Upcoming Events:
Friday, 24 April, 2 p.m.
Independent Press Association BookCamp, David Benjamin to speak on “The Writer’s Gauntlet,” Hilton Doubletree Hotel, Newark, New Jersey
Thursday, 30 April 2:15 pm
Radio Interview with Sharyn Alden on “Everybody’s Got a Story,” Sun Prairie Media Center
Wednesday, 6 May 9 am
Radio Interview with Phil Nee, on “Jim Otis and Smalltown Crime, WRCO Radio, Richland Center, Wis.
Video:
The Coming of Age Quartet
by David Benjamin
Benjamin talks about his inspiration for a coming-of-age “quartet” that has few parallels in contemporary literature.
NEW from Last Kid Books:
Upstairs
Sixth in the Award-Winning Jim Otis Smalltown Crime Series!
There’s a curse on the Kuckuck building.
It’s been abandoned for more than a decade. It’s boarded up and slated for demolition. In other words, it’s a magnet for kids to break, enter, climb the stairs and explore. Which is exactly what Riley Hawkins, grade-school bully, decides to do …
… Until the building strikes back!
Benjamin at BookCamp
July 2024 •
“GabTalk” with Gabby Olczak
At the Independent Press Awards “BookCamp” this year, the IPA’s vivacious Gabby Olczak chatted with David Benjamin about Cheat (Mystery), one of Benjamin’s four 2024 Distinguished Favorite award-winning books, including The Voice of the Dog (Crime Fiction), The Melting Grandmother and Other Short Works (Short Stories) and Bistro Nights (Literary Fiction). These honors increased the total number of literary awards garnered by Last Kid Books to 46, since its 2019 launch.
Here’s Benjamin, holding his haul of medals, with Book Camp impresario Ted Olczak. Click to view Benjamin’s “GabTalk” conversation.
Last Kid News:
Although modesty is my style, selling books is my mission. So, I’m collaborating with Boundless Media to blow my own horn. Here’s my latest tune.
My wife and media coach, Junko Yoshida, especially likes my reference to the emotional burden that a writer bears: “One of the forces that reduces the population of professional writers is that you spend your life running scared. With every job you do, you have to prove yourself all over again, to people whose criteria for judging you are a complete mystery. You run a gauntlet of persistent rejection.”
David Benjamin, Award-Winning Author, to Speak at BookCAMP Event Ahead of IPA and NYC Big Book Awards Recognition
LOS ANGELES, CA, UNITED STATES, April 20, 2026 — Award-winning author, journalist, and independent publisher David Benjamin will headline the Independent Press Award BookCAMP live event on April 24, just one day before he receives multiple national honors at the NYC Big Book Awards and the Independent Press Awards.
Benjamin, founder of Last Kid Books, has built a career shaped by resilience, sharp wit, and a deep commitment to storytelling. With decades of experience spanning fiction, memoir, essays, and journalism, he has produced work that reflects both personal insight and a wide-ranging cultural perspective. Yet, as Benjamin himself candidly notes, the writer’s path is far from easy.
NEW...
Upstairs
Last Kid Books
is a publishing house with a sense of humor. Dedicated — at its outset — to publishing the works of prolific storyteller David Benjamin, LKB embodies Benjamin’s wry wit and narrative adventurousness.
Last Kid Books takes its name from David Benjamin’s beloved Midwestern coming-of-age story, The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked (published by Random House in 2002). Benjamin is also author of SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport, a Charles E. Tuttle title, revised in 2010, that has been in print since 1990. Two previous Benjamin novels, Three’s A Crowd (a noir comedy) and A Sunday Kind of Love (a football romance), have been added to the Last Kid Books imprint, as well as Black Dragon, released in July 2019.
David Benjamin is a novelist, journalist, provocateur and habitual humorist who has lived his life — occasionally to his chagrin — by the words of Nobel laureate Juan Ramon Jimenez: “If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.”
Last Kid Books is Benjie’s showcase.
