Until now I've been lurking on the topic, but what do people think of
when the phrase "Florida Writers" comes up? Is this a group defined
by geography or by any particular style? Do their stories take place
in Florida? Harry Whittington, who would have to be one of the most
prolific of the Florida group, seldom stepped foot outside the
state but only infrequently used Florida as his setting. Bill Cox,
who grew up in New Jersey, told me that he had moved to the Tampa
area because it was, at the time, the cheapest place to live in the
U.S. That probably meant that it was the cheapest place that he
would accept living. He ended up on Ana Maria Key, where one of his
neighbors was Wyatt Blassingame, a pulp horror writer who also wrote
crime for Black Mask. When I think of Florida writers it is the
postwar group centered around Tampa and St. Petersburg that included
Whittington, Gil Brewer (from New York), Powell, Day Keene and his
son Al James. When we get outside of that group I am quite a bit
less familiar with the field. That's my bias, but the region
certainly included many other writers and had an array of styles and
personalities that was rivaled only by New York and Los Angeles.
David Laurence Wilson
Downieville, CA
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