My Latest Five Books

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.

Contact Info

Good afternoon! I just uploaded my profile photo and email address onto free-ebooks.net. For any questions or comments, please feel free to email me at authorkeward@hotmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

New Novelette

Dear Readers,

Now available on free-ebooks.net is my latest work of fiction, He’s After Me. It was something I wrote four or five years ago, which I printed out, but the computer crashed, and I hadn’t put it on a zip drive. So I started typing it in to another computer, but I lost it. I found it recently, finished typing it in to the computer, and now it is available to read at https://www.free-ebooks.net/ebook/He-s-After-Me.

 

For those of you who didn’t know, a novelette is longer than a short story, and shorter than a novella.

 

I hope you enjoy reading it.

 

Sincerely,

K. E. Ward

Another Children’s Book Cover

This is the cover for a children’s book I came up with years ago in answer to The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle. It would really be the favorite of a thirteen-year-old, however. You see, The Last Unicorn made me cry so much, that I always wanted there to be a princess and also a unicorn. So, perhaps there was an evil spell cast on the book and movie to make us want to know more! I try to separate my children’s books and adult books as much as I possibly can, because of the subject matter, and also I would ask for parental supervision with youths who perhaps want to read my adult books. Not that I haven’t tried to keep them tame.

Train Tracks– A Sample

I’ll give you a little bit of a sample of the novella or novel I am working on right now. It is entitled, Train Tracks, by K. E. Ward.

Train Tracks

By K.E. Ward

Behind the Main Street bar on the lonely streets of Camden, in a little alleyway the kids called, “the place,” Jackie Stevenson waited in the midst of thick clouds of smoke and dust, for her boyfriend to finish haggling with the Broush brothers and take her home.  She could hardly wait for him to return, as two cocky dudes had already tried to hit on her while he was gone.  She rubbed her hands against her arms, trying to warm them.  Her stockings were warm, but not thick enough to defend against the wind and chill.  Loud music pounded from the entryway of the club across the street, and in the night-time rowdy atmosphere, Jackie was afraid that she was going to get mugged, or, even worse.  Shivering, she clutched her bag closer to her.  The high heels had proven to be the wrong choice on a night like this.  Andrew had been drinking again, and undoubtedly was trying to settle his gambling debts.  If things went wrong, Jackie wanted to be ready in case she had to run, so she slipped off her shoes and placed them in her spider-decorated bag.

Multi-colored strobe lights cut through the smoke and exhaust of cars traveling down the street, the advertisements of Chase’s Hot Spot.  She was glad to have finally escaped from her parents’ place; after all, the tiny enclosure of a house was filled with the loud trills of yells coming from both directions.  Jackie had known that they were not happy for a long time.  Evidence of their discontent was showing up everywhere, including an angry little note that ended up in her bathroom as a reminder to take clothes to the dry cleaner’s.  Her older brother Sammy was already graduated from high school and living at home, and Sammy and their mother were having a number of battles from day to day.  Not able to handle the screaming matches, Jackie decided to duck out, while still unnoticed, and go clubbing in the evenings.

From a distance, a train rumbled across, blowing its loud horn and rushing across the lonely streets where taxicabs and grocery trucks waited for it to pass.  As a child, Jackie would follow those train tracks home every day from school, waiting until the last minute before the train would come before jumping to the side.  She often wondered which people took the train and for which reason.  She mused often about the various lives and reasons for travel, jotting down stories in her journal about people who took the train.

Our other character, Christine, has not shown up yet. It is the story of two teenagers who run away from home together by hopping a train. They throw themselves into a big, bad world in which they do not know how to survive. Christine, my secondary character, is based on a person I know, the same person who is a character in my first book. They experience so many things in this new city, apart from their parents, and get into a lot of trouble. It is heartbreaking, an allegory for a period of time in which one loses his or her faith, the “Dark Night of the Soul,” but we always find our way back into the light.

Other Ebooks

So, I have not posted an update lately, but along with my second novel, The Incident, we have my third book, a science fiction novella entitled, Novacadia, my fourth book, a psychological thriller (also a novella, as it turns out), entitled, I’m Watching You, and my fifth book, Streetwalker (also a novella), on http://www.free-ebooks.net. I did start my sixth book, which is entitled, Train Tracks, but it is an incomplete work as of yet. Thank you for reading, and have a great day.

Something Else to Add

Truth be told, all of the heroines in my books, including my science-fiction novellas, and excluding my novelettes and children’s books, are me. I design them after myself with physical differences and circumstantial differences. The voice of my poetry is my own; but they are also works of fiction. I used to write short stories when I was a child, and all of my main characters were not me. Were they? When I conceive of a story, I picture myself handling all of the challenges, experiencing the sights and sounds and smells and tastes and sensations, and ultimately conquering the battle. And my stories and novels hopefully reflect how I feel about you all. And once I have convinced you all how much I love you, I will have left my mark upon the earth.

My Other Works

My other works include:

Novacadia, a science-fiction novella.

The Incident, a work of fiction.

I’m Watching You, an unfinished psychological thriller.

Streetwalker, a suspense/thriller.

Poetry Beside a Rippling Water, a collection of poems.

Four Novelettes, still in the works.

The Sarah and the Glass Castle Stories, a series of children’s books.

The Tiger Story, a children’s book my mother, also a published author, and I once wrote together.

My mother’s author name is E. L. Ward. She is the author of Snowdrop Fair: Nehama’s Dream, and Snowdrop Fair: Nehama’s Dream, second edition. These are two versions of her narrative poetry. The same as my first book, The Heart Grows Stronger, by K. E. Ward, these two books are available for purchase at http://www.amazon.com, http://www.barnesandnoble.com, and http://www.authorhouse.com.

A Would-Be Cover

A would-be cover.

This is a doodle I did one year that might have become the cover and title of the book. As you can see, Julie and her friends are to the right of the picture, and Eric in sunglasses is to the bottom left. A version of Todd is in the top center… although I was not pleased with how his face turned out. I wouldn’t say it exactly looks like him. The little scribblings tell you about a previous name for the villain (Mitchell), and about characters from different novels of mine (Meg, Violet, and Eve). Although, I will never use the name “Violet.” It was a temporary name, and it did not embody the twisted heroine of my fourth book. The title, Saved, was never the right one, as I had wanted to embed the explanation to my saved Christianity into my book. The hero, Todd, obviously saves Julie more than once, and Caleb, a later character, questions her about being saved and what it means to be saved. I allude to God and religious figures in the book, and there is perhaps one mention of the word, “God,” and her faith in God. And of course, the villain’s name, Michael, has spiritual significance having to do with the Archangel Michael. The final title, The Heart Grows Stronger, and the final cover, are more appropriate. The villain’s name was originally Michael, but I had to change it because Michaels kept popping up into my life, and I didn’t want them to think I was writing the book specifically about them! Funny how that happens!

My Heroine, Julie

This is an oil painting I did tonight of my heroine, Julie Anne Miller. Her full name from birth is Julia Anne Miller, though I did not specify her middle name in the book. She is a young girl, slight of figure, with a light complexion, dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and bangs. She is a sensitive character who builds in emotional strength, courage, self-esteem, and empowerment as we move through the book.