Florida Book Club

Poet and writing professor Heather Sellers joins us at the clubhouse to discuss her newly-published collection of poems, the final volume in a trilogy exploring natural spaces of Florida and their inhabitants.

If you plan to visit Daytona Beach, you might want to bring Robert Redd's handy guide to look beyond the area's traditional "Four Pillars" — but you'll have to read 100 Things To Do in Daytona Beach Before You Die and/or listen to our conversation with its author to find out what those pillars are! And you'll be surprised, like I was, to see what Daytona has to offer.

If you love the Doors (or specifically Jim Morrison), odysseys around the world, Thelma and Louise-style adventures without the killing, critiques of academia, and/or very distinctive narrative styles, you'll want to hear Rebecca J. Johnston discuss her new novel Finding Jim with us!

Vidge Floyd, the adolescent protagonist of Florida Book Award-winning author John Davis, Jr.'s debut novel  Vidge Floyd and the Secret Frequencies , is "the neurodivergent hero we all need," according to the back cover. John Davis, Jr. makes a return trip to the clubhouse to talk about his first published work of fiction, which one critic likens to the Hardy Boys "with a touch o...

Saw Palm is the University of South Florida's Florida-themed art and literature journal. In this episode we welcome fiction and managing editor Benjamin Sperduto, poetry editor Tatiana Avdelas, and poetry, art, and comics editor Sarah-Joy Milner to the clubhouse to talk about their experiences helming Saw Palm this year. They're all writers themselves as well, so we talk a bit about their...

Shane Hinton's "Other Shane Hintons" might be called meta-fiction, a memoir in lies, autobiographical fantasy, or any other number of hybrid genre classifications. He joins us this episode to break it down and to get a bit more into the meat of the eight bizarre and enthralling pieces that comprise his newest book from Burrow Press.

Ever wonder what kind of things you learn working at a bookstore? I certainly have! And luckily, writer, college instructor, and bookseller Rachel Knox joined me for this episode to talk about the role bookstores fill in a community, how they can inspire you as a writer and reader, and to preview her book of essays, which drops in March 2026.

Resentments and petty jealousies build up to murder at a lush yoga retreat in Melbourne in Asha Elias' The Namaste Club ! We're happy to have her at the clubhouse to talk about her new novel, invasive species, and how books are marketed to certain audiences. "Spicy margaritas," anyone?

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 previ...

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 liter...

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