Ruth E. Griffin

I first published my book, Stepmothers Anonymous, back in 2012. It was my first foray into fiction and publishing.

In it, the protagonist, Abbey, begins as an average, overweight, single mother of two daughters. When she is swept off her feet by the charming Bradley, she dreams of living happily-ever-after. But reality sets in, bringing with it an incorrigible stepdaughter, newfound telekinetic powers and betrayal from friends and family. Her life now on track to meet the same fate as the fairy tale villainess, Abbey decides to embrace her role as a wicked stepmother and make her own happy ending. 

It is a story I am proud of and I loved that it was part of my oeuvre. But when I decided to embark on the serial writing journey, I opted to unpublish Stepmothers Anonymous and repurpose the book as my first serial novel. I personally don’t believe books have shelf lives. It’s all in what you do with them. And so I made the decision to try something new with it. 

You see, I completed the first draft at 177,000 words. During the editing process, though, 50,000 words were deleted in favor of a more concise read. Scenes that were redundant were eliminated; others that could be condensed into several sentences were, while some that should have been fleshed out were left as is.

In my mind, Stepmothers Anonymous was always incomplete. But because serial writing is an episodic-type of storytelling, often a slow burn, with a story that builds from chapter to chapter, I saw that the story could be expanded to be what I imagined it as in the beginning. 

With that decision made, I prepared the manuscript for serialization. I even gave the cover a make-over.

The serial will be available to read on my Substack publication, Ruth Writes, which you can subscribe to. It will be available to all of my subscribers for the length of the series.

To manage your expectations, a new chapter of Stepmothers Anonymous will be released every Thursday, beginning July 10, 2025, and delivered to your email inbox. The story contains adult themes and situations, including sex and violence. And it will have approximately 101 chapters. I know this sounds like a lot, but it’ll be worth it. This is how the story was meant to be told.