Anywhere Else: Essays on Florida

Anywhere Else is a collection of essays about growing up in Florida and the movies, TV, and art that have shaped nationwide stereotypes of the state of Florida. The author’s own story – of being a wild teen girl in the Sunshine State – is woven into and around the media that caricatures Florida for rest of the country: swamp things, serial killers, beach bums, traveling artists, teen girls and dead poets. The gloriously trashy 90’s neo-noir Wild Things and the Biblical story of Hagar; a “monster-of-the-week” episode of The X Files and Ralph Waldo Emerson; Aileen Wuornos, America’s most famous female serial killer, and Thomas Kinkade – the much-beloved “Painter of Light” who was once kicked out of Disneyland for urinating on a statue of Winnie the Pooh The essays dig into the complicated, messy truth of what it’s like to be from a “wild” place (and who gets to decide what that means). Along the way, the reader gets to know a writer and Floridian struggling with their deep, complicated love of their home state who isn’t sure how much of the bad reputation has been rightfully earned. What does it mean to be from a place so uniquely reviled and made fun of? Does being from a wild place make you inherently wild? Are wild things worth fighting for?