Ruth Porter was born in New York City and grew up in Alliance, Ohio, where her father was a doctor. After graduating from school in Cleveland she attended St. John's College in Annapolis. She married Bill Porter and in 1972 they moved to a hill farm in Adamant, Vermont where Ruth has lived ever since.Ruth raised four children and took care of the farm-one of the children said that she and Bill learned everything they knew about farming from books, and most of those books were novels-which included varying numbers of sheep, cows, pigs and chickens, and a big garden. Together they raised most of their food.Ruth spent her whole life reading and writing, but she began working seriously on fiction during those hectic years. She has published four novels, as well as a book about her grandfather, Maxwell Perkins, one of America's most widely respected editors. Though Bill died in 2022, the publishing company they started together in 2005, Bar Nothing Books, lives on.