Dr. Ruth O. Saxton is a Professor Emerita of English, co-founder of the Women’s Studies program, and founder of Rhetoric and Composition program at Mills College in Oakland, CA where she has been recognized for exemplary teaching. 

Her scholarly works include The Girl, Constructions of the Girl in Contemporary Fiction by Women; Approaches to Teaching Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway (with Eileen Barrett); and Woolf and Lessing: Breaking the Mold (with Jean Tobin).

Her most recent work, The Book of Old Ladies, explores the aging female protagonist in contemporary fiction.