Dr Ruth McIver is an award-winning crime writer represented by The Story Factory, and a sessional academic with an interest in genre fiction, memoir and true crime. Her books include: I Shot the Devil, Blackout (Audible), The Sound (2025) and The Sunset Club.   

Over the next three months (March to May), Ruth will be running our Crime Fiction Online Feedback Clinic (currently booked out) in which participants will submit work each month and receive concrete and specific feedback from Ruth that will help them to develop and improve their manuscripts. Ahead of the Clinic, we asked Ruth a few questions about her writing practice.

Our members often say their biggest challenge is finding the time to write. How do you fit writing into your life? 

I think I fit life around my writing, and I don’t recommend that as an approach to a balanced and happy life, but it’s the only way I knew how to do it – hyperfocus, boom and bust. I worked solidly on building a writing career, but it took around twenty years for me to write fiction professionally and to be renumerated for it. Economically speaking, I have sacrificed a lot to create, and this is the experience of writers who aren’t independently wealthy or supported by a spouse. I think you must be prepared to sacrifice time, money and experience – which is why I love the quote “When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.”

As a woman its harder, because you take on caring roles in a family unit. I recommend that you stay committed to and focused on your creative practice and set goals, stay accountable, and set boundaries around writing time. Until you value your practice, no one else will. If you don’t do it for the love of the work, you won’t stay the course, because it can take a long time from concept to realisation and then publication. We’re not living in a climate that supports any creative arts – so we have to double down on our vision and believe more than ever that art matters.

What great essays/short stories/novels/poems do you recommend people read to learn more about craft? 

I love the Zadie Smith essay ‘Fail Better’. I also loved Experience by Martin Amis, Stephen King’s On Writing is essential. I also love The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

What is some of the best advice you’ve received that’s helped you as a writer? 

That editor’s make great books. To write at the site of the wound. To be fearless and forego the shame of being seen, of speaking up – of failure and success. I love Carmel Bird’s quote – ‘real writers don’t have mothers’.

Without spoiling your upcoming clinic and workshop, what advice would you give to writers who want to write about these themes/topic/genre? 

Story is queen – story matters. I aim to impart what I know about the rhetorical tools and devices to create incredible story worlds. One of the things I try to impress is that we do need to know rules, but to also remember that writing is innately alchemical and mysterious – we impose all these rational structures around it, try to tame and apprehend it. I would like writers to feel empowered by craft, but to step into the mystery and enjoy this process.

How has Writers Victoria helped you as a writer?  

I have been helped enormously by WV, from a writer’s studio to resources and workshops, to promotion and ongoing work from them as a mentor/assessor. Community is everything.

Can you share something about what you’re currently working on? 

I’m currently working at the beautiful Katharine Susana Prichard Writer’s Centre on a work of fiction – a literary thriller that attempts to deviate from conventional crime fiction tropes. Set in contemporary Seattle, it attempts to establish itself as a campus thriller, only to corrode these conventions, drawing upon true crime, both historic and contemporary, psychological thriller and unabashed body horror. It is an ode to final girls, a challenge to narratives of victimhood and survival.

Ruth’s Fiction Fundamentals Online Workshop and Crime Fiction Online Feedback Clinic are now booked out, but you may also like Short Story Online Feedback Clinic with Rashida Murphy, Writing Your Relationships in Memoir and Non-fiction with Alexandra Collier, or  Story Design with Laurel Cohn.

Members of Writers Victoria receive up to 37% off the full price of all clinics, workshops, seminars and courses. Writers experiencing financial and social barriers to developing their skills are encouraged to apply to The Writers Victoria Fund for subsidised attendance at workshops and clinics.