Writing habits

Yonah Karp profiles local fiction authors Sydney Harth and Lisa Ruffolo. "Some writers have a need to write every day," says Ruffolo, who took her undergraduate degree in English from UW-Madison and an M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins, and has just had her first short-story collection, Holidays, published by New Rivers Press. "I don't. I can go for weeks [without writing] and then have a weekend free, and get up early on a Saturday, and basically work all weekend. I like to enter the world of the short story and stay there for a while." Harth, in contrast, writes "five days a week, just like a regular job. I just sit here. This is what I do. I get up in the morning, walk my dog, go to the grocery store, and I'm here by 9:30, 10. And I stay here." A former English lit professor at Edgewood and other colleges, Harth follows this schedule for the next 12 years, producing three novels and a dozen short stories. Harth continues writing until her death in January 2004, publishing some 50 short stories. Ruffolo continues to write fiction and is an author and editor of computer textbooks.