Multi-award-winning author Tina Ruiz stops by my blog today

Multi-award-winning author Tina Ruiz writes under the name of Tina Griffith for her romance novels, and under Tina Nykulak Ruiz, her real name, to honor her children and grandchildren, as well as her deceased and current husbands. All of her novels are sold worldwide, and can be found on Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Chapters, The Owl’s Nest, Barnes and Noble, and many other book venues with less popular names. 

 

When she isn’t writing, she is cooking, baking, or taking writing and language courses, as well as spending as much time as she can with her family.

Tina shares with us a bit of her culture and an intriguing backstory of her writing career. She tells us, “Over the years, I’ve made small changes to my mother’s recipe for streusel (coffee cake), but it remains the same, for the most part. While my mom places sliced plums on top of the batter, I often substitute plums with cherries, apples, or peaches. In the end, nothing beats my mother’s cooking. The recipe is as follows:

Blend the following topping ingredients with a fork, leaving the mixture crumbly, and set it aside:

½ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of grated granola or rolled oats (optional)

¼ cup of sifted all-purpose flour

¼ cup of soft, room temperature butter

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cake ingredients:

1 ½ cups of sifted all-purpose flour

2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 egg, well-beaten

¾ cups white sugar

1/3 cup of slightly frozen butter (shred the butter before adding it)

½ cup of white milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix all the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients together, and then add the wet to the dry, stirring slowly. When blended, place the batter into a well-greased 8 or 9 inch square cake pan and cover it with the topping mixture. Or, fancy it up a bit by placing fresh sliced fruit or fruit pie filling on top of the batter, and then finish it by covering it with the topping mixture.  

Bake at 375 for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean of soft batter. Let cool for a few minutes and serve slightly warm.”

Tina continues, “I was born in Germany and migrated to Canada in the early 1960's. I was then a German youngster entering primary school having to learn the required English and French as quickly as possible. By Grade 3, English and reading became two of my passions. By Grade 7, I was writing elaborate stories about my life in my new country, as well as the people, the culture, the food, and my new friends. In Grade 10, my English teacher was so thrilled by my homework assignment, a poem, that he asked his editor friend to put it into the local newspaper. He agreed, and that was the first time I was published. From then on, I was hooked on writing.

“When my babies came, I wrote stories for them, and by way of a friend, they came to the attention of a man in Ontario who worked for the Canada Board of Education. He not only placed more than a dozen of my stories into readers for the schools across Canada, he also put me in touch with a Writing Course for Children, so that I could learn how to better my craft.

“Sadly, my husband of 25 years passed away in March of 2003, a devastating occurrence in my life that left me terribly grief stricken. My shattered heart still had all of my love for my husband sitting in its pit with no place to put it. I turned to journaling, recording my thoughts and feelings, as a means of healing. Three years later, I shared some of the contents with a friend. She liked my writings so much that she sent it to a publisher.

“After completing several writing courses and reading critiques that almost broke my heart, I now have 12 novels and 30 children’s books under my belt. Each novel was written with undertones of romance, but they also include other elements such as witches, murder, mystery, intrigue, suspense, and of course, powerful raw emotion. Why don’t I stick to one genre? I want to expand my boundaries and go beyond my comfort zone. 

“I remarried in August of 2011, and my new husband asked if I could write one book without killing anyone. While that made me laugh, I took it as a challenge and came up with “The Elusive Mr. Velucci.” That particular story was inspired by a musical video called “Caruso,” which a friend of mine sent me. The Lara Fabian rendition broke my heart and made me want to find out more about Enrico Caruso, the famous opera singer. Once I learned all I could about his life and how he died, I took that sadness and put it into the pages of my new book.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYZWbzEmWY0  

“Lucio Dalla wrote the actual song, but many people have sung it since then. It’s so powerful and sad, that even when I read the story, which I wrote, tears flowed down my cheeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqtSuL3H2xs

“While I loved writing this heartbreaking, very romantic love story, my roots returned to drama and death in 2019, with Ophelia’s Curse. 

“It is 2020 now, and I have just finished writing my 30^th children’s book. And before you ask, yes, it has the same Halloween theme as last year’s book. I’ve also finished writing 208 pages on a new novel, and this one has a Christmas theme. That season is not my favorite time of year, because I’ve had a lot of people die between December 23-26, but it is my husband’s. I’ve decided to honor him by writing an incredible love story about a woman who loses her love for Christmas, but gets it back five years later, after she meets a man who has the ability to heal her broken heart.”

https://www.amazon.com/Elusive-Mr-Velucci-Tina-Griffith/dp/1546237070/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1591714533&sr=8-2