In Season: Stories of Discovery, Loss, Home, and Places In Between

by Jim Ross (Editor)

Overview

Florida Book Awards, Silver Medal for Florida Nonfiction

First-time travelers to Florida often imagine the state as just a vacationland or a swamp--a place to visit and to leave behind. But the writers in this collection discover the truth that everyone who's lived in the state knows. When you venture into Florida you won't find what you expect, and what you do find will stay with you forever.

The authors of these essays come to Florida for different reasons. Love, fortune, family, rest, natural beauty, or a fresh start. They encounter a place so diverse that it defies easy categorization. Lauren Groff describes her experience settling in Florida after growing up in the Northeast and finds an affinity with the strong-willed writer Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who grew to resent the cities of her past and embraced the wild lands that inspired The Yearling. Cuban-born Susannah Rodriguez Drissi travels to Miami and learns what the city does and doesn't mean for Cuban Americans. Deesha Philyaw comes to the state to care for her mother, who is dying of cancer. Rick Bragg seeks out the beauty of the Gulf of Mexico and writes about how it was threatened by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

In these stories, Florida is more than a setting--it's a character of its own. It stirs up hurricanes and rainstorms, enchants with natural springs and cypress forests, and endures in the face of pollution. For all of these writers, Florida is a force that brings about moments of personal insight and growth, a place where hard lessons are learned and true joy is experienced. Their essays illustrate that the places we inhabit put a stamp on us, even if we only call them home for a season.

Contributors: Chantel Acevedo | Jan Becker | Marion Starling Boyer | Rick Bragg | Jennifer S. Brown | Lucy Bryan | Linda Buckmaster | Jill Christman | Susannah Rodriguez Drissi | Sarah Fazeli | Corey Ginsberg | Lauren Groff | Katelyn Keating | Sandra Gail Lambert | Lara Lillibridge | Bill Maxwell | Karen Salyer McElmurray | Deesha Philyaw | Lisa Roney | Jim Ross | Lia Skalkos

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813063522
Publisher:	University Press of Florida
Publication date:	03/15/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Jim Ross is managing editor of the Ocala Star-Banner and an adjunct instructor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Florida.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction Jim Ross Florida is a land of seekers. People come here for fortune, love, respite, entertainment, natural beauty. They long for a fresh start, or at least a recharged battery, and Florida promises to deliver. Witness the Disney commercials on TV or the online advertisements from residential retirement communities. It’s great down here! Just get yourself on a plane or point your car south on the interstate. The Sunshine State will take care of the rest. The essays in this collection slip beneath the surface of those promises and examine the reality. What do seekers find once they cross the Florida line? It’s usually something they didn’t expect. These essays provide a Florida take on universal themes: the urge to leave home and start anew, the struggle to build a life in a different place, the clarity that the natural world can provide. The personal experiences differ, of course, but they point to this truth: The places where we live, or visit, inevitably put their stamp on us. “A place become us and we become that place,” as essayist Susannah Rodríguez Drissi puts it. When readers encounter a collection of Florida essays they might expect a bazaar of the bizarre. You may have seen “Florida Man” on Twitter and marveled at the weird crime that happens here. You likely have laughed at the work of Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen. And it’s true: Florida’s zany politicians, miscreants, and wildlife often defy belief. I have written many crazy Florida tales during a 28-year newspaper career here. In the early 1990s I wrote about a man who showed up for his Citrus County court hearing wearing a T-shirt that depicted bikini-clad women standing in the bed of a pickup truck. Underneath the picture was the caption “Haulin’ Ass.” The judge, not amused, found the man guilty of contempt of court and sentenced him to 10 days in jail. Years later, racy T-shirt man ran for Congress. This being Florida, the only surprise was that he lost. This collection features different kinds of stories. These essays, all but two previously published in literary journals and magazines, examine the quiet, private, personal moments that play out in the Sunshine State. No hanging chads or pages ripped from a Miami Vice script. Taken together, they help us better understand a state that is so diverse and full of contradictions that it defies easy classification. Florida is a paradise in the marketing materials, but also a dangerous place to live, as Corey Ginsberg discovered as she fought to make her home in a crime-pocked neighborhood. It’s a natural wonder, but also imperiled, as Lucy Bryan saw firsthand when she joined a student group on an environmental service trip in Apalachicola. It’s a haven to immigrants but can’t satisfy all of their yearnings, as Drissi realized when she arrived in Miami. “Something constantly threatens to be out of control here,” Lisa Roney writes in her essay. All Florida residents, and a good many visitors, know exactly what she means. Yet despite its dangers, Florida also is a place of unexpected riches. Watch Sarah Fazeli come to Disney as a young woman to work as a character and receive life-changing advice from Merlin (yes, really). For Lauren Groff, a transplant from the Northeast, the life and work of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings provide a welcome guide to her new home. “Marjorie found a way to let Florida bloom into something magnificent inside of her. I am still struggling to do so,” Groff writes in one of two brilliant essays republished in these pages. This collection features essays from two kinds of authors. Most, like me, grew up elsewhere (the Chicago suburbs, in my case), came to Florida as adults to live or visit, and then wrote about their experiences. Some pieces are from authors who were born in Florida or grew up here, left, then returned as adults to live or visit. Many of us have struggled to understand what we found when we arrived (or returned) here. Reading these essays from my fellow transplants and travelers makes me feel less alone on the journey. The essays also remind me how much my adopted home state has shaped me. I hope you enjoy these very real stories about life in this very real, and very special, state.

