Editing Matt Ruff

{{short description|American author}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2013}}
{{Infobox person
| name        = Matt Ruff
| image       = Matt Ruff at the San Francisco Public Library.jpg
| alt         = 
| caption     = Ruff in 2018
| birth_name  = 
| birth_date  = {{Birth date and age|1965|09|08}}
| birth_place = [[Queens]], New York City, U.S.
| death_date  = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) -->
| spouse      = {{marriage|Lisa Gold|1998}}<ref name = "author">{{Cite web |url=http://www.bymattruff.com/about-the-author/ |title=About the author |publisher=Matt Ruff }}</ref>
| alma_mater  = [[Cornell University]]<ref name="author" />
| death_place = 
| other_names = 
|notable_works= [[The Mirage (Ruff novel)|The Mirage]], [[Lovecraft Country (novel)|Lovecraft Country]]
| known_for   = 
| occupation  = 
| website     = {{Official URL}}
}}
'''Matthew Theron Ruff''' (born September 8, 1965) is an American author of thriller, science fiction and [[comic novel]]s, including ''[[The Mirage (Ruff novel)|The Mirage]]'' and ''[[Lovecraft Country (novel)|Lovecraft Country]]'', the latter having been adapted in 2020 by [[HBO]] into a [[Lovecraft Country (TV series)|TV series]].

==Early life and education==
Ruff was born in [[Brooklyn]], New York City, in 1965, to a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] family of [[Germans|German]] ancestry.<ref name="moral" /> His father was a hospital chaplain, and his maternal grandfather was a missionary.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.harpercollins.com/authors/|title=Author Listings: HarperCollins Publishers|website=HarperCollins Publishers: World-Leading Book Publisher}}</ref> At the age of 5, he decided he wanted to be a fiction writer. He spent his childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories.<ref name="author" /> In elementary school, he wrote a number of short stories, many of them starring his classmates in scenarios cribbed from movies or TV. Ruff has said that reading these aloud in English class was his first experience performing in front of an audience and his first solid evidence that he had what it took to entertain people with his storytelling.<ref name="about" /> 

Many adults around him attempted to persuade him to choose a different career, but Ruff's mother was supportive of his hope to become a writer; for one of Ruff's birthdays, she bought him an [[IBM Selectric typewriter]].<ref name="moral" /> From third to eighth grade, Ruff attended a [[parochial school]].<ref name = "moral" /> He attended [[Stuyvesant High School]] in [[Manhattan]]. One of his teachers there was the memoirist [[Frank McCourt]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bookslut.com/features/2007_08_011474.php |title=An Interview with Matt Ruff |publisher=Bookslut |date=August 2007 |accessdate=2007-10-31 }}</ref>

Ruff's first sustained effort at a novel was a soap opera–like story about a family with a lot of children (having only older half siblings, Ruff was fascinated by the concept of siblings). He wrote it in the 1970s, but never published it. Describing it, Ruff said "Think ''[[Eight Is Enough]]'' with [[surrealism|surreal]] elements. There was no overall plot, just a series of loosely linked episodes—a chapter about the boys and girls digging competing tunnel systems under the house would be followed by one in which they got infected by some weird flu strain and started passing out in the halls. Periodically I’d set aside what I’d written and start the whole thing over again".<ref name = "about">{{Cite web|url=http://www.bymattruff.com/unpublished-works-and-ephemera/|title=Unpublished works and ephemera &#124; bymattruff.com}}</ref>

During Ruff's last semester at [[Cornell University]], his mother died. He graduated in 1987. One of Ruff's English professors had been [[Alison Lurie]], who helped Ruff find an agent.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fantastinet.com/interview-matt-ruff/ |website=www.fantastinet.com |access-date=2013-02-06 |title=Interview : Matt Ruff - Fantastinet |date=February 19, 2008 }}{{title missing|date=May 2022}}{{dead link|date=July 2023}}</ref>

His father died after Ruff's first novel was published.<ref name = "moral">{{Cite web|url=http://www.bymattruff.com/about-the-author/an-interesting-moral-education/|title="An Interesting Moral Education" &#124; bymattruff.com}}</ref>

==Unpublished novels==
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Ruff wrote a [[fantasy (genre)|fantasy]] novel that he never completed. Between 1982 and 1984, Ruff wrote a [[semi-autobiographical]] novel about a [[Lutheran]] [[minister (Christianity)|Minister]]'s son who questions his faith. Part of Ruff's motive for writing the novel was to let his parents know he wasn't going to be a devout Christian, which they had hoped he would.<ref name="about" />

