Florida Book Club

Ariel Francisco joins us today to discuss his bilingual volume of poems, A Sinking Ship Is Still a Ship, which features haikus, lots of poems about insomnia, and haunting imagery of the sea reclaiming Florida. He also talks a bit about his own translation work!

Printmaker and illustrator Russell Beans' work depicting cryptids, exotic animals, and rare endangered plants has graced the pages of Islandia Journal since its inception. He joins us to talk about his creative process, the inspiring wonder of the Everglades and south Florida, and where else you can see his work!

Michael Wheaton's Home Movies is hard to classify. It's basically a memoir-essay-treatise of novella length, I guess? And it covers the evolution of media consumption, whether art or creativity matter, land development in Florida, and the value of nostalgia. And the author talks about all that with us today on Florida Book Club!

Ryan Rivas is a regular at the Clubhouse; he joins us today to talk about his novella Lizard People, conspiratorial thinking, ideas of white identity, and the marketability of the short novel as a form (and those are all closely related topics here!).

Flash fiction, micro fiction, prose poems, and so-called "short-short stories" may all be technically different forms, but if you like tiny stories of any stripe, you will love Andrea Rinard's 2023 collection Murmurations. She joins the Florida Book Club to discuss her work in this genre, getting inspiration from her students, and her affinity for 1980s settings!

Mistie Watkins joins us to talk about her alluring and compelling work Hiraeth, a collection of poetic, often-surreal vignettes detailing her childhood and family life in Central Florida. There are fairly equal doses of pathos, determination, hope, and beauty in this book, and in our talk!

We kick off Season 9 of Florida Book Club with a wide-ranging conversation covering education in Florida, the Tampa death metal scene of the late 80s-early 90s, and what it was like growing up in the Bay Area during that time. Las Vegas-based author (and Florida native) Jarret Keene joins us for this episode.

After 60+ episodes (and over a dozen blog posts), my producer and I take a look back at three years of Florida Book Club and maybe offer some vague hints as to what's ahead for the podcast!

Shane Hinton's 2015 collection Pinkies is full of bizarre gems: surreal settings, ominous images, and an absolutely terrific title story where giant predatory pythons roam a suburban community attacking and devouring humans. He joins us today to discuss Pinkies, his work as an editor, what he's got coming up, and memories of his childhood pet.

On a week where a major hurricane is heading toward Florida, author Heather Sellers joins us to discuss her 2022 Florida Book Prize winning poetry collection Field Notes from the Flood Zone, a somber meditation on Florida's ecological fragility and the ghosts of the past.

We welcome back Alicia Thompson to discuss her new novel With Love, From Cold World, the romance genre more generally (again), how her life has changed since the publication of her previous novel (Love in the Time of Serial Killers), and the value of content warnings.

The Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, FL, went by several names in its 100-year history. Under any name, it represents a blighted, ugly chapter in Florida history. University of South Florida anthropologist Erin Kimmerle joins us today to discuss We Carry Their Bones, her compelling account of the work she and her team undertook to bring the atrocities committed there to wider public attention and to bring the remains of those who never left back to their families.

Plants that eat people, shout-outs to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, metaphors involving the NES version of Contra, meditations on classical composers, and much more feature in P. Scott Cunningham's 2018 poetry collection Ya Te Veo. He joins us to discuss it, his work with O, Miami, translating poetry from Spanish, and what else he's got going on.

You may have seen "Eerie Florida" author Mark Muncy discussing paranormal history on the Travel Channel or Discovery. Or you may have visited his Hellview Cemetery in St. Petersburg. Or listened to his podcast, Eerie Travels. He's passionate about his work. But today, he took some time to join Florida Book Club to discuss that work with us!

Generally we think of the "apocalypse" as a bad thing. But Erika Lance and Valerie Willis of 4 Horsemen Publications eagerly strive to bring it about! (in the publishing world, that is) They join us to talk about their business model, their press' unique focus and particular mission, and writing under pseudonyms!

Do you like autobiographies? Memoirs? Biopics? True crime? Reality TV? Or any "real-life" adjacent narratives? Then you'll love the works published by Orlando-based Autofocus Books. Founder and publisher Michael Wheaton joins us to talk about how Autofocus got off the ground, his interest in "artful autobiographical writing", and more!

Nextdoor.com (specifically the Colonialtown North forums of Nextdoor.com) serves as the raw material for Ryan Rivas' fascinating collage of neighborhood photos and excerpted, rearranged, and reassembled posts from the site. He joins us to discuss his creative process, among other things, in our season 7 finale.

If you like poetry adorned with robot voices, QR codes, webcam videos, and generous references to Britney Spears, Monica Geller, and climate change, join us on this episode as we welcome Tyler Gillespie back to the podcast to discuss his soon-to-be-released collection, the nature machine!.

Who doesn't love sandwiches? Join me and self-described "sandwich obsessives" Andy Huse, Barbara Cruz, and Jeff Houck, all with their own unique set of culinary and historical credentials, as we discuss their new, Florida Book Award Gold Medal winning book The Cuban Sandwich: A History in Layers!

Native Floridian Nichole Reed returns to the Florida Book Club to discuss Oxygen's deceptively trashy-looking true crime series from 2021, Florida Man Murders.

Author Jonathan Escoffery joins us today to discuss his amazing collection of interlinked short stories, If I Survive You, essential reading for anyone who enjoys indelible characters, skillful shifts in perspective and narration, and portraits of south Florida before, during, and after Hurricane Andrew.

We here at the Florida Book Club love a good storm story. So does Joey Hedger, author of the 2018 novella In the Line of a Hurricane, We Wait. He joins us today to talk about it and about storm narratives in general.

