Jesse Ruddock is a talented writer, photographer, and musician currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Guelph, Ontario, Ruddock graduated from Harvard cum laude, after attending the university on an ice hockey scholarship. She was a hotshot goalie who got into hip-hop and underground rock thanks to Jim Guthrie and pals like Noah23 and Livestock. She’s made her own music under monikers like Koko Bonaparte and Koko Blue and her writing and photography has appeared in The New Yorker, BOMB Magazine, and Vice. In February 2017, Coach House Books published her debut novel; it’s called Shot-Blue and has received raves from the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews among others. Jesse and I caught up at the CFRU studios recently when she was home in Guelph and she surprised me with stories about her past life as a hockey goalie, her writing influences, the power of her peers in Guelph, her remarkably talented family, and where her novel Shot-Blue may have came from. Sponsored by Pizza Trokadero, the Bookshelf, and Planet Bean Coffee.

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