Hey y’all,
This year has been lovely with a period in New Orleans during carnival then a month in Key West as a fellow at the Key West Literary Seminar before disappearing to Vienna for three months. After a brief stint there, I returned to New York only to be pulled away again, and luckily it was to an island much, much smaller than Manhattan. Now, I'm hoping to share some of those stories with you.
In April, two kind editors gave me the chance to write and photograph my first feature for The New York Times about the dense spiritual community in my hometown of Sarasota, Florida––“Conjuring Spirits in Florida.” Then, The Bitter Southerner published my piece, “This Man Is an Island,” about how David Wolkowksy lent Key West it’s sense of style and the role camp played in the town’s development. And finally, “A Lien on Lincolnville," my feature on how St. Augustine's inability to celebrate its past has come to haunt it was published in Indoek's book about the town.
I’m wishing y’all well for Fall, and thank you for indulging my periodic bouts of shameless self-promotion. I've got a whole mess of good news to share in the months to come with stories from The Surfer's Journal, The New York Times, and Men's Journal, among others, too.
See you down the road,
Mike
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Conjuring Spirits in Florida for The New York Times
“As a native, I’ve heard stories about Sarasota’s energy grids, vortexes, a Calusa force field that prevents hurricanes and the 99-percent quartz-crystal sand at Siesta Key. All of it helps draw the metaphysical community. “You don’t move to Sarasota; you’re called,” a man told me. When I was growing up, the string of roadside psychics along Route 41 was as omnipresent as the car dealerships and pawn shops with their neon signs burning late into the night. It is where many psychics live and work today. In retrospect, it seemed absurd not to be more aware of the deep spiritual community here straddling the line between the physical and metaphysical worlds, but throughout my childhood, it was unclear what was simply Southern lore or if Sarasota truly held spiritual significance, what was real and what many deemed a “scam.”"
Read the story online here.
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This Man Is an Island for The Bitter Southerner
“Where the Overseas Highway stretches across 120 miles of contiguous islets and islands, the 6-square-mile island of Key West punctuates its terminus. To most, the tiny blip of limestone is known for the arterial vein of debauchery known as Duval Street, which some misguidedly compare to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. But between the franchise bars and frozen daiquiris and T-shirt shops, little portals lead through flora-laden haunts to the Key West that has drawn so many people over time. For some, it’s served as an outpost of solitude, to dry out, to feel less strange. To others, it’s been a dead end, a place to reinvent oneself, maybe a place to disappear. That’s to say the place casts a spell on people.
Its striated layers of codes, milieu, and history are part of what’s made the place so attractive — the gloss of its celebrity past, too. But even today with the influx of cruise-ships and Segway tours, ballooning rents and shadows of eras long-gone, the allure remains. If there was one way to put it, Key West exceeds your expectations — again and again. For me, it’s only grown more mysterious with each visit.
Meeting David Wolkowsky only deepened that.”
Read the whole feature here.
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"A Lien On Lincolnville" for Indoek
I am so, so damn grateful to share this story with y'all today. Last year, I was given the opportunity to report this piece, and it's one of the most heart-rending stories I've had the good fortune to write, and I'm proud to say the longest story, too. And to say it's an especially American or Southern or Floridian story is an understatement. This book comes with a whole mess of stories, photographs, and illustrations regarding the town, and I'm thankful to be included next to so many folks I admire. To all those who led me down the rabbit hole, I'll never see this place or others in the same way.
Purchase the book online here and come join us on Saturday, September 15, in St. Augustine for the release party!
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"Print Is Dead? Not Here" for The New York Times
Last week, I made some photographs for Ted Geltner's story about a Florida newspaper that's thriving while the rest of the country's print media winnows.
Check out the piece online here.
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"Iconic Food Writing" on KCRW's Good Food Podcast
I was honored to speak with Evan Kleiman on her podcast, "Good Food," earlier this year about my story for The Bitter Southerner, "The Short & Brilliant Life of Ernest Matthew Mickler," and doubly rewarding, they published an essay I wrote about reporting the story and how ultimately his life made the world bigger for me.
Listen to the episode here, read my essay here, and read the original story here.
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Environmental Reporting and Essays for Void and Flamingo
This year I wrote a short essay for Void magazine about a precarious development in North Florida and another about the intricacies of sea-level rise in St. Augustine, too. Earlier this year, I had the chance to report on the new-fangled town in southwest Florida that's deceivingly billed as America’s “first solar-powered town.” Spoiler: It's not. It's also a piece that looks at Florida's solar quandary and what prevents it from becoming a leader in renewable energy. I wrote that story for Flamingo magazine, which you can read here.
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