FORMER TV and radio news reporter turned author, Ruth Elliott-Smith, makes her Edinburgh Fringe debut to tell her real-life stories of adventure and intrigue and reveal how they directly inform and inspire her adventure/thriller novels.
“I embellish my real life ‘Dangerous Adventures’ with fast-moving fictional tales of money, murder and revenge to turn them into the thrillers I love to write,” Elliott-Smith says. “I like to show my audiences that life is full of adventure if you want it and that we all have stories to tell. I hope mine will inspire as many as possible to venture out and write their own.”
In the 45-minute spoken word show she also reads extracts from her first two books. “The Sword – Blood Demands Blood” is a tale of war, kidnap and terrorism in the Middle East where Ruth worked in the 1960s, survived cross-border shell fire, a mortar bomb attack and an accidental venture into a minefield. Published last summer it is already internationally successful, selling in the UK, USA, Canada and Japan. “El Dorado and the Amazon” is her new release, about 1980’s Colombia at the height of the cocaine mafia’s power; a story of gold, greed, passion and betrayal. Elliott-Smith fled from the Colombian cocaine mafia in 1988; and on the Amazon River she swam with piranhas, was stalked by a giant anaconda and hunted alligators by night.
She still has plenty of other “Dangerous Adventures” to relive for future novels. She crossed the Atlantic on a small yacht, went through East Africa in 1970 from Ethiopia to Cape Town, walked the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, white water rafted down the Grand Canyon, travelled by train through Vietnam, by boat down the Nile in Egypt and island hopped in the Caribbean.
Ruth Elliott-Smith – Bio
Former journalist Ruth trained on her local newspaper, The Walsall Observer in 1963, she went on to work in Fleet Street for the Sunday Express and later for both ITV and BBC news. She is an experienced presenter who worked in the media for 20 years before settling in Cheshire, UK, where she built her own house, raised two daughters as a single mum and now has three grandchildren. She is a keen runner and golfer.
After the show she will sign copies of her books.
“El Dorado and the Amazon” and “The Sword – Blood Demands Blood” are available as Kindle e-books or paperbacks from Amazon.co.uk, or see Ruth’s website www.ruthelliottsmith.com.
Venue: The Laughing Horse @ Finnegan’s Wake, Victoria Street, Edinburgh EH1 2HE
Dates: Thurs 22nd to Sun 25th August 2019
Time: 12 noon (45 mins)
