Compelling stories from the remarkable crossroads of history, faith, and ephemera.
As the country’s foremost postcard historian, I have collected and read thousands of vintage postcards. To me, each one is a true treasure of unique phrases, settings, stories, and personalities.
My recipe for fiction is simple: historical fiction plus postcard elements and faith.
Written on the Last Postcard – Complete, Currently Seeking Literary Representation
Eleven-year-old Lucille Black has been given the gift of rare intuition. She knows things. Perhaps too many. But, even she is not able to foresee what will happen to her family when they are forced to split up during the Depression.
She and her father are exiled to a forgotten Appalachian town where he takes a deadly job to earn money to send her deaf brother to school.
Lucille endures brutal poverty, experiences the anguish of her first love, finds friendship in a junkyard, and is ultimately faced with a choice to stay and embark on a path that will change her life or seize an opportunity to escape.
Found in A Stack of Postcards – Nearing Completion, Currently Seeking Literary Representation
Nobody expects to outlive all of their friends, family members, neighbors, and even their own children. But Juri Rosichi did, and he had a problem – he couldn’t quite die.
For four agonizing days Juri is stuck somewhere between alive and dead, and the only way out is to sort through an ephemeral stack of postcards representing the people who have been a part of his life for nearly 100 years: a Pima Indian woman, a mixed race child growing up in the sixties, a black man born in a West Virginia junkyard, and a young girl horrifically injured in a car accident.
Will he finally understand that the answer to this final puzzle lies not in their lives, but his?
When A Postcard Whispers – Nearing Completion, Currently Seeking Literary Representation
Ivy never had children, and as a result her best friend committed suicide. Taddy never had a family until he ran away from one. Mary hid a secret from her husband in an old box, and then it walked in the front door. How does any of this make sense? Penelope finds the answer – when a postcard whispers to her.
This mesmerizing novel offers one incredible story in four parts. Like life, the tales gracefully overlap, answer difficult questions, and even offer the surprise of untold secrets.
The story is not truly resolved until the very…last…word.
Amusing Postcards from Lost Lands – Under Development
At opposite ends of an old trolley line lie two amusement parks, but staying in business is not about getting customers – it’s about winning the loyalty of the performers. Over eight decades three generations of show folk live through becoming the town’s hottest act and fading into obscurity.
This winding tale follows the world’s tallest woman, a suicidal magician, a one-armed one-man band, and an odd cast of characters as they struggle for relevance while finding adulation and even love.
With talent like that, being the star should be easy. Unless a Seneca Indian curse, a cartel of counterfeiters, and the local newspaper are trying to stop you.
Will they find fame and peace before the music goes silent, the rides stop, and the troops head to the Great War?
Postcards from a Mountain – Under Development
Three refugees from Croatia, Bhutan, and Somalia find themselves in the most unexpected place.
The women conquer poverty and despair while wondering how they all came together. The true answer to their circumstance is only discovered when they need the help of the person who hates them the most. No More Mountains is a story of the ongoing shaping of America. It is the story of wonderful immigrant populations, the story of what is to come, and the story of the incalculable love and loss that gives us the opportunities we all share today.
A Postcard Never Sent – Under Development
By January of 1960 the fun had nearly run out for the Hubert Toy & Novelty Company. The firm, as well as the sixth Hubert man to run the business, was nearly dead. The only thing keeping the company alive was the shared passion of the owner’s young daughter, a deaf toy designer and the black man who ran the factory. Together, they spend their days running the business and their lives in love, in want, and in regret.
They learn that sometimes the outcomes of moments that matter most are determined by events that happened years ago – or never happened at all.
Start a story together – ken@kennethjweiss.com
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