Ruth Cotton is a writer and blogger who lives in Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia. Her latest book, A Fragile Hold: Living with Multiple Sclerosis and other Uncertainties, is a memoir which tells how Ruth’s progressive disability and her husband’s illness led her to a new, more mindful way of living. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1997, at a time in her life when she needed all her capacities to care for her children and achieve her life goals. As Ruth’s challenges mounted, she needed all the insights she’d gained when writing her first book, Reinventing Success: Find happiness, satisfaction and balance by managing change in your life. It explores how people cope when their lives change unexpectedly, forging new ways of thinking about what success means to them Ruth has also drawn on her rural childhood, growing up on a sheep and cattle property in the north-west of New South Wales. There, she learned independence, resilience and how to ride a horse from a young age. On Wahroonga: An early settler family at Rocky Creek, NSW chronicles the story of her family which began with her grandfather, who risked everything to lead his young family into an unknown, risky future.