An attorney for nearly 30 years, both corporate and in private practice, Ward R. Jones, author of After Isaactown (November 2010, CreateSpace) knew the pressures, the challenges, and the life of the lawyer whose story he tells.
It is this experience he draws upon to write a novel of business and law, a contemporary narrative that leads inexorably to the foibles of the human heart.
After a professional lifetime in corporate law, of meeting people like those in my novel, I wanted to show not just the process of decision making, but the often chaotic course of events, the professional and the personal,” says Jones. “And how, with each new challenge, character is shown in shades of strength or weakness.”
A father and husband, Jones was inspired to write After Isaactown after reading other “legal” novels, which while rich in intrigue, were missing the deeper, more personal side of the story.
“Like all of my novels, ideas originate with a central character, and then evolve through relationships,” says Jones. “Not all of the relationships end happily – but the characters strive to make it so. And the striving is what I’m interested in.”
A native Houstonian, Jones is a 1965 graduate of Washington & Lee University. He went on to earn his juris doctorate in 1968 from Tulane Law School, and eventually returned to Houston to work as an attorney for the region’s oil and gas companies.
In After Isaactown, the main character jumps through hoops to pursue his love, and in 1995, Jones left the legal world to pursue his own: Writing. That year, a course at Rice University helped him flesh out his story ideas into novel form, and today, he has published short stories in literary journals, including Audience and the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
Jones lives with his wife Shelby in Houston, Texas. An occasional golfer, Jones spends much of his time writing.