Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

I read this article, “ We Didn't Say 'Gay' At My High School. It Almost Cost Me My Life ,” by HuffPost’s Noah Michelson and it took me back to possibly the darkest time in my life: high school. I tend not to dwell too much on the past so the last time I really thought about the hell that was high school was when I wrote my second novel, “ Unbroken ,” which memorializes a lot of what I experienced growing up. Like Noah it was always obvious that I was gay. Our stories are remarkably similar: the bullying, the name calling, the loneliness. But there are stories diverge. I didn’t grow up in a small town but in The Bronx; I didn’t have a gay uncle to show me that guys like me existed, that I wasn’t alone. I’m Black. Maybe being Black made it easier to embrace my gayness. Afterall both identities carry the threat of discrimination and suspicion. I’ve been called the N-word. In high end stores I was often regarded with suspicion and then curiosity when I laid down my Amex G...

I met T.A. Riddle years ago at the dog park. It was just after my first book was published. We began to talk about writing, and he shared that he had been writing a book for a number of years. “Dancing Like Nobody’s Watching: Contra Dance” is that book. Set in the late 1980s, the novel carries the weight of memory, but it’s a memory recalled through a 21 st century lens leading to a kind of literary dissonance. It’s a heavy novel dealing with serious topics—heartbreak, friendships, lives lost, religious trauma, the shadow of the growing AIDS crisis—even as it’s characters lose themselves and their cares in the pounding rhythms of the house music of the decade. Yet, for all its heaviness, the story is positive, powered by hope—hope that it really does get better; that we can love one another in truth and joy—the kind of hope that propelled Barrack Obama to the White House, twice. The prose is clean and sharp; it sings at times, like this evocative passage speaking of helplessnes...