My second novel, Snakes of St. Augustine, describes an unconventional love story served up with a large side of Florida weirdness. My first novel, City in a Forest, received a Gold Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association in 2020. My short fiction and essays have appeared in Pangyrus, Eckerd Review, Northern Virginia Review, Atticus Review, and elsewhere. I earned my bachelorâs degree in English from Eckerd College and the M.F.A. in Fiction from Queens University of Charlotte. Currently, Iâm a writer for a university in Daytona Beach, Florida. A resident of Ponce Inlet, I began volunteering with the Volusia-Flagler Sea Turtle Patrol in 2018.
The devastating story of two boys unjustly sentenced to serve time in a nightmarish juvenile reform school, The Nickel Boys won a Pulitzer Prize and became a New York Times bestseller.
It is a must-read for anyone sampling literary works featuring Florida. The boys in the story, Elwood and Turner, endure and witness hellish abuse at the Nickel Academy. The boysâ haunting story, exquisitely told by Colson Whitehead, is based on Floridaâs real-life Dozier school where thousands of children were tortured, raped, and murdered for more than a century.
Whiteheadâs unflinching descriptions of terror and abuse can be tough to take, but they serve an important purpose, by forcing the reader to confront the hellish reality that was America under Jim Crow laws. Long after the last page is turned, if ever, this novel wonât leave you.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠In this Pulitzer Prize-winning follow-up to The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.  When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwoodâs only salvation is his friendship with fellow âdelinquentâ Turner, which deepens despite Turnerâs conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only wayâŚ
Award-winning Florida author Connie May Fowler writes vividly and with intense emotion.
Best known for her six novels, including Before Women Had Wings, which became a film featuring Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Barkin, Fowlerâs memoir, A Million Fragile Bones, describes the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Fowler was living a peaceful, luminous existence on Alligator Point, enjoying all the natural wonders that Florida has to offer, when a BP-operated oil rig exploded.
The disaster killed 11 men and spewed an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the sea. Her detailed and deeply personal account of the resulting catastrophic environmental damage is riveting, heartbreaking, and informative.
Literary Nonfiction. Memoir. Environmental Studies. On April 20th, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon, a BP operated oil rig, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men died in the explosion. Before the well was capped, it spewed an estimated 210 million gallons of oil into the gulf. The spill directly impacted 68,000 miles of ocean, and oil washed ashore along the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida.
Connie May Fowler began that day as she had begun most days for the previous sixteen years, immersed in the natural world that was her home on Alligator Point on Florida's gulf coast,âŚ
Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Lake Song is set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New Yorkâs Finger Lakes region. This novel in stories spans decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as theâŚ
On a remote island off Floridaâs southwest coast, the Bigtree family survives by wrestling alligators for tourists at Swamplandia!, but a brand new amusement park threatens their livelihood.
Southern Gothic at its most extreme, with elements of magical realism, Swamplandia! features a teen sister who courts ghosts following the death of her mother, a predator named Bird Man, a restless brother named Kiwi, and vulnerable thirteen-year-old Ava. Stephen King, whose work influenced Russellâs style, praised Swamplandia! as âbrilliant, funny, [and] original.âÂ
New York Times Bestseller | Pulitzer Prize Finalist
"Ms. Russell is one in a million. . . . A suspensfuly, deeply haunted book."--The New York Times
Thirteen-year-old Ava Bigtree has lived her entire life at Swamplandia!, her familyâs island home and gator-wrestling theme park in the Florida Everglades. But when illness fells Avaâs mother, the parkâs indomitable headliner, the family is plunged into chaos; her father withdraws, her sister falls in love with a spooky character known as the Dredgeman, and her brilliant big brother, Kiwi, defects to a rival park called The World of Darkness.
Deb Rogers turns the classic âFlorida Womanâ meme on its head through her protagonist Jamie, a lost and desperate soul who winds up working at the bizarre Atlas Wildlife Refuge for macaques.
Three women in charge of the sanctuary soon seem to be creepy; they perform strange rituals and caution Jamie to avoid the medical lab. The novelâs setting, at the edge of the Ocala National Forest, immerses the reader in a tactile way into Jamieâs dark and ominous world. The plot races along at a fast clip and it avoids predictable twists, offering a fresh take on the story of a Florida woman whose mistake turned her into a viral punchline.
Readers will be rooting for Jamie to transform into a more empowered young woman. Think Carl Hiaasen meets Karen Russell.
"Razor-sharp... Deb Rogers writes with such verve and honesty about all the ways we stumble through life, and, like all great storytellers, gives us something wondrous when we reach the end of the journey.ââKevin Wilson, bestselling author of Nothing to See Here
An Indie Next Selection ⢠A Fantastic Strangelings Book Club Pick ⢠Recommended by: Harper's Bazaar ⢠Shondaland ⢠New York Post ⢠Goodreads ⢠Lambda Literary ⢠Book Riot ⢠Readerâs Digest ⢠LGBTQReads ⢠Medium ⢠Debutiful ⢠She Reads ⢠Autostraddle â˘and more!
A gleefully dark and entertaining debut for fans of Kevin Wilson andâŚ
Selected by Deesha Philyaw as winner of the AWP Grace Paley Prize in Short Fiction, Lake Song is set in the fictional town of Kinder Falls in New Yorkâs Finger Lakes region. This novel in stories spans decades to plumb the complexities, violence, and compassion of small-town life as theâŚ
Anyone interested in literature featuring Florida must read Hurstonâs enduring master work.
The novel describes Janie Crawfordâs coming-of-age journey, especially in Eatonville, Florida, which became one of the nationâs first all-black cities, incorporated in 1887. Janie, a child of slavery and rape, flees an oppressive arranged marriage, and later, she survives abusive lovers. Originally published in 1937, Their Eyes Were Watching God challenged gender stereotypes and presented a strong black female protagonist.
One of the most intriguing aspects of the novel is Hurstonâs use of the Florida setting to both set the mood and drive plot choices. When protagonist Janie escapes violence, she flees the Panhandle for the more secluded, dense wilderness of Central Florida. There, complex waterways follow the charactersâ various movements.
Cover design by Harlem renaissance artist Lois Mailou Jones
When Janie, at sixteen, is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams, who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds ...
'For me, THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD is one of the very greatest American novels of the 20th century. It is so lyrical it should be sentimental; it is so passionate it should be overwrought, but it is instead a rigorous, convincing and dazzling pieceâŚ
The theft of Trina Leigh Deanâs beloved snakesâincluding a rare Eastern indigo named Unicorn, Banana Splits the yellow ball python, and Bandit the banded king snakeâcoincides with the disappearance of a troubled young man named Gethin Jacobs. While his sister, Serena, searches for him, she gains an unlikely accompliceâJazz, a homeless community college student. Meanwhile, Trinaâs friend Fletch, a burned-out cop, scours St. Augustine, Florida, for the stolen snakes. His quest puts Fletch on a dangerous collision course with Gethin, raising questions about the importance of community and the power of compassion.
