About Last Kid Books

David Benjamin has a lifetime of stories to tell. Last Kid Books is his way — before it’s all over — to get those stories where they belong, into the hands of people who can read and enjoy them.

Benjamin enjoyed a modicum of literary success over the years, with four books in print, including SUMO: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Japan’s National Sport, published by Tuttle in 1990 and continuously in print since then, and The Life and Times of the Last Kid Picked, a 2002 Random House title.

With the death of his agent in 2012, David Benjamin was cut off from America’s publishing hub in New York City. After six years of trying to cajole his way back to that literary inner circle, Benjamin took stock of himself and decided he couldn’t wait any longer to be “discovered.” He recalled  the words of his Grandma Annie: “If you want something done right, you’d better do it your own damn self, sweetie.”

Last Kid Books is David Benjamin doing it his own sweet self.

To punctuate the arrival of Last Kid Books in 2019, and to distinguish himself from authors who “have one good book” in themselves, David Benjamin launched his imprint with three books at once: an essay collection, Almost Killed by a Train of Thought, and two novels, Summer of ’68 and Skulduggery in the Latin Quarter.

Each of these inaugural Last Kid Books titles won an award from judges in independent publishing organizations. Summer of ’68 was actually honored twice. Since that auspicious beginning, Benjamin’s Last Kid Books — now up to eighteen titles—have accumulated more than thirty awards in   genres that range from Crime, Mystery and Historical Fiction to Romantic Comedy, Short Stories and Essays. Among these honors, Benjamin’s coming-of-age novel, They Shot Kennedy, received the grand prize for Historical, Contemporary and Literary Fiction in the Midwest Independent Publishers Association’s Midwest Book Awards in 2021, and his novel, Fat Vinny’s Forbidden Love, received a Silver Medal for Humor in the Independent Book Publishers Association’s prestigious Benjamin Franklin Awards in 2022. Benjamin’s historical “murder mystery,” Witness to the Crucifixion, has won literary awards from five different organizations.

Benjamin’s writing has earned praise from book critics, library organizations, academics and fellow authors, including James Fallows, Gregg Easterbrook, James Dodson and Ron Powers.

During his career as a newspaper editor and columnist, Benjamin also won nine award for excellence in journalism. His essays have appeared in publications that include the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Orange County Register, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Shukan Bunshun, Tokyo Journal and the Mainichi Daily News in Tokyo and in his hometown newspapers, the Capital Times and Wisconsin State Journal. Writing on technology—a sideline for more than thirty years—Benjamin has written extensively for Electronic Buyers News, EE Times and the Ojo-Yoshida Report.

“A writer covers a lot of ground and wears many hats in the course of a career,” said David Benjamin. “The uncertainties can be scary, but the lessons learned over the years, coping with change and adapting to the seismic shifts that have affected the media ecosystem have instilled in me confidence that I can write good stories, entertain my readers and—as an entrepreneur—create books that look good, feel good and belong in the best of libraries.”

There are still lots of stories coupled up to Benjamin’s train of thought. Watch for them here.