Katie Ward: 5 Books That Influenced My Creative Process

As I mentioned in my recent appearance at Suffolk Book League (8th May 2025 at Eastern Angles) Pathways is the outcome of a long – sometimes very difficult – creative process. I’m proud that my second published novel (now out in paperback) came from an emotionally truthful place, and that every line on every page is meant.

Science and Poetry by Mary Midgley. 

Pathways wouldn’t exist had I not read the philosopher Mary Midgley’s Science and Poetry. Midgley uses a simile of the ‘ill- lit aquarium’ to describe ‘our world, including ourselves’ which must be viewed through its various windows to be better understood.

Talking Heads by Alan Bennett. 

These monologues for television are deceptively simple and their cultural significance is entirely deserved. All the devices a storyteller needs can be learned here: character, voice, structure, imagery, humour, ambiguity; and, most importantly of all, an intimate relationship with the audience. I first read them as a teenager, and I still reread them today.

On Photography by Susan Sontag. 

Sontag’s point of view is sharp and clear. Like photographs, these essays feel spontaneous, capture fleeting thoughts, seem written in haste; but they are also important historical records and slices of life. Beneath the surface of the writing is a worldview.

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. 

When I was writing Pathways, I kept returning to this inevitable tension between expectation and reality – between illusion and facts. A novel is, by definition, an imperfect work of art and how we read it changes as time goes by. Some stories contain insights that we return to again and again; some stories have a moment with us, then fizzle out.

The Neuroscientist Who Lost Her Mind: a Memoir of Madness and Recovery by Barbara K. Lipska. 

I’ve read a lot of popular neuroscience. While other authors are better known (e.g. Oliver Sacks, V. S. Ramachandran, Semir Zeki), Lipska’s lived experience of melanoma that spread to her brain has stayed with me. She recounts her deterioration into paranoia and schizophrenia-like symptoms, her cancer treatments, and a recovery that includes a return to triathlon. Mind and body are written about as one whole.