Paul Ruffin, a writer who spent his formative years in Columbus and later published two novels, seven collections of poetry and a multitude of short stories and articles, has died.
He was 74.
Texas Review Press confirmed his death on its Facebook page. The press — which he founded in 1979 — announced that Ruffin died early Wednesday morning at his Texas home.
“He passed into the great beyond at 2 a.m. this morning,” the post read. “The family has asked that there be no memorial service.”
The man who would go on to became a Texas State Poet Laureate was born in Millport, Alabama, and grew up on Sand Road, five miles outside of Columbus. His father was a toilet-seat-assembly-line worker with a third-grade education.
Ruffin spent a lot of time when he was young playing along Luxapalila Creek, according to “A Letter Home” he wrote that was printed in the Winter 2014 edition of Catfish Alley magazine.
“I’ve been a writer for many years now, and I still draw heavily from those Sand Road days, working into my fiction and poetry bits and pieces of my childhood as they seem to fit the literary occasion,” he wrote in that letter.
His poetry was praised by Willie Morris and James Dickey.
Ruffin attended Mississippi State University following a stint in the Army. After graduating with a degree in English, he taught at Hamilton High School, Lee High School and Caldwell High School. He received a doctorate from the University of Southern Mississippi and eventually took a position at Sam Houston State University in Texas, where he taught for the rest of his life.
He founded the literary journal The Texas Review (at the time The Sam Houston Literary Review) in 1976 and then the Texas Review Press three years later. It now publishes about 26 books per year, according to his assistant and former graduate student Kim Davis.
Ruffin’s column, “Ruffin It” was published in The Dispatch for several years. Ruffin was also a writer at Mississippi University for Women’s Eudora Welty Writers Symposium in 1993 and 2002, according to MUW’s website.
In addition writing two novels as well as poems, short stories and articles, Ruffin was the Texas State Poet Laureate in 2009.
In an interview with The Dispatch on Wednesday afternoon, Davis described Ruffin as “larger than life,” a true characters whose writings were full of Southern wit. She recalled how in his classes he told stories about hiding in the isles at Walmart so he could listen to people talk and learn how to imitate their accents.
“Some of the stories, the anecdotes, that he told that went along with those sorts of conversations were just hysterical,” she said. “I laughed until I cried in more than one class with him because he was so funny.”
But beyond his sense of humor, he cared deeply about his students and made sure they learned how to edit their work, Davis said. He emphasized line editing and made sure students knew to pick just the right word. At the end of writing workshops, she said, students’ pieces were polished.
He was also close to the writers who were published through his press, Davis added. She said that the day of his death, writers called in tearfully to ask his colleagues and employees what they could do in memory of the man who had been their editor and friend.
“He believed in Southern writers and he believed in poets,” Davis said. “I can’t even begin to imagine how much he did to help his fellow poets. And those of his friends who are gone, he never stopped praising his fellow writers. And he encouraged new writers … He was always introducing new writers to the world.”
When Texas Review Press announced Ruffin’s death Wednesday on its Facebook page, writers and former students, some from the Columbus area, left comments talking about what a good teacher and editor he was.
His final words in his letter in Catfish Alley were, “Columbus and Lowndes County, I will be forever grateful for your contributions to my writing career.”
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