Ruth McHaney Danner

Why I Started Writing:

In fourth grade, after reading Black Beauty, I knew I could write at least as well as a horse could. I grabbed a stubby pencil and mentally prepared my storyline. At the time, we lived in a simple cottage and had very few luxuries—including paper. Mother, not wanting to discourage creativity, cut a brown paper grocery sack into sheets the size of pages in a Big Chief tablet. I filled those sheets with a story about a girl who’d lost her way home but found a friendly dog to help. 

To no one’s surprise, my book didn’t reach a publisher’s desk, but the desire to write stayed with me. While growing up, I wrote for school newspapers, and I eagerly faced the challenge of every essay and term paper. As an adult, I found magazines and newspapers to buy my articles. My earlier desire to write fiction morphed into a love for creative nonfiction. 

Authors Who Have Influenced Me:

Laura Ingalls Wilder’s writing about pioneer life grabbed me as a child. A few years later I read Gladys Taber, who wrote a dozen books about rural Connecticut. Then James Herriot came along, and his beloved animals captured my attention. Today, I gravitate toward Christian fiction and enjoy Shirlee McCoy, Jane Daly, Lynnette Bonner, and Sue Harrison, among others. 

Books I Have Written:

My first book (after the grocery sack episode) came out in 2000 from Barbour Publishing. What I Learned from God While Quilting is still available on Amazon, though it’s been out of print for years. My agent, Cris Bolley, served as cowriter. She composed the devotional thought at the end of every chapter. 

My second book, Making a World of Difference One Quilt at a Time (New World Library, 2015), reached a similar audience. Like the previous book, it’s out of print but still available on Amazon. 

I’ve also written four privately published books for families who simply wanted their loved ones’ stories to be recorded. Though challenging, those books gave me many blessings and enough fond memories to last a lifetime. 

With co-author Lynn Dix, I’ve written Longing for Love, published by Elk Lake in 2026. It’s a collection of stories told from the animals’ viewpoints, each based on a true incident.  

What I'm Working On Now:

I’m revisiting my files of unpublished articles. They need polish and encouragement to find homes in magazines and other periodicals.