kenlwells.com

     Ken Wells grew up in the bayous of South Louisiana, second of six sons of an alligator-hunting father and a Cajun-French-speaking mother and gumbo chef extraordinaire. From a modest start on his hometown weekly newspaper, he has gone on to an adventurous career as a journalist and novelist. He’s a Pulitzer-Prize finalist (The Miami Herald), editor of two Pulitzer-Prize-winning projects (The Wall Street Journal) and winner of the Harry Chapin book award for his riveting post-Katrina work of narrative non-fiction, The Good Pirates of the Forgotten Bayous. He is the author of six well-received novels of the Louisiana bayous, including the coming-of-age classic, Meely LaBauve—in print for 26 years—and most recently Swamped!, a young-adult adventure tale set in Louisiana's Great Atchafalya Swamp co-authored with his niece, Hillary Wells. He is also the author of three works of narrative non-fiction, most recently, Gumbo Life: A Journey Down the Roux Bayou published in paperback in November 2024 by Blair. The book was picked to represent the state of Louisiana at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. in September 2025. His fourth book of narrative non-fiction, Boudin, a lively travelogue through the mania around Louisiana's most popular sausage, was published by LSU Press as part of its Louisiana True series on April 14 of this year. He is

Professional Services

Editing, ghost writing, book-pitch development, book editing.

          Over the course of his journalism career,  Ken's work has appeared in The Houma Daily Courier, The Miami Herald, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Rolling Stone, the Oxford American, Reader's Digest, Conde Nast Portfolio magazine, Bloomberg News /Businessweek, U.S. News & World Report and Anglers Journal. He continues to string for The Wall Street Journal. His book publishers include Random House, Simon & Schuster/Free Press, Yale University Press, W.W. Norton & Co., Blair Publishers and LSU Press. During his 24 years at The Wall Street Journal he also served as editor-in-chief of The Journal's book publishing enterprise, a joint venture with Simon & Schuster/Free Press. In that position, he worked with WSJ reporters and Free Press editors to develop non-fiction book ideas based on Journal stories, helped to craft book proposals, edited manuscripts and oversaw commissioned books to fruition.  So he's seen book publishing from both sides and all angles. He also curated and published two anthologies of The Journal's beloved Page 1 middle-column feature known as the A-hed--Floating Off the Page and Herd on the Street. More recently, his book editing and consulting clients include Columbia Global Reports, the  book imprint of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and McKinsey & Co., the giant consulting concern, for which he was a contributing editor to the best-selling book, The Titanium Economy. He also done consulting editing for the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting and the Fuller Project. For queries, click here.

          A link to some of Ken's journalism:

also the author of a charming illustrated Christmas novella, A Christmas Tree Without a House, now available on Amazon and also as an audio book. Ken was awarded an honorary doctorate by his undergrad alma mater, Nicholls State University, in 2009, and inducted as a Louisiana Legend by Louisiana Public Broadcasting that same year. The Los Angeles Times called Wells’ literary style, "One of the most compelling voices in fiction of the last decade" and Tom Wolfe described Ken as "the Cajun Carl Hiaasen." In between visits to Louisiana, Wells divides his time between a home in Chicago and a sweet lakeside log cabin in the wilds of Maine.