“If you want to change the world, pick up your pen and write.” -- Martin Luther
Clifford Henderson’s Novels
Perfect Little Worlds
Winner of the Golden Crown Literary Award
Lucy can’t hold the secret any longer. Twenty-six years ago, her sister did the unthinkable.
Portland, Oregon, 1989: Lucy Mustin, living somewhat happily, pumping out wedding cakes for starry-eyed heterosexuals while she, a lesbian, can’t legally marry, is called upon to travel to Santa Cruz to help her autistic sister, Alice, care for their Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother. She knew the call was coming sooner or later. She’d just hoped it would be later. Mother issues. The possibility that resolution might be lost to dementia is a heartbreak she doesn’t feel like feeling.
Santa Cruz, California, one week later: a trip to the family bakery ups the ante tenfold when the Loma Prieta/World Series Earthquake, racking up a whopping 7.1 on the Richter scale, traps the sisters below ground. There, Alice reminds Lucy of a promise made to their mother many years ago, a promise she plans to keep.
To order go to Bold Strokes Books.
Rest Home Runaways
2014 Rainbow Awards Finalist!
Published August 2014
Baby boomer Morgan Ronzio’s troubled marriage is the least of her worries when she gets the call that her addled, eighty-six-year-old, half-blind dad, Mac, has stolen a car and escaped the rest home.
Before she can alert her uber-capable wife, Treat, a trio of lady octogenarians appropriates the rest home van to rescue Mac, embarking on an adventure that makes national news. But Morgan knows something they don’t: Mac is taking orders from her mom’s ghost, trying to make good on a promise he made years ago. Worried sick, Morgan sets out on the 126 mile drive from Fresno to Santa Cruz, praying she finds Mac before he hurts himself- or worse. The chase is on- only the mission becomes one of more than miles; Morgan must also undertake a journey of the heart.
To order go to Bold Strokes Books.
Maye’s Request
Winner of the Golden Crown Literary Award
Published January 2011
Freshly out of college and possibly in love, Brianna Bell, aka Bean, worries that she’ll never be able to have a normal relationship due to her screwy upbringing. Her parents form a perfect triangle: Mom, Dad, and her mother’s lover—who also happens to be her Dad’s twin sister. The animosity between the twins is a valley of landmines. When her mom, Maye, is threatened with a rare and possibly fatal illness, she begs Bean to help heal the rift between brother and sister. Reluctantly, Bean tries. But the more Bean finds out about her parents’ complicated history, the more she realizes how little she knows.
A story of love, longing, and family.
Spanking New
Winner of Independent Publisher’s Book Award
Published January 2010
Getting born is trickier than Spanky ever imagined.
Yearning for life, Spanky chooses Nina, a flighty actress just out of college, and Rick, a sax player who changes tires to get by, to be his parents. Only Nina seems to be hung up on her gay guy friend Pablo, and Nina’s best girlfriend Dink is hung up her! Will Nina and Rick get it together in time to conceive Spanky before he evaporates? And if this hurdle gets crossed, will they choose to keep him? If so, will they and their quarreling families learn to like him?
There’s not much Spanky can do but watch from afar while his fate plays out — and if that’s not scary enough — something else happens that makes Spanky completely reevaluate his expectations. He’s a girl!
A poignant, hilarious, unforgettable look at life, love, gender, and the essence of what makes us who we are.
The Middle of Somewhere
Gold Medal Winner of Forward Magazine’s Book of the Year
Published January 2009
Eadie T. Pratt sets out on a road trip in search of a new life and ends up in the middle of somewhere she never expected. Start with one independent, urban lesbian who cashes out her life in San Francisco for a second-hand travel trailer and sets off to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in search of a new life. Add to this a broken down ’66 Mustang, a bunch of small-town Texas Baptists, a ton of fried food, and a church scandal. Pepper this with a hot love interest and a dash of greed and what you get is Eadie T. Pratt’s road trip gone awry.
Sam Martino
Out in Jersey
