Based in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania (PA), USA, author Larry Patzer draws on 20 years of United States Air Force service, two decades in aerospace systems engineering, and extensive spiritual care training to create emotionally resonant, realistic, and ethically grounded fiction. His work combines military authenticity, systems-driven plausibility, and trauma-aware storytelling shaped by his experience as a Spiritual Director and on-call trauma chaplain. Patzer’s novels honor service, explore moral complexity, and deliver character-driven suspense filled with hope, humanity, and purpose. He is the author of The Palm Tree: A Coffee Shop Extraordinaire and The Past Always Comes Back, available on Amazon.
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Elkins Park Pennsylvania (PA) United States With twenty years of service as a United States Air Force officer, Larry Patzer understands loyalty, sacrifice, and the unshakable bonds of duty. After another two decades in aerospace systems engineering, he redirected his energy into writing; his fiction now carries the discipline of service, the clarity of systems thinking, and the compassion of a seasoned caregiver.
Patzer’s work resonates with veterans and active-duty service members because it reflects an insider’s perspective. He does not sensationalize service; he writes with authenticity, grounded in lived experience. The precision of his engineering years informs credible logistics and cause-and-effect; the habits of an officer translate into clear objectives, realistic constraints, and consequences that accumulate.
Just as importantly, he brings a pastoral lens to the page: Patzer trained and was certified as a Spiritual Director, and he served for years as a volunteer on-call trauma chaplain at Memorial Hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado (one of the nation’s busiest emergency rooms at the time). That background shapes how he portrays harm, recovery, and hard-won hope.
“I have seen what service demands: the discipline, the cost, and the enduring impact it has on families,” Patzer explains. “Those realities stay with you; they inform every part of who you are. When I write, I honor that truth with proportion and consequence, not spectacle.”
Patzer’s approach centers on three commitments that guide his storytelling:
Presence and dignity: Scenes privilege clear language, informed choices, and respect for people in crisis. Characters are treated as whole persons with histories and agency; violence is depicted with purpose and aftermath, not as a shortcut to drama.
Systems and plausibility: Time of day, geography, institutional rules, and limited resources are not inconveniences; they are engines of tension. Plans meet friction; tools fail; bodies tire; teams adapt. This discipline builds trust and heightens stakes without exaggeration.
Moral inquiry with room for hope: Faith and doubt can coexist; redemption requires cost; repair takes time. Patzer’s stories examine how people act under pressure and what it means to keep a promise when the bill comes due.
These priorities appeal to a broad readership: veterans who want their experience reflected with respect; first responders and medical professionals who recognize the rhythms of real emergency work; book clubs that prefer character-driven suspense with ethical depth; and general readers who value high stakes delivered with humanity.
Patzer also draws on decades of teaching practical spirituality, where belief is expressed through small, repeatable acts of care: the call made at midnight; the chair offered; the truth told cleanly when a lie would be easier.
Beyond the page, Patzer talks on topics such as ordinary-hero storytelling; systems thinking for novelists; trauma-aware writing practices; and integrating faith with care in contemporary fiction.
Patzer lives in Monument, Colorado, with his wife, Carol. He continues to mentor, teach, and write with a simple conviction: people matter; purpose matters; craft is a form of care.
Larry Patzer is the author of The Palm Tree: A Coffee Shop Extraordinaire and The Past Always Comes Back. As a duo, these titles launch a series poised to deliver high tension alongside spiritual depth, a resonant love story, and truths that feel genuinely human. Both titles are available on Amazon. Learn more at www.coffeecuppublishing.com.