Fiction writer Laura van den Berg joins us to talk about her most recent collection, I Hold a Wolf By the Ears, midnight logic, and why Florida is a great setting for eerie and unsettling stories. We also get to meet her dog briefly!

This big pink book with the puffy cover is better than any Florida travel guide or chamber of commerce video. Editor Gabrielle Calise returns to the Florida Book clubhouse to discuss the rewarding and sometimes-grueling process of making it all come together!

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University of South Florida MFA graduate Courtney Clute's The Fermi Paradox features flash fiction — stories that are incredibly brief but substantive. We discuss the book and the genre more broadly with the author herself on this episode.

Learn the difference between a battle and a skirmish, along with the events surrounding Florida's secession and its role in the Civil War as we discuss Robert Redd's new book on these topics and others with the author himself!

We're joined today by poet and fiction author Enid Shomer to discuss her 2020 poetry collection Shoreless, which examines themes of nature and human frailty and has killer cover art!

Join us for a conversation with Owen Robertson of Tampa's LAB Theater, as he tells us about their playwright-centric focus and commitment to producing original works, the theater scene in Tampa, and the history and future of LAB. We'll also preview the next production, which opens on October 20!

Florida's "town without pity" and a variety of obscure Florida history, memoir, and true-crime books that border on pulp are the topics we discuss with Jason Vuic, author of The Swamp Peddlers, as he drops in to talk about the book he's currently working on. I also reference the exact same passage from Shelley Katz's Alligator for a second week straight.

"Come for the poetry, stay for the paranormal!" That is how Islandia Journal's founder and publisher, native Miamian Jason Katz, wants you to think of his passion project, which features accounts of cryptids, folklore, myth, and obscure history from Florida and the greater Caribbean region. Contemporary themes and issues are never far out of the picture, though, and the special issue of Islandia looking back at Hurricane Andrew seems especially poignant as we wrap up the 2022 storm season. Join us for this conversation!

No one would ever confuse Burt I. Gordon for a staunch environmentalist, and if you listen to the commentary on the DVD of his film "Empire of the Ants," even casual viewers might know more about the film than the auteur himself. Join me as I ruminate on this peculiar classic, which has a lot of insights to reveal about the Florida sugar industry both then and now.

WLRN environmental reporter Jenny Staletovich talks about her career covering some of Florida's most pressing and urgent issues — and how python stories are, ideally, the "gateway drug" luring audiences in to learn about more mundane but much more important ecological and climate issues!

Python hunters, reptile traders, and people you might know from a meme or bizarre headline are who you might think of when you consider Florida's citizenry, but there's so much more to them and to this state, as you'll find out in this episode, where Tyler Gillespie and I discuss his 2021 book, The Thing About Florida.

The traumas endured by World War I vets during and after the conflict have mostly faded from public historical memory. Rebecca Johnston joins me to discuss her new novel, Not To Keep, which follows the lives of a tight group of North Florida friends from their rustic childhoods through their experiences war and its painful aftermath.

Craig Pittman has been called a Florida Institution, and you can see why when you read his work. He discusses his latest book, a collection of essays and columns culled from a 30-plus year career in journalism, with us on Florida Book Club.

John Davis Jr. explores a dark period in his home state's history in his Florida Book Award-winning poetry collection The Places That Hold, but there are some lighthearted and thoughtful ruminations on parenthood in there, too. He discusses his work with me on this episode of Florida Book Club.

Gianna Russo, Tampa's Wordsmith (yes, that's a real office) presents to us in the recently published book All I See is Your Glinting: "Nature and the collective human experience that we all went through" in the later months of 2020, accompanied by striking photos by Jenny Carey.

If you can survive Florida, you are the fittest. Season 5 of Florida Book Club is coming Wednesday, May 18!

Jane Austen and the Buddha are not thinkers one would normally consider together, right? Or, on the surface, we might not think they offer lenses to consider each others' works through. But Kathryn Duncan, a professor of English at St. Leo University and our guest today on Florida Book Club, has literally written the book on that very subject, and she'll discuss it with us on our final episode of Season 4!

Don't be fooled by the asinine title. Or the ludicrous plot. Or the fact that it stars Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. Or the dollar-store CGI effects. Instead, enjoy Mega-Python vs Gatoroid for its unintentional and accidentally poignant subtexts about Florida wildlife.

Florida film historian Lisa Bradberry joins me to talk about the rich history of Florida filmmaking, the years early in Oliver Hardy's career when he lived and worked in Jacksonville, and her favorite Florida movies! There's a link to an episode of Florida Crossroads on our website where Lisa appears in a segment beginning at about 12:45, also!

Harry Morgan of Ernest Hemingway's 1937 novel is probably the worst protagonist ever. But there's possibly more to this novel, which I'd rank as Hemingway's worst. Rebecca Johnston of the Florida Hemingway Society joins me to discuss the positives in this story of Depression-era Key West I may have overlooked.

First story with a female narrator set in Florida! First story set in Key West written by a woman! Well, maybe. "The Storm" COULD be those things, but it sat unread in an archive for 150 years. I'll talk about its origins and significance with Keith Huneycutt of Florida Southern College in this episode.

Today we're revisiting "The Strange Country" of Ernest Hemingway (otherwise known as 1930s Florida), tracing the possible route Hemingway might have taken through the state and how it's reflected in the posthumously-published story. Alec Kissoondyal of University of Florida and Henry Johnston of the Rochester Institute of Technology join me to discuss their plans to discover and memorialize Hemingway's Florida road trip.