniversary’ reviewed as part of Black Static #61 on Tangent Online
“Fiercely brilliant…” – Alasdair Stuart on Noise & Sparks, The Full Lid, 25th October 2019