Zoe Ruffner

Written By So Textual
 

Interview by Jennie Edgar

Photo by Dimanche Creative


August 1st, 2022
 

Books teach us about having fun both in life and in words.

 

Zoe is a writer, editor, creative consultant, and author of Dear New York,. She spoke with us about the books she read in high school, literary gifts and life wisdom from her mother, and falling in love with reading again.

 
 
 

It was a wonderful warm summer’s night. Presque parfaite. Everything in the sky that could be was out: Northern lights, Southern lights, milky ways, moons, planets, stars, shooting stars, whole galaxies of solar systems winking and twinkling eons away in their own heavens.

 

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy

 
 
 
 

Tell us about yourself!

I was an editor at Vogue for six years and now am a freelance writer, covering everything from fashion to beauty and interiors. I contribute mostly to T Magazine, Vogue, and Vanity Fair and occasionally work with some brands that I’m especially excited about.

What were the cultural influences of your childhood and early adulthood?

I grew up with my mom in a little Greenwich Village apartment. She was always blasting Bob Dylan and Neil Young and dressing up and putting on lipstick and rehearsing lines. We were surrounded by her books and plays, many of which, by chance, I have in my apartment now. We’re very different people, but it’s amazing how much our interests overlap. More than once, I’ve told her about an old book that I discovered and she’ll pull out the first edition and tell me how much she used to love it. 

I think the books that have shaped me most are ones that I read in high school (and again since then): Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Virgin Suicides (it’s more grotesque, in a way, than the film, which I also love), and Salinger’s Nine Stories (specifically “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” — I think about that story often). Eve Babitz taught me a lot about having fun both in life and in words. 

What does your creative practice look like?

I wish it was a bit more regimented, but, on a good day, I start off by burning some incense, doing my morning pages, and listening to music — louder than my neighbors would like, I’m sure. My mom once told me to light candles and play Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks album, all the way through. I can listen to that album every morning and not get tired of it, but I’m also constantly making playlists to get myself in the mood. More often than I like to admit, I’ll spend my days hunched over my computer, but, now that I’m freelance, I also try to let myself while away the hours looking at my photography books, or, if I’m up for a outing, I’ll visit a gallery or museum, or stop by the used bookshops near me — Alabaster, Left Bank, and Mercer Street Books — to see what’s come in and pick up something I’ve never come across before. 

I’ve always loved The Artist’s Way — I return to it whenever I’m feeling stuck or uninspired — and I reread Joan Didion’s essays often, as well as Eve Babitz’s short stories. 

 
 
 
 

Tell us about the inspiration behind your book, Dear New York,.

To be honest, I never thought of Dear New York, as being anything but a book. These days, so much of what we do is in front of a screen, so I really value being able to pick something up, hold it in my hands, carry it around in my bag, and leaf through it whenever I feel like it. Other than that, the only criteria I gave writers was that whatever they wrote about had to have been around since at least 2000 — with many dating back much further — so it felt appropriate that the format was something more reminiscent of an earlier era. 

What are you working on now? 

In the beginning of Covid, I began working on a small publication to support some of New York’s treasured, long-standing restaurants, shops, and institutions. Some wonderful writers — including Eileen Myles and Vogue’s former Creative Director Sally Singer — contributed, which was really exciting for me. It came out in December. I wasn’t sure if it was going to resonate with people, but it ended up selling out in 12 hours. Now, I’m slowly gathering inspiration for new projects and beginning to dip my toes into screenwriting. 

Any obsessions? 

Film Forum. As Françoise Sagan wrote in A Certain Smile, “There ought to be a special place where old films are shown to people who need a friend.” And The Row — it’s a problem.   

 
“Sometimes, when I get too overwhelmed with work or whatever’s happening in my life, I forget about reading or feel I don’t have the time or patience for it, which, of course, is a mistake. This summer, I’ve lightened my workload a bit and have fallen in love with reading again. It helps me get out of my head and make sense of the people and world around me. ”
— Zoe Ruffner
 
 
 
 
 

When has reading truly moved you?

I read Jeffrey Eugenides’s The Marriage Plot right after it came out, which happened to coincide with my first serious breakup. I was a sophomore in college on vacation with my mom and step-dad in the Caribbean and I stayed up all night in the warm, humid air, just racing through the book... “And it was during this period that Madeleine truly understood how the lover’s discourse was of an extreme solitude. The solitude was extreme because it wasn’t physical. It was extreme because you felt it while in the company of the person you loved. It was extreme because it was in your head, that most solitary of places.”

