I write about war and peace, moral injury, responsibility, memory, aging, the body, and the difficult work of remaining human in a world that too often asks us to look away.
Some pieces begin with Vietnam. Others begin with something happening outside my window or in today’s news. Eventually they seem to arrive at the same question:
The Journey in Writing
There is something different about hearing a story carried by breath rather than ink.
Here you will find conversations, readings, and audio from The Tug of War—including the voices that are helping bring the book from the page into the ear.
The Voice Behind the Stories
In interviews and conversations, I talk about Vietnam, coming home, moral injury, veterans, psychotherapy, and why I believe telling the truth about war is not an act against one’s country.
It is an act of responsibility toward it.
Sit with me for a while.
READ
Read Recent Commentary by Larry On His Substack Page
LISTEN
The audiobook for The Tug of War is being created now. The prose will be narrated by George Guidall, and the poetry by Larry himself.
The Path Behind the Book.
Cleaning Up What Was Left
Some books we choose to read. Other books seem to have been waiting for us.
After Bear Heart died, his wife, Reginah WaterSpirit, asked me to narrate The Wind Is My Mother for Tantor Audio. Written by Bear Heart with Molly Larkin, the book carries the life and teachings of a Muskogee Creek healer whose wisdom traveled far beyond the boundaries of any single tradition.
My connection to the book was personal. Bear Heart had taught my teacher, Will Taegel, founder of the EarthTribe. Through Will, I undertook a vision quest that gave form to something I had carried silently since returning from Vietnam.
During that quest, the Black Peace Eagle came to me with a message:
I clean up what is left.
I gradually understood that this was to become the work of the remainder of my life—to clean up the battlefield I had brought home inside me. Not to erase it, because some ground can never be restored to what it was before, but to remove what still wounds, bury what deserves burial, and make room for life to return.
Narrating The Wind Is My Mother was therefore more than a professional recording. I was lending my voice to a lineage of teaching that had already helped me hear my own life differently.
That same path eventually led me to write The Tug of War. The two books arise from different histories, but they meet beside the same fire. Both ask how we listen when the soul begins speaking after the ordinary language of explanation has failed.
Listen to a preview of the audiobook narrated by Larry below, or listen to the whole thing here (https://www.audible.com/pd/The-Wind-Is-My-Mother-Audiobook/1977389163?srsltid=AfmBOoq8eXwYBHgV0kXIxrWkPOQ6p0GCWnujnYBFKU-8h1WkBsFRbyrY)
WATCH
Larry Winters in “Ask A Vet”
Watch Larry in his recent video interview with the host of the Ask A Vet Podcast on Youtube
“Thomas Young”
A video poem written and narrated by Larry Winters
“I’m Here Because I’ve Been There”
A video poem written and narrated by Larry Winters