A podcast focusing on the forgotten, undervalued, underrated, misrepresented, and oddball literature, film, media, music, and assorted pop-cultural relics of the Sunshine State.
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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? Further Reading
I made a joke in my critical theory class at Florida State, in the fall of 1998, that I wryly reflect on now. I glanced at the Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels text we were studying, and laughed about how if it was the early 1950s, you might be harassed or blacklisted (or worse) for owning such…
Hello all. Florida Book Club has been on a somewhat longer hiatus than usual between seasons. We here at the clubhouse are taking some time to refresh, reassess, and potentially reorient. We are looking at the shape/direction the site and podcast may take in its future iterations, and that has required and will require a…
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…
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…
