For Christina Benjamin, the tragic death of her child came several months after the birth of her first book.
Benjamin and her husband, Philip, will fly to London next week to receive the first runner-up award in young adult fiction at the London Book Festival. The award is for her novel The Geneva Project: Truth, which she and her husband published in December 2012.
She said she wrote the book while she was pregnant with Dalton, who was born in June 2012. He died of a genetic disease about seven months ago. She spent a lot of time at the hospital before her son’s death and read him portions of her book.
“He definitely inspired me,” she said. “He was so happy despite everything that was going on. He taught me to appreciate life more.”
The book tells the story of a young girl named Geneva, enslaved in an orphanage, who begins to acquire magical powers she can use to battle the evil head mistress. The paperback edition is available at Amazon.com and e-book editions are available for the Nook and Kindle. More information about the book can be found at www.TheGenevaProjectBook.com.
Benjamin grew up in La Plume, Pa., not far from Scranton. Dalton was named after a nearby Pennsylvania town where Benjamin said she spent a lot of time. After leaving Pennsylvania, she attended Flagler College in St. Augustine before moving on to the University of Central Florida, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in English.
She works for The Villages, buying merchandise to stock the Banner Merchantile stores. Her husband used to work for the Villages Daily Sun, but now runs his own graphic design business. He designed the book cover and handles marketing.
Benjamin wrote short stories in grade school and later wrote for blogs and web sites.
“I just started to write the book as a hobby,” she said. “My husband read it and said let’s make it a book.”
She said she was inspired to write young adult fiction by fond memories of her family reading the Harry Potter series together when she was growing up.
Benjamin said she and her husband probably won’t try to have any more children for fear that the result would be as tragic as Dalton. She is working the second novel in The Geneva Project series. As for Dalton, she focuses on the good memories.
“We just feel lucky that we got a whole year with him,” she said.
