We Can't Help It If We're From Florida

“As hot and wild and dangerous as our beloved (or is it bedeviled?) state, itself.”

– Lauren Groff, author of Fates & Furies


“As weird and funny and beautiful and unnerving as you might expect from some of our state’s best writers.”

– Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia!


Florida is more than just fodder for hard-boiled crime novels and zany farces. This anthology of new stories and essays challenges a star-studded line up of current and former Floridians to write about the state through a literary lens, though not without the requisite weirdness. The Florida within this book contains: lightning, oil spills, road rage, a lizard tied to a balloon, swimmers, sleepwalkers, characters that love Florida, characters that hate Florida, and at least three sinkholes.


Full list of contributors: Lindsay Hunter, Kevin Moffett, Lidia Yuknavitch, Jeff Parker, Laura van den Berg, Sarah Gerard, Jaquira Díaz, Alissa Nutting, Kristen Arnett, Sohrab Homi Fracis, Derrick Austin, John Brandon, Jason Ockert, Michael J. Seidlinger, Racquel Henry, Nathan Deuel, Asha Dore, Amy Parker, and John Henry Fleming.