THE BEST
OF YOUR LIFE
COMMI TTED TO HER CRAFT In her heyday Rutland averaged two novels a year.
INSPIRING PEOPLE
She’s Write On
How one woman overcame vision loss and
discrimination to become a top romance author
She went blind in her 50s, but Eva Rutland kept writing. She was good at it,
and it sustained her. Now, at 93, Rutland is working on her second memoir.
“I love making my characters,”
says Rutland, who calls her talent “a
gift.” Born in Atlanta and now living
in Sacramento, California, she has
always written stories, radio plays,
musical comedies—anything that
required putting pen to paper. As a
young mother in the 1950s, when racial segregation was the norm and few
mainstream magazines would publish
black writers, she gained surprise
success. While raising her children
in Columbus, Ohio (where her Air
Force–employed husband moved the
family after the war), Rutland started
writing seriously, submitting an article called “Elsie and God” to Redbook
