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330 ratings | 7 reviews | avg rating:4.14

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Ken Wells

Goodreads Author

Born

Houma, La., The United States

Website

https://www.bayoubro.com

Genre

Fiction, Children's, Young Adult

Influences

Eudora Welty

Member Since

July 2011

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Ken Wells, journalist and novelist, grew up second of six sons on the banks of Bayou Black deep in South Louisiana's Cajun country. His father was a part-time alligator hunter and snake collector and his Cajun-French-speaking mother a gumbo chef extraordinaire.
Wells began his journalism career covering car wrecks and gator sightings for the weekly Houma, La., Courier newspaper. He has gone on to an adventurous career: a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Miami Herald; editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects for Page One of The Wall Street Journal where, over a 24-year period, he also roamed the U.S. and the globe covering among other stories the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the first Persian Gulf War and South Africa's transition to a mult Ken Wells, journalist and novelist, grew up second of six sons on the banks of Bayou Black deep in South Louisiana's Cajun country. His father was a part-time alligator hunter and snake collector and his Cajun-French-speaking mother a gumbo chef extraordinaire.
Wells began his journalism career covering car wrecks and gator sightings for the weekly Houma, La., Courier newspaper. He has gone on to an adventurous career: a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the Miami Herald; editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects for Page One of The Wall Street Journal where, over a 24-year period, he also roamed the U.S. and the globe covering among other stories the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the first Persian Gulf War and South Africa's transition to a multiracial democracy. He later served as a senior editor for Conde Nast Portfolio magazine and spent six years at Bloomberg News/Businessweek as both a senior writer and editor before leaving in 2015 to pursue book writing full-time.
He is the author of six well-received novels of the Cajun bayous: Meely LaBauve (a 2000 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book); Junior's Leg (2001); Logan's Storm (2002); and Crawfish Mountain (2007). Tom Wolfe said of Crawfish Mountain, "Ken Wells is the Cajun Carl Hiaasen." In 2010, Knopf Young Adult published his YA novel, Rascal, a Dog and His Boy. His sixth novel, Swamped! is a fast-paced YA survival story set in Louisiana's exotic and forbidding Atchafalaya Swamp. It was co-authored with his niece Hillary Wells and published in January of 2023.
Wells has penned four works of narrative non-fiction: Travels with Barley: A Quest for the Perfect Beer Joint, a travelogue through America's $75 billion beer industry; The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous, a story of blue-collar heroism in the wake of Hurricane Katrina; Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou, published by W.W. Norton in 2019 and republished as a paperback by Blair Publisher in 2024; and Boudin, a lively travelogue through the mania surrounding Louisiana's most popular sausage, that was published by LSU Press on April 14 as part of its Louisiana True series. The Pirates, published in September 2008 by Yale University Press, won the Harry Chapin book award in September 2009. A paperback version was published by YUP in 2015. Gumbo Life, meanwhile, was chosen by the Louisiana Center for the Book to represent the state at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., last fall.
While serving as an editor on Page One of The Wall Street Journal, Ken was also chosen to edit two anthologies of "A-heds," the beloved middle-column feature that has appeared on the front page of the paper since the early 1940s. Floating Off the Page was published in 2003 and Herd on the Street: Animal Stories from The Wall Street Journal was published in 2007.
Ken more recently is the author the whimsical Christmas novella, A Christmas Tree Without a House: The Tale of Sam and the Mysterious Joseph E.W. Pine (A Very Possibly True Story) available on Amazon and which is now an audiobook on Audible. Kirkus Reviews called it "enchanting." Ken's journalistic and literary accomplishments were honored in 2009 when he was awarded an honorary doctorate from his undergraduate alma mater, Nicholls State University, and was inducted as a Louisiana Legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting that same year.
Ken divides his time these days between Chicago and a lovely little summer log cabin in the wilds of Maine. He's an avid photographer, hiker and fisherman and dabbles in blues and jazz guitar and songwriting. He cooks a mean Cajun gumbo and visits Louisiana every chance he gets. ...more

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Ken Wells’s books

Average rating: 3.97 · 1,815 ratings · 288 reviews · 12 distinct works • Similar authors

	Meely LaBauve 4.16 avg rating — 551 ratings — published 2000 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Junior's Leg 4.11 avg rating — 222 ratings — published 2001 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Travels with Barley: A Journey Through Beer Culture in America 3.38 avg rating — 235 ratings — published 2004 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Logan's Storm 4.09 avg rating — 149 ratings — published 2002 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous: Fighting to Save a Way of Life in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina 4.26 avg rating — 141 ratings — published 2008 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crawfish Mountain: A Novel 3.47 avg rating — 149 ratings — published 2007 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gumbo Life: Tales from the Roux Bayou 4.11 avg rating — 122 ratings — published 2019 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Floating Off the Page: The Best Stories from The Wall Street Journal's "Middle Column" 3.76 avg rating — 114 ratings — published 2002 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rascal: A Dog and His Boy by Ken Wells (Goodreads Author), Christian Slade (Illustrator) 4.13 avg rating — 56 ratings — published 2010 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Swamped! by Ken Wells (Goodreads Author), Hillary Wells 4.46 avg rating — 46 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Ken Wells's Blog

Writing a novel is a lot like making a gumbo…and other musings.

I’m sometimes asked why I write what I write—how I come to a decision that I’ve found a story I think is worth telling, and where I get my material.

Well, for starters, I like to tell stories. I come from a long line of storytellers, even if none of them were writers.

Though my dad, mom and two grandmothers could all tell a really fine tale, the king of the family was William Henry “Pop” Wells, Read more of this blog post »

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Published on January 24, 2023 09:01

Series by Ken Wells

Catahoula Bayou (3 books)
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Ken Wells (Goodreads Author)

4.13 avg rating — 922 ratings

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Ken Wells rated a book it was amazing Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nov 26, 2025 06:21PM · 1 like · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Memorial Days by Geraldine Brooks <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Ken Wells rated a book it was amazing Tree Fall with Birdsong by Kendall Dunkelberg (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Kendall Dunkelberg has crafted an intuitive, accessible and poignant rumination on the natural world and our complicated place in it. He clearly knows and loves his birds for they shape many of his poems as they shimmer and delight in his artless des ...more
Jun 12, 2025 07:06AM · like · see review
Ken Wells rated a book it was amazing A Christmas Tree Without a House: The Story of Sam and the Mysterious Joseph E.W. Pine (A Very Possibly True Story) by Ken Wells	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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