Floridian Authors and Poets
Writers of the Sunshine State
Did you know that some of the most well-known American authors are from Florida? Writers like Zora Neale Hurston, Ernest Hemingway, Karen Russel, Carl Hiaasen, and Dawn Lee McKenna were born in Florida and wrote some of their famous works with Florida as their inspiration.
Zora Neale Hurston
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Zora Neale Hurston, author of novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mules and Men was actually born in Alabama, but she was raised in Eatonville, Florida after her family moved there when she was a child. Eatonville was the first incorporated all-black town in the country, and Hurston uses her identity as a black woman as the inspiration for some of her work. In fact, in her work Mules and Men, Hurston combines personal experiences with what she observed in Florida to share a study of folkways among the African American population of Florida. Hurston later moved to New York City during the Harlem Renaissance to attend college.
Ernest Hemingway
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Ernest Hemingway was born near Chicago, and didn’t retire to start writing in Key West, Florida until after he served as an ambulance driver during WWI. Hemingway heard of Key West from a friend, stopping in Cuba along the way before settling in Key West. His home, built in 1851, is still open to visitors today. As a poet, short story writer, and novelist, Hemingway’s works have allowed him to become recognized as one of the most notable American authors. His novel To Have and Have Not is set in Florida, but his most famous novel, The Old Man and the Sea, was inspired by the time he spent in Cuba.
Karen Russell
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Karen Russell, born and raised in Miami, Florida, uses Florida as the setting and inspiration for her short story collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, and her novel, Swamplandia!. Russell’s fictional Swamplandia! covers all things Florida - theme parks, alligator wrestling, and melaleuca trees. The novel earned Russell the title of Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and it was a New York Times best book of the year. Although Russell now lives in Portland, Oregon, Florida continues to inspire her literature.
Carl Hiaasen
Image courtesy of goodreads.com.
Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Plantation, Florida, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. He started writing at age six, and carried this love of writing into his adult life. He attended the University of Florida for college, and after graduating he began his career as a journalist. This eventually led Hiaasen to begin writing fiction, and in the 1980s, he wrote his first novel. The author has now published 20 adult novels and 5 young adult novels. Two of his works, Hoot and Striptease were even adapted to film. Hiaasen often writes about Florida, using satire to poke fun at Florida tourism and how Florida has changed over time.
Dawn Lee McKenna
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Dawn Lee McKenna, a Florida native who relocated to Tennessee, authored the bestselling “Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense” series. The ten-book series is set in Apalachicola, Florida, and combines romance and suspense to detail fictional crimes in the Florida Panhandle. McKenna fought cancer until she passed away in 2021, and she is remembered by many through her 16 published novels.
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