PARKERSBURG – The joy and angst experienced by adoptive parents are revealed from a father’s point of view in “None Call Me Dad” by former Parkersburg resident Ky Owen.

Owen, a 1977 graduate of Parkersburg High School, will introduce his story at a book signing from 1-3 p.m. Saturday at the Parkersburg and Wood County Public Library on Emerson Avenue.

Coming from a family of writers, Owen considers himself a “writer by birth.” The son of the late Dave Owen, longtime editor of The Parkersburg Sentinel, he tells his story in a unique writer’s voice, according to a press release.

“None Call Me Dad” is described as a real-life story told with no holds barred, sharing the ups and downs of parenting with poignancy and humor.

Owen was editor of The PHS Journal in high school. Richard “Ky” Owen is a lawyer with Goodwin & Goodwin LLP in Charleston. He earned a B.A. in journalism from Michigan State University in 1981 and a J.D. from Hamline University in 1984.

Owen became an adoptive father on two weeks’ notice. He and his wife, Tammy, had no plans for a family when they adopted a 6-year-old boy.

Five years later, on two days’ notice, they became guardians to a teenage girl.

Along the way Owen became a father figure to four other kids.

“None call me dad, but they know that’s who I am,” Owen says about the title and theme of “None Call Me Dad.”

The book’s chapter titles chart a journey that turns into a virtual roller coaster ride of parenting an ever-changing alternative family, a press release states. Owen tells about facing the challenges of truancy and Type I diabetes, hopping trains and “flying a sign,” and kids finding their way on their own terms.

He takes readers along on father-son trips to March Madness and the Rose Bowl, and father-daughter weekends on Broadway in Nashville and the French Quarter of New Orleans.

‘”None Call Me Dad’ is a compelling opus,” writes Kay Goodwin, cabinet secretary for the West Virginia Department of Education and the Arts. “A delightful read by a budding West Virginia author.”

The book is dedicated to Dave Owen, who appears in a chapter titled “Golf, It’s Tradition.”

Owen’s mother, Frieda Owen, a retired Wood County Schools administrator and adjunct English professor at Washington State Community College, is one of the book’s editors. She is cast in “None Call Me Dad” as a “cool grandmother who drinks wine, eats chocolate and drives a convertible.”

“None Call Me Dad” is being published in print and e-book versions. It will be available at the library book signing on Saturday, at J&M Used Bookstore in Parkersburg and on Amazon.