Award-winning fiction. Books that teach.
Gant Laborde writes dark, sharp short fiction from New Orleans, and technical books that make advanced ideas simple. His stories have placed in the top three of international writing contests fourteen times, with new work coming soon in literary journals.
Recognized by NYC Midnight · FanStory · Third Lantern Lit
New and forthcoming stories
Short fiction on its way into print. Each one will be linked here when it goes live.
The Name Collector
Flash Phantoms
Horror flash fiction. A predator who feeds on memories goes looking for an easy meal and finds a man who has been waiting for him. Read it now · About the story
Foreign Soil
Sky Island Journal · Issue #38
Historical flash fiction set in 1942, as a Japanese American family is forced from their home. 2nd place, NYC Midnight Flash Fiction 2025.
Memory Rental
Trembling With Fear · Horror Tree
Horror flash fiction. A bartender just wants to forget her life for a while. If only escape were so simple.
“…stellar flash fiction… refreshingly kinetic, emotionally vulnerable… an unexpectedly tender meditation on the presence of absence and the absence of presence.”
The editors of Sky Island Journal, on Foreign Soil
Books by Gant Laborde
A short story collection on the way, a novel in progress, and a children’s book already on shelves.
Coming soon
Short Cuts & Sharp Ends
Jagged short stories: a collection of contest-winning flash fiction, sharp, dark, and built to draw blood. Explore the book
Novel · 2028
Shadows of Tomorrow
Something longer and darker. Its first chapter took 2nd place in FanStory’s First Book Chapter Contest.
Published 2022
Spelling Mila
A children’s picture book that helps little girls named Mila learn to read and spell their name. Written for his daughter. Spelling Mila on Amazon
Contest wins and placements
Top-three finishes in NYC Midnight and FanStory contests since 2025, across flash fiction, short stories, screenplays and a novel’s first chapter.
- 1st
1st Place, NYC Midnight 1K Flash Fiction 2025Round 2, Fantasy · September 2025
- 1st
Hush1st Place, FanStory Horror Writing Contest · August 2025
- 1st
1st Place, Sunday, Monday, Doomsday Story ContestFanStory · August 2025
- 1st
Twelve Shards1st Place, FanStory 200-Word Writing Contest · March 2025
- 2nd
2nd Place, NYC Midnight 500-Word Fiction 2025Round 2 · November 2025
- 2nd
Foreign Soil2nd Place, NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2025, Round 1 · July 2025
- 2nd
Funny in 502nd Place, FanStory Funny 50-Word Story Contest · October 2025
- 2nd
Shadows of Tomorrow, Chapter 12nd Place, FanStory First Book Chapter Contest · August 2025
- 2nd
Nam’s Threshold2nd Place, FanStory Sci-Fi Writing Contest · June 2025
- 2nd
Unlocked2nd Place, FanStory Screenplay Contest (his first screenplay) · March 2025
- 2nd
Polar Opposite2nd Place, FanStory Newbie Flash Fiction Contest · January 2025
- 3rd
Return to Sender3rd Place, NYC Midnight 2026 · July 2026
- 3rd
Concourse Confessional3rd Place, FanStory True Story Flash Fiction Contest · May 2025
- 3rd
Zoomed Out3rd Place, FanStory 150-Word Flash Fiction Contest · March 2025
Also placed: Adverse Reaction (4th, NYC Midnight Short Story 2025) · Holding It Together (4th, NYC Midnight 2026) · Keepsake (5th, NYC Midnight 250-Word 2026) · The Accidental Score (5th, NYC Midnight Short Story 2025) · Unlocked (5th, NYC Midnight Screenplay 2025) · Financial Exposure (6th, Scary Story Challenge 2025) · Dreamwoven (7th, NYC Midnight 500-Word 2025). Full record on FanStory.
“The story does a great job creating suspense and reeling the reader in with every line.”
NYC Midnight judge, on Return to Sender (2026)
“This writer took a big subject and made it feel personal and subtle and human.”
NYC Midnight judge, on Foreign Soil (2025)
Gant is also editor-in-chief of NOLAWriting, a calendar of writing workshops, readings and events for the New Orleans literary community, and co-wrote the New Orleans Writers Guild’s chapter-by-chapter community novel (2025).
Technical books and magazine articles
Published in magazines, books and articles by a wide range of publishers. Advanced concepts, simply explained.
Learning TensorFlow.js (O’Reilly)
Combining the demand for AI with the ubiquity of JavaScript was inevitable. With Google’s TensorFlow.js framework, seasoned AI veterans and web developers alike can help propel the future of AI-driven websites. In this guide, author Gant Laborde, Google Developer Expert in machine learning and the web, provides a hands-on, end-to-end approach to TensorFlow.js fundamentals for a broad technical audience that includes data scientists, engineers, web developers, students, and researchers.
- Explore tensors, the most fundamental structure of machine learning
- Convert data into tensors and back with a real-world example
- Combine AI with the web using TensorFlow.js and other tools
- Start building and training your own models from scratch
- Examine transfer learning: retraining an advanced model to perform a new task
Instant RubyMotion App Development (Packt)
Write your first RubyMotion app and get a full tour of the process. As you build your first iPhone and iPad application, this book teaches the tricks that separate RubyMotion applications from all the others, from the origins of RubyMotion and Objective-C to a step-by-step, test-driven first app using the Cocoa framework.
Instant RubyMotion App Development on Amazon · Gant Laborde’s Amazon author page
Articles for other publications
freeCodeCamp
Machine Learning from Zero to HeroHow to free up space on your developer MacPerf Machine Learning on Raspberry PiBest AI Smart Cams 2019
HackerNoon
5 DevOps Security ChallengesThe React State Museum7 React Conferences in 2017React Rebuses
Google Developer Experts
Improve Your Virtual Setup: SoundImprove Your Virtual Setup: VideoA Riddikulus Dataset
Journal of Remote Work
How to Create a Virtual “Water Cooler”3 Do’s and Don’ts for Remote Work
Heartbeat by Fritz
Training a Rock-Paper-Scissors Model with TensorFlow.jsGetting Started with the Jetson Nano
Towards Data Science
Analytics Vidhya
The Startup
Code-Inspector
Plenty more articles on Infinite Red’s Red Shift blog.
Q&A sessions with Gant
- Repo Lovers Interview
- Semaphore: Building the Ignite React Native CLI
- Made with React Native: the Chain React App
- React Amsterdam Speaker Interview
- Toastmasters Area 10 Interview of the Division Director
- App Developer Magazine: A Deep Dive into Ignite
- New Orleans Business Alliance: Laborde Brings Passion for Tech to Hometown Career
- Reactiflux Q&A with Gant Laborde
- CFP Land Speaker Interview
Read more. Or bring Gant to your event.
Hear a story read aloud for free and get new stories by email at GantWrites.com, or invite Gant to speak or lead a workshop on craft, contests and the creative grind.
Writing
Award-winning fiction, a children’s book, technical books and 25+ articles.
Read and listen at GantWrites.com.
