So, I haven’t spoken much about my other books, but I’ll talk briefly about them. My second novel, The Incident, I conceived of when I was fifteen years old. I was experiencing a difficult period of my life: a boy from my old school had been making fun of me, and I was very upset, and I later confronted him about it. He didn’t respond well to my confrontation; in fact, when I continued to want to talk to him and be friends with him, he accused me of stalking him. My family and I moved to a different state, and I started attending a new school. I had just run away from home down to our old state, and I stayed away for a week. My first psychiatrist had wanted to diagnose me with then-called manic depression. My third book, Novacadia, a novella, was inspired by a short story I wrote when I was about thirteen in a science-fiction creative writing class I attended at Duke Young Writer’s Camp. My fourth book, I’m Watching You, was inspired by events in my own life, but embellished. My fifth book, Streetwalker, was a little thriller I came up with after developing close friendships with three prostitutes. Again, almost all of the heroines in my books are me, and though I imagined myself as the prettiest streetwalker on the block, I am not a prostitute in real life. I envision my stories. I embed nature into my stories, and sometimes animals. My sixth book, He’s After Me, was a novelette I wrote in not a very long period of time, but I loved the story so much that I ran with it. The book I am working on right now is Train Tracks, about two teenage girls who run away together, Christine and Jackie. Coincidentally, Christine, who is based upon a prostitute I have met in real life, was also a character in my first book, The Heart Grows Stronger, “Miffie.” That woman probably inspired me the most out of all of them. I recently went over to her apartment and gave her a signed copy of my first book, an Italian leather journal as a belated birthday gift, and a bottle of vodka with a ribbon around it. We talked, had a couple of drinks, and listened to music. I walked home in the rain.
Author K. E. Ward 