Meet Luanna Rugh

Today, I interview Luanna Rugh, another of my co-authors for the Aspen Grove romance anthologies. Luanna’s first published book was Snowflake Secrets, the first of the series. She has appeared in all of the Aspen Grove books. Welcome, Luanna.

When did you first start writing?

In 2002, I joined my husband in writing our autobiography, Promises Kept: How One Couple’s Love Survived Vietnam. (He had been working on it for over twenty years.) I went kicking and screaming all the way, until I found out I really liked writing.

What do you like about storytelling?

The more I write, the more I enjoy telling stories, especially if an animal is one of the characters.

Where do you get your story ideas?

The characters seem to seep into the creative part of my brain and begin to write the story themselves.

How do you create your characters? Are they based on real people?

I never write about real people. I don’t like invading other people’s lives. My characters manufacture themselves. Sometimes I need to give some direction, but most of them do their own thing. Descriptions, personalities, how they feel about the other characters manage to come together to make it all work.

Besides the Aspen Grove romance anthologies, of which you are a co-author, what other books or series have you written?

I co-authored Promises Kept: How One Couple’s Love Survived Vietnam, our memoir, with my husband. I just published my first solo book, Love from the Sea. It is the first in a series to be called “Love, Left Coast Style.”

Aspen Grove is based on two Colorado mountain towns. Have you created any other fictitious locations for your books?

I like to write about places I know, have lived, or have visited. Again, my characters decide where they want to live. 

Did you enjoy writing as part of a group? Why or why not?

I enjoyed working with others, especially when the four stories are somehow intertwined. I liked trying to figure how the pieces of four different stories come together.

The Aspen Grove romances are collections of novellas. Do you like writing at that length? Why or why not?

I guess I never gave much thought about the length of anything published or stories I’m writing. Only when I wrote in The Aspen Grove series was I concerned about word count.

Of everything you have written, what is your favorite book to date?

That’s easy. It will always be Promises Kept: How One Couple’s Love Survived Vietnam, our autobiography.

Luanna Rugh was born and raised on a dairy in Central California. She always loved animals, cats and dogs, cows and horses, not to mention the many wild critters living in the area. At ten, she decided she wanted to become a high school biology teacher. Her family moved to Southern California where Luanna followed her path in college until the summer of 1966 when she met the love of her life, Len Rugh. They were married on February of 1967. A year and a half later, Len was drafted and sent to Vietnam where he was critically wounded. When Len returned, she finished school and earned two teaching credentials. At age fifty-seven, she discovered she could write. She co-authored the first of six books in the Aspen Grove romance anthology series: "Snowflake Secrets," "Seasons of Love," "Directions of Love," "An Aspen Grove Christmas," "The Art of Love," and "…And a Silver Sixpence in Her Shoe." She and Len published their memoir, "Promises Kept: How One Couple’s Love Survived Vietnam." "Love From the Sea" is her first solo work. She hopes you enjoy reading it as much as she loved writing it.