Larry F. Sommers is a Wisconsin writer of historical fiction, seeking fresh meanings in our common past.
He is the author of The Price of Passage: From Norway to America, From Slavery to Freedom, an epic historical novel published by Three Towers Press in 2025; and Izzy Strikes Gold!, a middle-grade coming-of-age novel, Three Towers Press, 2024.
"The Particle Theory," a short story, was published by Creative Wisconsin Magazine in 2025. Another short story, "Beast of the Moment," was featured in Well Read Magazine in 2023. Larry won Honorable Mention in the 2018 Great American Story Contest for “The Lion’s Den,” a tale of childhood in the 1950s, and has published other Izzy Mahler stories in the online version of The Saturday Evening Post.
In the early 2000s, he wrote ten unproduced screenplays, including "Scene of the Crime," which made the quarterfinals or semifinals in several contests.
He edited The Congregationalist, a national church-related quarterly magazine, from 2009 to 2016 and previously worked 23 years for the State of Wisconsin as a writer, editor, photographer, writing coach, and public affairs consultant in a fast-paced workflow punctuated by crisis communication events.
He posts a weekly blog at https://LarryFSommers.com with varied reflections on Past and Present, Spirit and Faith, Story and Narrative, Writing and Writers.
He is a fan of Strunk and White, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the serial comma.
“I seek a new understanding of ourselves and our world, leaping out as if by miracle from retrospective writing,” he says. “Reflective readers of all descriptions may hope for something true and enduring. My stories simply aim to supply whisperings from the past for the nourishment of readers’ hearts in the struggle of life.”