Hi, I'm Jeanne. Thanks for spending some time at The Ruby Books with Ruby.

If you're interested in a more resume-like account of who I am and what I've done, you can read the Realize, Inc. Company History. Those were most of my projects over the years. But if you're interested in a more story-like account of who I am and what I've done...

I grew up in Maine dreaming of becoming a great stage actress one day just like Sarah Bernhardt.

At age 21, courtesy of what I can only attribute to a really good astrological alignment, I got into Jean Cocteau Repertory.

I spent the next six years as a company member doing classical theatre in rotating rep off-Broadway.

My life felt so perfect I didn't even know it was hard. I wasn't bothered at all that my days were spent pretty primarily inside 1) a black box theatre with no windows, 2) a box in the restaurant where I checked coats and 3) a box called a studio apartment. Life was grand!

Doing more than one play at the same time in rotating repertory was demanding. I was always memorizing lines. Always It made it so that when I was outside of my boxes I wasn't very good at seeing what was going on around me.

However, one sight that wasn't missed on me was the sight of the homeless.

I found myself drawn to them. Probably because whether they meant to or not, they had a great sense of theatre.

One day my Moroccan busboy friend, Atmane, came into the restaurant with a bicycle. He wanted to sell it to me for $50. I didn't have $50. He'd sell it to me for $40. I didn't have $40. He'd let me owe him. I now had a bicycle.After work I rode it home.

This would change everything. Now that I had a bike I didn't want to be in plays anymore, I wanted to go out and play!

I played every chance I could. I made up a great game and I called it Catching Slack.

Catching Slack involved riding my bike around the city and randomly stopping to observe, interact and write of my experiences.

I became such a skillful Slack Catcher that the people I encountered -- mostly homeless, bike messengers and street performers -- had no problem with me writing down what they said as we spoke. They would tell me great things.

I now had a problem. I wanted to be filling up books more than I wanted to be memorizing lines or putting coats on hangers.

The solution to my problem was clear but not easy: I had to say good-bye to my beloved Cocteau Rep and my cozy coat check job. Sad and scary as it was, it was the right decision and I went on to spend a lot of years having a lot of fun filling up a lot of books ...

... until I didn't anymore.

I knew my Slack Catching adventures had yielded some gems. But what to do with them? Anything? Or was I just going to move on to what came next, satisfied that those adventures were now a part of me? It would have been fine with me if it had gone that way (maybe), but it didnt go that way. It went this way:

With the help of a lot of talented people of all ages, I wove some of those gems into a story about a girl named Ruby who rode a bike and struggled with survival and met all kinds of helpful people along her way.

Ruby and I had endless hours of fun thinking up the stories behind her story -- stories about humanity's place in the Universe, how humans came to be in such a bad way and how the least likely of them were here from elsewhere operating undercover to make things better.

Had I been able to draw I would have illustrated my story. Not being able to draw I wrote it as a screenplay... and envisioned it becoming a graphic novel one day. That day came.

In the summer of 2009 I began the process of working with a wonderful illustrator, Verne Lindner...

...and putting my Ruby story up online, one chapter at a time. But five illustrated chapters into it I stopped the process.

Or rather, the process stopped me by showing me (and Ruby) our true purpose. All along we thought our purpose was to TELL OUR STORY, but we were wrong... or rather, not 100% right.

Our purpose, it turns out, is to INSPIRE GIRLS TO TELL THEIR STORIES. And give them the tools they need to do so.

So... Ruby and I are busy writing a brand new Ruby story ~ this one very specifically geared toward today's tween and teen girls ~ one that asks for their creative, artistic input ~ one that shows them how much fun it is to know and play with mythic story structure ~ and designed to inspire them to TELL THEIR STORIES!

And that would be MY story . To be continued...

:)
Jeanne