SPYGLASS NEWSLETTER
Welcome to the author newsletter of Stephen Koenig, a space for sharing projects and information. This site will evolve over time—sometimes highlighting professional work, personal interests, and occasionally works in progress.
Check back to see what’s new and what Stephen is exploring.
STORY INFO – NEW RELEASES
AWAY FORWARD: On the last day of 1999, a quiet man with a fractured mind recalls his life as he embarks on a mission of love.
It is New Year’s Eve.Y2K and the snowy weather have put people on edge, but it won’t stop the residents of South Fork from celebrating the year 2000. Away Forward tells the story of a missing father, a daughter’s love, rural life, loss, forgiveness, and the hope that comes with a new year.
AWAY FORWARD is set in the fictional town of SOUTH FORK. It is based on the village of EWING, originally settled in 1870, just below the confluence of the river’s north and south forks. While the main stem of the Elkhorn River flows directly past the town, the South Fork of the Elkhorn River flows just a few miles southwest and joins the main branch immediately downstream of the community.
DISMAL RIVER MOON: Wounded by life and love, investigators seek answers as they join forces to face down evil.
Struggling investigators team up in the Little Bohemia section of Omaha. They attempt to locate a missing Native American nun and an individual involved in the death of a Catholic friar in the remote Nebraska Sandhills. They save a group of girls from human traffickers and help protect a novice friar hiding from a Chinese Triad. All while dealing with their own personal injuries.
BARBED WIRE RUNS THROUGH IT: A dark investigation occurs as life events change a young boy’s world.
It is 1976, and Joe Bauer, a twelve-year-old boy, is having a tough year. He almost died twice, saw a tornado, met a Nazi, and got his first kiss. Joe, the last student at his rural school in Holt County, Nebraska, watched his family struggle through this challenging time.
Newly EDITED and a NEW COVER – November 2026. (Self-Published 2021)
BOOK I AM READING
PLAINGSONG – by Kent Haruff: In the small town of Holt, Colorado, a high school teacher is confronted with raising his two boys alone after their mother retreats first to the bedroom, then altogether. A teenage girl—her father long since disappeared, her mother unwilling to have her in the house—is pregnant, alone herself, with nowhere to go. And out in the country, two brothers, elderly bachelors, work the family homestead, the only world they’ve ever known. From these unsettled lives emerges a vision of life, and of the town and landscape that bind them together—their fates somehow overcoming the powerful circumstances of place and station, their confusion, curiosity, dignity and humor intact and resonant. As the milieu widens to embrace fully four generations, Kent Haruf displays an emotional and aesthetic authority to rival the past masters of a classic American tradition.
PIX FROM 2026
Stephen Koenig shows off his amateur photo-taking and post-production editing skills.
