As it emerges and sinks once again from ever-changing seas, the Florida peninsula has produced a singular culture. While quirky and distinctive, this sandy spit has been shaped by external forces. The Gulf Stream off the Atlantic, and Loop Current off its western shores, spin this state in opposite directions, taking us constantly to new places. You could spend a lifetime trying to figure out Florida.
This page chronicles my long, imperfect attempt to come grips with the Sunshine State. I first moved to St. Petersburg with Julie Armstrong in 2001, and together, we have raised our son here. I teach courses in early Florida literature and nature writing at the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida , and a great deal of my writing and research centers around the question, what does it mean to live here?
Recent Blog Posts
Florida Trail
I'm thrilled to co-edit the next issue of The Journal of Florida Studies. Working with founding editor Casey Blanton and my USF St. Petersburg colleague Chris Meindl, we will focus on the Florida Trail www.floridatrail.org We look for essays, poems,...
Friends of Salt Creek
Fifteen years ago the Florida Studies Program at the USF St. Petersburg asked me to develop a course called "Rivers of Florida." With giddy early optimism, we fantasized about paddling every river from the Perdido east of Pensacola to the Everglades River of Grass. By...
Funding by the Frank E. Duckwall Foundation