Ruth and Jamie Pennebaker are definitely among Austin’s most interesting couples – two smart people who are talented authors. We’ve known them for a long time, and I am finally getting around to writing stories about both of them. I’m starting with Ruth, who has, as noted on her website, a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from Eckerd College and, “for reasons that now elude her,” a J.D. with honors from the University of Texas School of Law.
One of her first memories of writing that won acclaim and made her feel good happened when she was in the ninth grade at Horace Mann Jr. High in Abilene. The assignment was to write a story about what you would do if you had a million dollars. She wrote a parody about herself as a little match girl who was sitting alone when a robber tossed a bag containing that amount of cash at her and fled. The girl then went home, put one of her parents in Alcoholics Anonymous, the other in a rest home, and then did “something nefarious” to her sister, and bought a penthouse for herself. Then she was accused of stealing the money because the burglar had turned her in. She was put in a jail cell next to him and told herself, “He’ll never be cold again.” Point being, she had felt his frosty hands when he tossed her the money, but she still had her matches, and she was going to burn his cell down.
Her teacher was so impressed by her story that he read it to all the English classes he taught, and it was printed in the school newspaper. This was a moment of revelation in her life, showing her that her talent could earn her recognition.
Ruth says that she approaches things circuitously – she went to UT Law School, graduated in 1976, and then moved to the DC/Virginia area with Jamie, who had landed a faculty post at the University of Virginia. At this time, she had a “horrible” job at a legal publishing company. She was an indexer, and she was “becoming catatonic” from the tedium of the work.
At that time, she became obsessed with The Washington Post and told Jamie she thought she could write pieces as good as or better than the ones she was seeing. So, at his urging, she submitted an essay about taking the bar exam in Virginia. Imagine her surprise when she received an envelope in the mail that was from the Post itself – not just the self-addressed envelope she had sent to them for use. That meant they had accepted her piece. To her amazement, it wound up on the front page of the Sunday Opinion section. That success gave her the impetus to walk away from her job. “I will say this for law school – going through that gauntlet made me think that I could do almost anything,” Ruth says.
After that, she freelanced for the Post and the New York Times, then took a steady job with the Charlottesville paper. When they moved to Dallas in 1990 for Jamie’s job as a professor at SMU, she worked for the Dallas Morning News, ending up writing a column for the features section and the op-ed page. In that work, she formed a friendship with journalist and author Rena Pederson that has lasted to this day – and Rena is here in Austin now.
Along the way, Ruth started writing books – one was called Stork Realities: What No One Ever Tells You About Pregnancy. As she says, “People are scared to be around you, thinking you might give birth at any minute!” She also did a variety of writing jobs, including song lyrics for pledge drives and program scripts for the Dallas Public TV and radio stations.
In 1993, a friend told her a story about how she’d had a child out of wedlock about thirty years earlier. As it happens, Jamie had been doing research about how toxic it is to hold dark secrets in one’s mind. Ruth became obsessed with writing a novel about a woman her age who was in a similar situation in the 1960s. She says she couldn’t even explain this concept of shame to her daughter, who was raised in a more understanding era. The book, titled “Don’t Think Twice,” was classified as a Young Adult novel, and in 1995, it was named one of the American Library Association’s “Best Books of the Year.” Ruth says that she will never write anything better than that. She wrote two more young adult novels and an adult novel, but she went back to non-fiction. She also kept busy writing articles for magazines such as Parents, Redbook, Texas Monthly, McCall’s, and The Alcalde. And she was a columnist for the Texas Observer and sent pieces to The Washington Post.
In 1997, Ruth and Jamie moved to Austin when Jamie joined the psychology faculty at the University of Texas. They love being here. Looking back to the 1990s, Ruth is amazed at how the markets for print media writing have dried up. The internet has made all the difference in the world – now everyone has a platform to express themselves publicly. With cartoonist and artist Marian Henley, Ruth has been publishing stories on Instagram at “Blue Hour Dames.” Now on her own, she is moving to Substack under the name “Just Another Blue Hour Dame.”
These days, Ruth and Jamie live in a downtown high-rise, “hoping that will make them look cool.” He has retired from his post as Chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Texas, and they enjoy being in Austin. “I love this city, and I’m happy when I’m writing well,” Ruth says.
Books by Ruth Pennebaker
Fiction --
Pucker Up!
2015
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakthrough
Penguin, 2011
Both Sides Now
Holt, 2000
Conditions of Love
Holt, 1999
Don't Think Twice
Holt, 1996
Essays/Humor --
Shades of Blue: Writers on Depression, Suicide and Feeling Blue
2015
Listen to Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We're Saying Now
2015
A Texas Family Time Capsule
2002
Parents: A Toddler's Guide
Clarkson-Potter, 1986
Stork Realities: What No One Ever Tells You About Pregnancy
Harper & Row, 1985
Quotes from Ruth Pennebaker
“You call them birds and I call them vermin. This is about the night I went on the offense against grackles.”
Texas Standard | The War Against Grackles
“When you're from West Texas, you have very different ideas about exotic animals and when to call the police.”
Texas Standard | That Time I Thought a Neighborhood Possum Was a Zoo Fugitive
“You know how not to die? Just start hopping every day. I swear, I heard it somewhere.”
Texas Standard | The Audacity of Hops: A Commentary on Being in Good Health at a Certain Age
