Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

The death last week of Maurice White, who founded Earth,Wind and Fire , made me, like a lot of people sad. The music of Earth, Wind and Fire marked the beginning of my journey to adulthood. Their music is also inextricably tied to my relationship with my freshman roommate Yone, the first friend I ever had. For me, listening as radio stations played their songs back-to-back was more than a tribute to Maurice White, or a celebration of their musical canon. I was listening to part of the soundtrack of my life. This realization got me thinking about the role of music in my life and writing. In my books, I use music—to locate the story firmly in time, or to express something about the characters, or their emotion or mood. In What Binds Us , the signature song for Matthew and Thomas-Edward is Randy Crawford’s “Where There was Darkness,” which describes the gratitude they feel for having, unexpectedly found each other; the song’s lyrics express what they cannot yet articulate to each o...

The Cottage The other day I opened my email ten days late and found the following note from the Judith, the woman from whom we’d rented a cottage at Dewey Beach each year for a decade: This is so hard for me to say - we have decided to stop renting the cottage. For the past two years we have been trying to find a way to continue renting, but with our new schedules and locations, it is proving very difficult to keep up with all the duties and responsibilities required to rent Dewey. I wanted to wait until the end of the season to let everyone know - and give you all plenty of time to look for new places. We’d discovered the cottage at 109 Saulsbury Street when our friend Shirley invited us down for a few days. We fell in love with the house, and Dewey Beach, and Rehoboth. The next year we rented the house the week after Shirley. For years our routine was thus: Shirley would rent the house for 2 weeks in May, we’d rent the week after her, then we’d go down early and Shirley ...