Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

I loved this post so much, I asked Ken if I could share it. Kenneth Larsen writes...: Scenes in the making : Weddings are wonderful events, but much like the arrival of a new baby, nobody wants to hear about it every day. I like to think I’ve done a...

Probably not many people know this but short stories were my first love. I cut my teeth, so to speak, on short stories. My second book, Damaged Angels , a collection of short stories, was actually the first book I wrote. But I was told more than once that I needed to publish a novel before I could publish short stories. At any rate, this year I’m returning to short stories—at least for a while. Writing novels is great because you have a longer time frame— What Binds Us spans a decade and Unbroken unfolds over 40 years—so you have time to develop your characters, to let readers watch them change and grow.   But I wanted to go back to short form fiction which has a much smaller time period.    My newest story is the holiday themed, “The Christmas Present,” which is one of 24 stories from the Beaten Track Publishing’s holiday anthology, Boughs of Evergreen . The story spans about two weeks in the life of a gay teenage who is neglected, marginalized, without hope u...

  This week, I'm very excited to turn my blog over to my friend and fellow writer, Andrew Q. Gordon, whose book, Purpose , I absolutely loved. I can't wait to read the new one.  Andrew's new book, A Closed Door , is set to release today (October 8) by Wayward Publishing. Blurb Outted at thirteen, Orin Merritt left home after high school hoping to escape the hell his life had become. Ten years later when a tornado destroys his childhood home and kills his parents, Orin finds himself in an entirely new nightmare. One he can't run away from. Blaming himself for failing the two people who always loved and supported him, he returns home and confronts his past in the person of his one-time best friend, Thomas Kennett.  Thomas not only rejected him when Orin came out, he led the group that tormented Orin into leaving.   As he struggles to deal with his grief, Orin also labors to fulfill the pledge he made to his parents befor...