Tombolo Books welcomes Florida author and founder of the Word of South Festival of Literature and Music, Mark Mustian, to the bookstore to celebrate the release of his new historical fiction novel, Boy With Wings!

Mustian will be in conversation with local author Paul Wiborn!

More about Boy With Wings

What does it mean to be different? Following the success of The Gendarme, Mark Mustian returns with another historical fiction masterpiece, Boy With Wings, this time set in the 1930’s in the United States.

His mother at first tries to bury him alive. He grows up in a turpentine labor camp before landing in a “freak show” traveling the South, all the while wondering about the man who seems to follow him and whom his father might be. Is Johnny some kind of an angel? Should he hide himself to live and save his life?

With an eclectic array of characters, Boy With Wings follows Johnny’s journey through love, betrayal, heartbreak and several murders, to reach an understanding in the place and time that he may least expect.

Mark Mustian is the author of the novels The Return and The Gendarme, the latter a finalist for the Dayton International Literary Peace Prize and shortlisted for the Saroyan International Award for Writing. It won the Florida Gold Book Award for Fiction and has been published in ten languages. The founder of the Word of South Festival of Literature and Music in Tallahassee, Florida, his new novel Boy With Wings is out in 2025, with advance praise from Jeff VanderMeer, Chris Bohjalian, Katy Simpson Smith and others. Mark is also the president of Nabors, Giblin & Nickerson, P.A., one of the largest local government law firms in Florida.

As a journalist, Paul Wilborn has won multiple awards from the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. He won the Green Eyeshade Award from the Atlanta Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the South’s top writing prize. Based on a selection of his writing, Wilborn was chosen for the Paul Hansel Award, Florida’s top journalism prize. He was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. His plays have been produced at Stageworks, Off-Center Theater, Radio Theater Project, and University of Michigan. Wilborn is the Executive Director of the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College and lives in St. Petersburg with his wife, the film actor Eugenie Bondurant.