In 1985, Ruff wrote a [[coming-of-age]] story set in Queens called "Today's Tom Sawyer", over the summer between his [[Sophomore year|sophomore]] and junior years at Cornell. It had upwards of 400 pages, which Ruff wrote in three months. Ruff based a character in the story on a female student in his class, and gave her a copy of the finished manuscript.<ref name="about" />

==Published works==
Ruff's first novel, ''[[Fool on the Hill (novel)|Fool on the Hill]]'', is a fantasy that drew on his experiences living in [[Risley Residential College]] at Cornell. It was first written as his senior thesis in Honors English.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40577.Matt_Ruff|title=Matt Ruff|website=www.goodreads.com}}</ref> It was published shortly after Ruff graduated from the university.

His second book, ''Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy'', is [[postcyberpunk]].

His third book, ''Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls'', focuses on two protagonists displaying a fictionalized version of [[dissociative identity disorder]]; while not technically science fiction, it nonetheless contains significant speculative elements.{{Citation needed|date=October 2011}}

* ''[[Fool on the Hill (novel)|Fool on the Hill]]'' (1988) – ({{ISBN|0-8021-3535-8}})
* ''Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy'' (1997) – ({{ISBN|0-87113-641-4}})
* ''Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls'' (2003) – ({{ISBN|0-06-095485-X}})
* ''[[Bad Monkeys]]'' (2007) – ({{ISBN|0061240419}})
* ''[[The Mirage (Ruff novel)|The Mirage]]'' (2012) – ({{ISBN|9780061976223}}; {{ISBN|0-06-197622-9}})
* ''[[Lovecraft Country (novel)|Lovecraft Country]]'' (2016) – ({{ISBN|978-0062292063}}; {{ISBN|0062292064}})
* ''88 Names'' (2020) – ({{ISBN|978-0062854674}}; {{ISBN|0062854674}})
* ''The Destroyer of Worlds: A Return to Lovecraft Country'' (2023) – ({{ISBN|9780063256897}})

==Awards==
''Set This House in Order'' was long-listed for the 2005 [[International Dublin Literary Award]] and won the 2007 [[James Tiptree, Jr. Award]], a [[PNBA Book Award]], and a [[Washington State Book Award]]. Ruff is also the recipient of a 2006 [[National Endowment for the Arts]] Literature Fellowship in Prose<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/06grants/Lit.html |title=FY 2006 Grant Awards: Literature Fellowships in Prose |year=2006 |publisher=[[National Endowment for the Arts]] |accessdate=2007-11-01 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20051223173358/http://www.nea.gov/grants/recent/06grants/Lit.html |archivedate=December 23, 2005 |df=mdy-all }}</ref>

''[[Bad Monkeys]]'' received the 2008 [[Washington State Book Award]] for Fiction, a [[PNBA Book Award]], and an [[Alex Award]].

''[[The Mirage (Ruff novel)|The Mirage]]'' was nominated for the [[Sidewise Award for Alternate History]].<ref>[http://www.sfsite.com/news/2013/07/01/sidewise-award-nominees-3/ Sidewise Award Nominees] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190109011941/https://www.sfsite.com/news/2013/07/01/sidewise-award-nominees-3/ |date=January 9, 2019 }}, ''SF Site News'', July 1, 2013.</ref>

''[[Lovecraft Country (novel)|Lovecraft Country]]'' was nominated for the [[World Fantasy Award]] in 2017 in the Novel category.

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://www.bymattruff.com/ Homepage]
*{{isfdb name|id=Matt_Ruff|name=Matt Ruff}}
*[http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40577.Matt_Ruff Goodreads Author page]
*[http://www.mostlyfiction.com/authorqa/ruff.htm Mostlyfiction.com interview with Matt Ruff, author of ''Bad Monkeys'']
{{James Tiptree, Jr. Award Winners}}{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ruff, Matt}}
[[Category:1965 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American novelists]]
[[Category:21st-century American male writers]]
[[Category:American fantasy writers]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American people of German descent]]
[[Category:American science fiction writers]]
[[Category:Cornell University alumni]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Novelists from Washington (state)]]
[[Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni]]
[[Category:American weird fiction writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Queens, New York]]
[[Category:Writers from Seattle]]