Historian Dr. Brian Rucker  offers this reading list for those who would like to learn more about the events leading up to Spain handing over Florida to the U.S. Belko, William S., ed.  America’s Hundred Years’ War:  U.S. Expansion to the Gulf Coast and the Fate of the Seminole, 1763-1858.  Gainesville:  University Press of Florida, 2011. Brooks, Philip Coolidge.  Diplomacy and the Borderlands – the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819. Berkeley: 

Be it from a live stage or a virtual one, nothing stops winner Flavia Nunez and her fellow young orators from raising their voices out loud By Elizabeth Djinis In the opening shot, Flavia Nunez stands in her family’s living room. Behind her, baby portraits of Flavia and her siblings deck the tan-colored walls above the television and couch. Flavia, dressed in a white cardigan and a red skirt, introduces

Submissions for the 2020 awards were read by juries of two to three members, each nominated from across the state by co-sponsoring organizations. Jurors are authorized to select up to three medalists (including one gold winner, one silver runner-up and one bronze medalist) in each of the 11 categories; jurors are also authorized to make no selections in a given year.

Florida Book Award winners talk about inspiration, our state, and publishing in a pandemic By Colette Bancroft Featured image: “This book was inspired by one of the patients in my therapy practice from many years ago. She was one of my favorites, but I only knew her as a young child. I wanted to sit with her as she grew up, became a teenager, fell in love, etc..” – Stacie

How the ‘King of the Beats’ found a fertile place to work, but no escape from his demons, in his last troubled years here By Thomas Hallock The St. Petersburg home at 5169 10th Avenue North sits empty. This brick-and-block ranch house, with low-slung ceilings to push through the central air conditioning, was the final dwelling of Massachusetts-born writer Jack Kerouac, “King of the Beats” and author of the celebrated

The power of the poem For these high school orators, Florida’s Poetry Out Loud competition offers a time to shine. By Colette Bancroft One young woman sashayed up to the microphone and introduced the poem she would perform by Emily Dickinson, “the original literary emo girl” — a playful reference to the punk-rock genre that emphasizes emotional subjects. Another stood somberly and gave a stark performance of Randall Mann’s “The

GOLD: Sophia Gholz <br /> Jacksonville <br /> Younger Children&#039;s Literature<br /> The Boy Who Grew a Forest <br /> (Sleeping Bear Press) SILVER: Rob Sanders<br /> Brandon<br /> Younger Children&#039;s Literature<br /> STONEWALL: A Building. An Uprising. A Revolution. <br /> (Random House Books for Young Readers) BRONZE: Marsha Diane Arnold <br /> Alva <br /> Younger Children&#039;s Literature<br /> Badger’s Perfect Garden <br /> (Sleeping Bear Press) GOLD:

Four of this year’s Florida Book Award gold medalists tell the tale of the inspirations, challenges and rewards of practicing their craft By Colette Bancroft Fom Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Zora Neale Hurston and John D. MacDonald to Carl Hiaasen, Edwidge Danticat and Craig Pittman, Florida has long been a rich source of material for writers of all kinds. The Florida Book Awards were founded in 2006 to honor the best

Master wordsmith Peter Meinke – Florida’s Poet Laureate and the 2020 winner of the Florida Humanities’ Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing – has interpreted life around him through poetry, from the natural world to politics. Plus, Meinke’s poem, “Spanish Moss.” By Ron Cunningham I learned that Shakespeare really lived so scholars have decided. Though quite a few have studied me they're not as sure that I did. "Lucky Bones" -

A Florida Humanities contest unlocks the soaring creativity of high school students. Meet the poets who processed the troubling time of the pandemic through poetry.