Larry Benjamin. Wordsmith. Writer. Author.

This post is an open letter to John McCain—usually this blog is dedicated to the “Writer’s Life.” To an extent it still is since writers are people and, so I tend to write about my experiences, even those unrelated to writing because those experiences are a part of this writer’s life and often influence my writing which though I write fiction, that fiction is, more often than not, informed by reality. So here goes. Dear Senator McCain: I am begging—yes begging , and normally I’m too proud, too arrogant to beg but in this instance, there is too much at stake, too many people at risk to stand on pride—John McCain to change his mind and vote against Trump's tax bill. As Mr. Spock said in one of the Star Trek movies, “The needs of the many outweighs the needs of the one.” We lost our father, a veteran, and a good man to cancer on November 8. He had access to healthcare. And, we did not have to worry about the cost of his care—even if we had to pay out of pocket, we h...

Today at 10:31 a.m., my dad closed his eyes for the last time. When he did, a part of me died with him. I’ll accept your condolences but please check your religion at the door. And don’t talk to me of your God and His wisdom and mercy. Not today. Not today. I believe in God, I do. But not today. Not today. Today, I feel He abandoned me and my father when all I could do was hold his hand and rub his head and tell him I loved him; when all his doctors could do was increase his pain medicine and escalate the frequency with which he received them, and swab his mouth with plain gelatin to make up for the water he could no longer drink, the food he could no longer eat. The first time I, went, alone, to visit dad in the hospital, I arrived in his room while he was still downstairs in radiation. A nurse walked in and asked who I was. “I’m Larry, his middle son.” “Oh, you’re the one who lives in Philadelphia!” “Yes, how did you know that?” “Your dad talks about you. H...

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmaster of ever afterwards.  — F. Scott Fitzgerald I, like most writers with a modicum of self-control and a soupcon of good sense, don’t comment on reviews. But I do read each and every one. Mostly out of curiosity. I’m genuinely curious about what readers think of my work, of the stories I chose to tell, of the words I choose to tell them with—and yes, I realize that can be two very different things. I realize reviewers write not for writers but for other readers to either steer them to books they liked or away from others that somehow disappointed them. I don’t read reviews to learn what readers want—I decided long ago when I started writing seriously that I wasn’t writing to market but rather writing the stories that burned in me and let the market find me. Perhaps a stupid approach—certainly not a lucrative one, but one that allows me to feel good about my work. And ...

On June 26, I quit my job. I immediately stopped doing three things: setting my alarm, ironing clothes, and shaving. The next day I started Klonopin, an anticonvulsant often prescribed to treat panic attacks and anxiety. Five days later I sat in my doctor’s office and, in tears, admitted that for the first time in I didn’t know how long, I felt like myself. He referred me to a therapist and the work began. With no job, and a new book set to be released August 1, I had nothing to do but work on myself and write. I needed to figure not only who I was but who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do next. Writing was a part of that. With the publication of my first book, What Binds Us , I was classified as a romance writer specifically gay romance, more commonly referred to as mm romance. I was never quite comfortable with that definition quite frankly. My books have strong romantic elements but I don’t see them as romances. Being so close to releasing In His Eyes , I really needed to ...

I don’t read when I’m working on a book. I’m too easily influenced by what is happening around me when I write: events, conversations, songs, people—they all comes into play and get filtered into my work. So, I avoid reading to avoid another writer’s influence. Since In His Eyes was released on August 1, I’ve been trying to catch up on my reading. Most recently I picked up “The Best of Saki,” by H.H. Munro, a British writer whose witty, mischievous, and sometimes macabre stories satirize Edwardian society and culture. I fell in love with his prose. Often there were lines that were sublime: concise, biting. As read, I made notes highlighting those special lines. This post is about favorite lines from books I’ve recently read. H.H. Munro (Saki): His casual comments on marriage were a particular favorite of mine: You’re married to him—that’s different; you’ve sworn to love, honour, and endure him: I haven’t. –Laura To have married Mortimer Seltoun, ‘Dead Mortimer,’ as ...

“When he was young, he’d learned that words hurt, maimed, scarred. When he got older, he’d learned that words could also comfort, heal. But he’d never forgotten the first lesson. Perhaps that was why he’d chosen a career in finance: numbers. Numbers added up; they did not tear down.” From Black & Ugly I grew up in an era when our parents told us to remember “sticks and stones make break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Having been called faggot more times than I can remember, and once the N-word by an alcoholic white trash neighbor in our otherwise democratic, and progressive East Falls neighborhood, I know from experience our parents were wrong. As a wordsmith, as a writer , I understand the power of words—I understand that words can strike with the force of a hammer. Words can also heal; they can bring us together. Or, tear us apart. Statue of Robert E. Lee, Charlottesville, Virginia Let’s talk about the Charlottesville tragedy and Trump. From this w...

Before every book’s release, everything seems possible: This will be the one, this one will be widely read, and receive accolades; this one will top the New York Times Bestseller list. Ellen will call. And then inevitably the book comes out and you get up early and check your Amazon ranking. Not Number One Not even close. Not yet. Maybe tomorrow. And then tomorrow comes and the day after that and the day after that. And you continue to dream, begin boldly to imagine the movie version… I was part of the Authors Corner at the Ask Rayceen Show in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Author's Corner, The Ask Rayceen Show One of the questions Rayceen asked each of us authors was which of our books we saw as a movie and who did we want the lead actors to be. I didn’t have a ready answer, stumbled through a response. But it wasn’t the right answer. I’ve been obsessing over the right answer ever since. I know on one level this obsessive pondering of this question was partly due t...