Ruth Fowler grew up in the mountains of North Wales and attendedMold Alun comprehensive school. She received a first class BA (Hons) in English Literature from New Hall, Cambridge University. She is sure they let her in as the token comprehensive school educated, poverty-stricken northerner.

After a year teaching English Literature in Buenos Aires and three months teaching, traveling and doing yoga in India, Ruth returned to King’s College, Cambridge to complete an MPhil. Post-MPhil and with no money and lots of debt, she traveled the world eking out a living from writing, teaching, sailing, cooking, hand-jobs and begging, going wherever work and money took her. Ruth lived and traveled in Argentina, the South of France, the Alps, Florida, Nepal, India, Tibet, the Caribbean and Central America before finding herself in New York, penniless and without a visa.

This time in New York formed the subject for her first book, No Man’s Land, published byViking Penguin in 2008 (republished in 2009 as Girl Undressed â€“ yep it’s the same book!) and partly based upon the popular, Bloggie-nominated, New York Times-profiled anonymous blog she wrote during this time – Mimi in New York.

Ruth lives between a van in Venice Beach, and other people’s spare rooms in London, and has her sh*t in a storage facility in the Valley. Ruth has written for The Village Voice, Wired,The Guardian, New Woman Magazine, The Norton Anthology for Creative Nonfiction, The Huffington Post, The Fix, Gawker, Jezebel, The Observer, Counterpunch and Reddit.

Ruth has appeared in Salon, Fashion Week Daily, The Observer, New York Magazine, The New York Times, The Sun, Jossip, Page Six, ABC News and other publications across the world.

Ruth is currently writing her second book of creative non-fiction – about living in a van in recession-devastated America – and making a living as a screenwriter and occasional gonzo-journalist. In 2012, Ruth was nominated as one of Screen International’s ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ for her political drama, ‘Fly Me’. Ruth is currently working on an adaptation ofHelen DeWitt‘s acclaimed novel, â€˜The Last Samurai’, with David Yates attached as the director. More info on Ruth’s screenwriting can be found here.