Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s Creative Journey from Lawyer to Award-Winning Writer

Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton are joined by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, author of the short story collection The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. That acclaimed 2021 book includes “Ghetto University,” the story we featured previously on the show. 

Ruffin talks about the inspiration he takes from his native New Orleans, and his journey from a “three-piece suit-wearing, BMW-driving lawyer” to putting all of his energy into becoming a writer and telling the stories he was meant to tell.

Read the full transcript.

About the Author 

Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, a New York Times Editor’s Choice that was also longlisted for the Story Prize. His first book, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. Ruffin is the winner of several literary prizes, including the Iowa Review Award in fiction. A New Orleans native, Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Episode Links and Reading List: 

• “Ghetto University” (Ursa) 
• The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You (One World, 2021)
• We Cast a Shadow (One World, 2020)
• “Leaving the Law Behind for My Dream Job” (Oldster, 2021)
• About Maurice Carlos Ruffin
• Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s newsletter 
• New Stories from the South (edited by ZZ Packer, 2008)

More from Deesha Philyaw and Dawnie Walton: 

• The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, by Deesha Philyaw
• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, by Dawnie Walton

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