Our guest is Florida author Tyler Gillespie, whose 2021 book "The Thing About Florida" attempts to answer that unanswerable question: "What's with Florida?" Gillespie is gay and grew up in the Southern Baptist Church in Pinellas County; we discuss his writing, "don't say gay," and growing up gay in Florida.
Craig Pittman is the award-winning author of Oh, Florida!: How America’s Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country, The Scent of Scandal, Cat Tale, Manatee Insanity and The State You’re In, and co-author of Paving Paradise. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him “the most destructive force on campus.” Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature.
