About And Ward
And Ward is a small publishing house.
It exists to publish books, stories, frameworks, and tools — all of them in service of one old idea: know thy self.
The catalog isn't tidy in the usual ways. It crosses formats and audiences: illustrated fables for children, soccer readers for kids learning to read, e-books on practical skills, poetry that reads as a young man's record of himself, and a forthcoming line of tools for working on yourself in the second half of life. What binds the catalog isn't a genre. It's a question — do you actually know who you are, and what you are here to do?
Why “know thy self”
Know thy self.
The phrase is two and a half thousand years old. The Greeks carved it above the entrance to the temple at Delphi and offered it to anyone passing through. The carving suggested something harder than the visit: before you ask the universe about your fate, ask yourself who you are.
Most of what's hard about being alive — choosing a partner, designing a career, raising children, leaving something useful behind — turns out to be downstream of that one suggestion. The titles we publish don't all answer it. They invite the reader to sit with it.
A child reads a fable about a watering hole and absorbs something about cooperation and self before he has words for either. A nine-year-old reads about Gozzie controlling the ball and learns that mastery has a shape. An adult opens a framework on career design and discovers the framework is really a mirror. The form changes. The question doesn't.
Who runs it
Rob Way.
Rob Way · Founder, And Ward · Canberra, Australia
And Ward is run by Rob Way — based in Canberra, Australia.
His work is varied. Some weeks it's strategy or planning or program work for a client. Other weeks it's writing a fable, building a website, or drafting a framework for someone trying to figure out their career. AI threads through all of it — used to build systems that think alongside him, to produce content, products, and images, and to extend what he can do for himself, for others, and for the world. The activities differ. The thing underneath them doesn't — he follows where the wellbeing is, and the work becomes an expression of that.
What it's an expression of takes longer to say.
He grew up in an environment that felt distant, absent, and confusing. He learned early that to enjoy something meant he was probably doing it wrong, and that expressing himself would be dismissed. So he masked what he thought and felt, and kept it inside. For a long time.
The question that emerged on the other side of that was simple: what if understanding who you are, what you are here to do, and sharing it with the world — is the greatest contribution to the universe?
In his own words —
magic is real — that we are connected to all that is, and that the work of a lifetime is to come to know ourselves, become solid in who we are, and then express that outward into the world.
being present — to my breath, my sensations, my thoughts, my feelings, and to the people and world around me. And by acknowledging nothingness — being still, silent, here, nowhere, and everywhere.
I teach people to know themselves, and to bring that knowing to the world — through conversations, books, videos, workshops, events, and retreats.
The boy who created a mask is now the man who helps others unmask themselves.
If you want to engage Rob professionally, his consulting profile is here.
What we publish
Three audiences, one thread.
The catalog is organised around three audiences.
Stories that plant ideas in soil that holds them.
The Pond Fables, illustrated parables for thoughtful young readers. Gozzie's Soccer Readers, a coded-reader series for kids learning to read through the game they love.
Practical tools and reflective work.
A small library of e-books — on managing change, doing the job, communicating well, phone rapport, and preparing for a career — written as field manuals, not pep talks. The Poetic Writings of William Way: A boy's view on love, offered as a record of how a boy sees love before he understands himself. Becoming O.P, a forthcoming line of tools for self-knowledge in adulthood, is in development.
Frameworks for people who run things.
For the people who run things and want to run them better. The Success Framework, currently in development, will be the first title in this line.
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