The Muse & The Marketplace 2024

Most of the writing about Florida politically, focuses on how Florida is currently banning books that stray from a conservative/puritanical narrative. But most of the books that have been about Florida the last few years, that have won awards, have come from disenfranchised bases, the same bases that are being targeted by book bans. In this craft talk, I’ll talk about how to write about Florida, or your own home/truth, in a way that debunks stereotypes, and speaks to a truth about your own world. In this session, I will show works from award-winning Florida authors like Jonathan Escoffery, Ariel Francisco, Patricia Engel, Edwidge Danticat, Kristen Arnett and others, to show how they write about Florida in specific ways (that could get them potentially banned in the future), but have also spoken to Florida in a more true and sincere way, both for their own versions of Florida, but also for Florida as a whole. While I’ll focus on Florida, the idea is that writing about any home or truth in a true and specific way, can help flesh out your story. And how writing about any one’s home, culture, identity, can do the same.