S. Ruth Lubka (1948-) Biography

Born 1948, in Hartford, CT; Education: Barnard College, B.A. (cum laude), 1970; University of Connecticut School of Law, J.D., 1980; attended Maryland Institute College of Art, 1995-97. Hobbies and other interests: History, travel, dogs, knitting.

Addresses

Agent—Ronnie Ann Herman, Herman Agency, 350 Central Park West, New York, NY 10025.

Career

Connecticut Supreme Court, Hartford, Staff Attorney, 1982-94. Member, Board of Editors, Connecticut Law Journal, 1989-92. Arad Artists Program Artist-in-Residence, WUJS, Arad, Israel, 1994-95.

Member

Authors Guild, Society for Children's Book Authors and Illustrators, U.S. War Dogs Association.

Honors Awards

Manekin Family Fellowship, and Cutler art fellowship, Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1998-99; Best Book, Bank Street College, NY, 2003, for PUPNIKS.

Writings

(Self-illustrated) PUPNIKS: The Story of Two Space Dogs, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Work in Progress

Stubby Speaks (working title), a children's book, expected completion in 2006.

S. Ruth Lubka

Sidelights

S. Ruth Lubka told Something about the Author: "As a child, I lived in a world of unknowable secrets. My parents were Holocaust survivors who had come to the United States in 1947, just a year before I was born. They were determined to protect me from the dark mystery of their past. Still, I understood from a very early age that much was hidden from me, like the fate of my grandparents.

"The secrets of my childhood gave birth to a passion for knowing what existed beyond the world around me. And in the late 1950s and the decade that followed, my passion for understanding the unknown found a new, brighter focus: space exploration. Of all the space explorers of that time, none appealed to me more than the four-legged, tail-wagging variety. 'What did they think?' I asked myself. 'Did they realize they were in outer space?'

"Although we have learned a great deal since the early day of space exploration, the answers to those questions will probably never be known. But they are surely something that children, even today, can delight in contemplating. As one young PUPNIKS fan wrote to me, 'I guess dogs are smarter than they seem.'

"Researching, writing, and illustrating PUPNIKS was great fun, and I hope my book will introduce children to an important era in history, one marked by an exhilarating sense of discovery."