Sometimes, when I get too overwhelmed with work or whatever’s happening in my life, I forget about reading or feel I don’t have the time or patience for it, which, of course, is a mistake. This summer, I’ve lightened my workload a bit and have fallen in love with reading again. It helps me get out of my head and make sense of the people and world around me. 

Any “rabbit hole” you’ve been down recently that you’d like to share?  

The book section of Kaitlin Phillips’s gift guide.

Describe your perfect reading day. 

In my opinion, there’s no better place to read than a beach. It’s the only place where I can be completely undistracted (especially because cell service is often nonexistent). So, the ideal reading day for me would include a perfectly sunny, sandy beach, interrupted only by a midday sandwich and long dips in the ocean to cool off.

Do you have any romantic associations with books?

For our first Valentine’s Day together, my boyfriend gave me a first edition copy of Slouching Towards Bethlehem. I actually already had it, but it won me over nonetheless! 

 
 
 
 

Did anyone ever gift you a book that felt particularly special? 

My mom is the best gift giver, especially when it comes to books. She usually gives me a few first editions for Christmas or my birthday and tracks down rare titles I’d never heard of. (Her dealer of choice is Jeff Hirsch.) A few favorites have been The New York School Photographs 1936-1963 and issues of the short-lived Flair from the 1950s, which has the most interesting design I’ve ever come across in a magazine (several types of paper, cut-out overlays…. You can read more about it here.) When I moved into my apartment last year, she found a carpenter to install floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, which is maybe the ultimate present. Don’t underestimate the power of a good bookshelf. 

What are you looking for when you’re in search of a “good book?

I’m a very nostalgic person and admittedly have a harder time getting excited about new books. Lately, I’ve been really into female authors. I love to read thematically — whether by author or era — or read books that have to do with wherever I find myself. In the beginning of the summer, I was in the south of France, so I brought along Bonjour Tristesse & A Certain Smile (a must-read no matter where you are), Françoise Gilot’s Life With Picasso, and Tender is the Night. 

What book would you like to reread?

I've been meaning to return to Ninth Street Women, the story of five female abstract expressionists (Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Elaine de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, and Grace Hartigan). It's quite long, and I got sidetracked, but I would like to restart it — and finish it this time! And all of Jean Rhys — I took a course on her in college and have always loved her work.

 

Any favorite passages? 

I’ve always written down words and passages that have stood out to me — they’re scattered across different journals and pieces of paper from over the years — but recently I started keeping a dedicated notebook to chronicle what I read and when I read it and the lines I liked most. Some favorites: 

a crown for her head with 
castles upon it, skyscrapers
filled with nut-chocolates 
-- Spring and All

The present always has precedence over the past. That’s a victory for you.  
-- Life With Picasso 

I had a box full of silk roses, cigarette cases, crystal beads, and earrings by the beginning of October when the second Santa Ana struck.
-- Slow Days, Fast Company


What’s one special book you’d like to recommend to our community?

Susan Minot’s Lust & Other Stories. I read it in one sitting and you will too. And Dan Wakefield’s New York in the Fifties — a collection of stories, interviews, and recollections of jazz, writing, politics, the Beats, Greenwich Village, and so much more. (Didion has a few good cameos, too). I love walking down the streets around my apartment with this book in mind. 


 What are you looking forward to reading next?

I’m currently making my way through a (ever-growing) stack of books I put aside for the summer — titles ranging from Dorothea Tanning’s Birthday to A Complicated Marriage, Janice Van Horne’s story of her life with Clement Greenberg. With screenwriting on the mind, I’ve also been gathering and reading books about film: Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematograph, Lillian Ross’s Picture, Conversations With Pauline Kael, and Richard J. Anobile’s Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam, a frame-by-frame look at the 1972 movie paired with its best lines. And it’s worth mentioning Eve Babitz’s essay about her favorite books and authors, “The Hollywood Branch Library” from Eve’s Hollywood. (On Henry James: “just right”; Out of Africa: “a sliver of heaven which you should keep in your house.”) I recently was looking through an old journal and found that I wrote it out into a list. That’ll be next! 

 
 


 

Books we've added to our LIBRARY

 
So Textual
Previous

Anaïs Ngbanzo
Next

Emme Parsons