Florida Book Club

If you love any of Scarface, orcas, Miami, dangerous family histories, Pitbull impersonators, and/or compelling stories about lost young men looking for narratives to believe in, you will love our conversation with Jennine Capo-Crucet on her novel Say Hello to My Little Friend, which features all of the above, and we are thrilled to have her for our Season 11 finale!

Ariel Francisco's new bilingual poetry collection (Spanish translations by the poet's father!) ruminates on subjects familiar to anyone who's worried at all about Florida's future: development, sea level rise, "resilience", et al. But it's also kind of hopeful, as we discuss with him today. And there are lots of ocean critters, a motif it shares with Ariel's previous collection A Sinking Ship Is Still a Ship, which we discussed with him in Season 9.

In this week's episode, we catch up with Shane Hinton, author of Pinkies and Radio Dark, and editor of We Can't Help It If We're From Florida, ahead of his keynote speech at the Florida College English Assocation conference later this month. He's got a new novel-in-stories (or is it a short story collection?) coming out later in 2025, which he'll preview for us!

A lot of Florida's boutique resorts, lodges, beach motels, and villas have some pretty intriguing stories to tell! Poynter Institute director of craft and local news Kristen Hare joins us to discuss her new book, the not-quite-history-not-quite-travel-guide Hotels, Motels, and Inns of Florida, which brings these stories to light and will definitely give Floridians some staycation ideas

Darcy Greco's novel of addiction, family dysfunction, and despair is saved from bleakness by her resilient and optimistic narrator. Darcy joins us today to discuss what it was like inhabiting this character's dark life during the composition of the novel, why fiction is preferable to memoir as a medium, and how being a northern transplant to Tampa inspired her, to a degree.

The Storm is an important literary document in Florida's history. It's also a compelling storm story (if anyone still wants to read one after 2024). Keith Huneycutt joins us again to talk about the newly-published edition from the University Press of Florida, how we can say with near-certainty who wrote it, and why author Ellen Brown Anderson's legacy matters historically.

If a lurid story of PTA drama, fundraising rivalries, Ponzi schemes, and adults acting less mature than their kids sounds fun to you, you will love Asha Elias' novel Pink Glass Houses! Asha joins us this episode to talk about her creative process and more generally about public school, PTA fundraising in Miami, and south Florida literary vibes.

Doug Alderson, author of Encounters with Florida's Endangered Wildlife, joins us to kick off Season 11, discussing his work as a steward and advocate for Florida's most vulnerable (and breathtaking) natural spaces. (There's also a lot of Tallahassee-area shout outs, both in the book and in our conversation!)

Laura van den Berg's new novel State of Paradise gave me serious Franz Kafka and David Lynch vibes. It contains some of the weirdest evocations of Florida I've ever encountered, and that's saying a lot. I'm not sure we even touched on half of what this book contains, thematically, in this great conversation to wrap up season 10!

Fans of climate-change poetry and the struggles most people endure under late-stage capitalism in Florida will love Alex Gurtis' When the Ocean Comes to Me. And if you aren't, but you are into imagism, haiku, and/or prose poetry, you will still love our conversation about his new chapbook from Bottlecap Press.

Leaving Florida after you've built a huge legacy with a project like O, Miami must be hard. We welcome back P. Scott Cunningham to talk about relocating to Illinois, how O, Miami will carry on, some rising South Florida authors, and the strange state Florida literary education currently finds itself in.

Poet Tyler Gillespie's 2018 collection Florida Man is BACK! The 2024 reissue contains 20 new poems under the title Heat Advisory. He stops by the clubhouse to talk about the book's republication, how Florida has changed since 2018, and why QR codes are aesthetically cool (among other topics).

Gale Massey presents a varied cast of imperfect, sometimes violent or reckless, but ultimately sympathetic characters in her 2021 collection Rising and Other Stories. We cover her creative process in our conversation, the factors involved in identifying as a "Florida writer," and we also give some shout-outs to Pinellas Park!

Lan O Lakes native and recent Ringling College grad Ansel Taylor joins us to discuss his animated series concept Swampland, a fun amalgamation of Gravity Falls, Celtic mythology, and Florida wildlife, among many other elements! He'll also revisit George McCowan's eco-horror film Frogs with us, and talk about why he thinks queer people are drawn to cryptids.

"Dystopia" is a frequently-invoked genre description; Scott Michael Powers, author of the novel The Murder Plague, joins us in this episode to discuss his tale of a pathogen emerging from a Florida biotech facility and driving those infected to embark on deranged murderous rampages that destroy the social fabric of the US, and why dystopias have such a broad appeal and rich recent literary history.

Gambling, murder, and desperation plague the small town of Hockta, Florida over a several-day period in the 1950s in Lori Roy's compelling new novel Lake County. There's also a (fictionalized) celebrity involved! Lori joins us in conversation about her book to kick off season 10 of Florida Book Club.

Florida Weird is a zine that will remind some readers of a rougher-around-the-edges Islandia Journal. The creator and driving artistic force behind Florida Weird, Mara Beneway, joins us to discuss the zine's creation and how Florida has inspired her, as a non-native. (Also, find out – what is a zine?) Further Reading Visit Mara's website Follow Mara on Instagram

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.

According to Tim Gilmore, creator and author of JaxPsychoGeo, Jacksonville has always had a hard time telling its stories. Join us as we delve into some of those stories, a lot of which are unsavory and violent, but revelatory about larger cultural forces in not just Jacksonville, but the South in general!

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.

Tune in for the season seven premiere to hear Chris get schooled on the romance genre by Alicia Thompson, Florida native and author of the novel Love in the Time of Serial Killers, a surprising, true crime-steeped rom-com set in the doldrums of a Florida summer. Further Reading Buy Love in the Time of Serial Killers via Bookshop.org Visit Alicia Thompson's website

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! https://www.floridabookclub.com

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.

Buffalo chicken sundaes, hospital restaurants, forest castles, why local news matters, and more await in this week's episode. 100 Things to Do in Tampa Bay Before You Die author Kristen Hare joins me to talk about the third edition of her book, obscure Tampa Bay gems, and her work with the Poynter Institute.