About Larry Pederson
Larry began his career as a produced screenwriter, became an accidental inventor and entrepreneur, and now he has returned to writing, this time penning his debut novel.
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Originally from Canada, Larry graduated with a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Alberta with the goal of becoming a lawyer. However, he loved movies so much that when he was given a choice between pursuing his law degree or accepting a position as a government film censor, he chose the latter. He rated 2,000+ movies in two years, before being accepted into the School of Cinema & Television at the University of Southern California.
Larry moved to Los Angeles to pursue his passion, and upon graduation from the USC Film School, became a produced screenwriter who wrote/co-wrote a dozen feature screenplays.
His passion as a Screenwriter
The Accidental Inventor
A Little Light Goes A Long Way
Larry's screenwriting career took an unexpected turn when he returned to Canada to care for his terminally-ill father and a serious car accident left him unable to write. The physical injuries eventually healed, but Larry’s debilitating depression triggered by the dark Canadian winter did not. Diagnosed with severe Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the only treatment options were antidepressant medications (which he rejected) or ‘light therapy’, an alternative treatment that required daily visits to the hospital for a 1-hour exposure to a table-top light box that used bulky fluorescent tubes.
Larry immediately found light therapy to be very beneficial, but questioned why there were no portable, more convenient light boxes with shorter treatment times. Necessity is the mother of invention, and one day on a cross-country flight, the idea hit Larry like a bolt of lightning. By the time the plane landed, the concept was fully-formed in his mind, right down to the handheld design and the name: Litebook.
Larry pitched his idea to the big light box manufacturers but he was rejected time and again. Unwilling to take ‘no’ for an answer, he decided to do it himself. His quest took 2 years and ultimately led him to work with two engineers, who serendipitously received advance word about the new white LED technology just discovered in Japan. The tiny LEDs proved to be the game-changer for Larry’s invention: not only could the device now be compact, the white LEDs’ light output peaked in the critical wavelength for therapy, enabling treatment times to be considerably shorter.
Shortly thereafter, Larry founded The Litebook Company and with seed capital from a few early investors, launched Litebook 1.0 in 2001. The size of a portable CD player, it was as effective as the bulky light boxes, but with a much shorter treatment time.
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2001 Litebook Model 1.0
2006 Litebook Elite
2013 Litebook Edge
Larry's innovation was heralded as a ‘game changer’ by SAD sufferers and medical professionals alike, and was welcomed as an affordable, user-friendly, non-pharmacological treatment option to beat the ‘winter blues’. Soon, researchers at leading institutions such as Harvard and Yale began to use Litebooks in their clinical trials. Published peer-reviewed clinical studies followed, validating Larry’s invention for applications ranging from SAD and circadian sleep disorders to reducing cancer-related fatigue and improving learning in teenagers. In 2011, Dr. Sonia Ancoli-Israel, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, studied the effects of bright light treatment on chemotherapy-related fatigue in women with breast cancer and found that Litebook light treatment prevents fatigue in women undergoing chemotherapy. In 2016, Larry and his company were awarded First Prize in the Astellas Oncology C3 competition for developing tools to improve the lives of patients with cancer.
Larry’s pioneering use of white LEDs in a portable light therapy device was recognized by patent offices in multiple countries. Larry is the first-named inventor on all 8 patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office, Canada, the European Union and China.
Larry stepped back as the Founder of Litebook in 2017 to focus on a new business venture he started with his wife.
The Litebook: A Game Changer
Larry has always told his friends that one day he would write a book about his journey as an accidental inventor and the struggles he had to overcome. But when that opportunity presented itself after he sold his business in 2020, what came to his mind was not a memoir, but a thriller.
A lifelong history buff and avid student of Alfred Hitchcock, Larry has always been drawn to stories where an outmatched underdog has to somehow find the strength to overcome insurmountable obstacles and rise to the occasion. Thus it's no wonder Larry wanted to weave this thematic motif into his debut novel. 'The Sacrificial Lamb' reimagines the classic conspiracy thriller with a psychological bent that follows an unlikely heroine on her journey to help catch her father's killer, set against the backdrop of a ticking clock with the fate of the nation at stake.
Larry is currently seeking representation.
Returning to Writing
L.V. Pederson
© 2023 by L.V Pederson. All Rights Reserved