Keith Engel has been telling stories since childhood. One particularly convincing tale, told a very early age, was about jumping out of an airplane. The story was so convincing it prompted a schoolteacher to call home and inquire about it.
Since then, life has given him no shortage of material. And the funny thing- he later jumped from many aircraft in both the military and civilian world.
He served in the US Army, worked in law enforcement, traveled to unusual places, built an experimental helicopter, made knives by hand, created music, raised a family, made mistakes, learned a few things, and collected more stories than he ever expected to tell.
For years, many of those stories remained unfinished or tucked away. Eventually, Keith developed a practical writing process that helped him turn ideas into completed books while still working full time. That process later became the basis for A Novel Way of Writing.
Keith does not write everything for the same reader. He writes the story that wants to be written, often drawing on that broad and unusual past.
His work ranges from children’s stories and coming-of-age fiction to the Cold War, Vietnam, the American West, family, memory, loss, wonder, and the strange places where history and imagination meet.
Some stories are light. Some are difficult. Some begin with a question that refuses to leave him alone.
He is not particularly interested in literary flex. He is interested in stories that make readers keep turning pages.
Keith lives in Oklahoma, where he continues to write, make knives, collect stories, and occasionally find new ones hiding in plain sight.
He is the founder of Ember to Spine Books.
Every Book begins as an ember. The work gives it a spine.