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction 1 Jim Ross The Lost Yearling: An American Classic Fades Away 3 Lauren Groff, from Harper’s The Same Creatures That You Fear 15 Lisa Roney, from Numero Cinq Encyclopedia Floridiana 24 Lia Skalkos, from Contrary The Cone of Uncertainty 31 Katelyn Keating, from Lunch Ticket How I Spent My Summer Internship 39 Jim Ross, from Clockhouse Review The Eternal Gulf 44 Rick Bragg, from Southern Living The Crushing Weight of a Giant Chipmunk Costume 46 Sarah Fazeli, from Narratively Dirty Hands 54 Lucy Bryan, from The Fourth River Vena Cava 61 Chantel Acevedo, from Miami Rail Rolling in the Mud 66 Sandra Gail Lambert, from A Certain Loneliness: A Memoir How Can You Be Mad at Someone Who’s Dying of Cancer? 71 Deesha Philyaw, from Full Grown People Returning to Hopelessness 80 Bill Maxwell Life in the Shade of Modern Babel 84 Jan Becker, from Sliver of Stone Magazine Miami Redux 94 Corey Ginsberg, from Third Coast Daughters of the Springs 113 Lauren Groff, from Oxford American Security Clearance 126 Linda Buckmaster, from Burrow Press Bingo Territory 137 Marion Starling Boyer, from River Teeth The Life and Death (and Life) of Miami Beach 141 Jennifer S. Brown Florida Vacation: An Essay in Third Person 151 Jill Christman, from Superstition Review The Right Tap 158 Lara Lillibridge, from Hippocampus Hurricane 162 Karen Salyer McElmurray, from River Teeth Even You, Miami 174 Susannah Rodríguez Drissi, from Saw Palm Familiar Shore 177 Jim Ross, from Paper Tape Magazine Acknowledgments 181 List of Contributors 183 Credits 189

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"In Season invites readers to experience magic in unexpected places. These essays are heartfelt and heartbreaking, incisive and celebratory and funny. They capture the wild and rollicking heart of a state that’s changing faster than any other."—Ana Maria Spagna, author of Reclaimers "Smart, provocative, vivid, and lively, these essays suggest that 'sense of place' is crucial context for one's sense of self and exerts not only inescapable influence on the surrounding culture but on the human imagination as well."—Marianne Gingher, editor of Amazing Place: What North Carolina Means to Writers "More than seventy years ago, Elizabeth Bishop called Florida 'the state with the prettiest name.' This stunning anthology of essays and recollections unveils a richer, often less pretty Florida, where Disney World, urbanization, and various kinds of garishness complicate the natural beauty, the warmth and sunshine, the turquoise waters and white sands, the pinks and pastels, that draw people here."—Willard Spiegelman, author of Senior Moments: Looking Back, Looking Ahead "A dive into what makes the country's most enigmatic state tick. Helps us better understand one of America's most complex states."—Janine Farver, former executive director, Florida Humanities Council “Discerning and thoughtful. Ross has an eye for work that reflects the human condition—the good, the bad, and the ugly. Even if you’ve lived in Florida all your life, you’ll learn something. And you will enjoy it.”—Mike Foley, Hugh W. Cunningham Professor in Journalism Excellence, University of Florida