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

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!