Favorite author Lee Irby gets a write-up and a chance to talk about Confederate statues

Here's one from the Local Boy Makes Good file. Don't know if you saw Cathy Salustri's write-up in Creative Loafing about one of our favorite writers out at Eckerd College, Lee Irby. Here's the part we like. Kathy is talking about Lee's new book, Unreliable, a murder mystery with an unreliable narrator. Her  opinion is that Lee and his book haven't gotten enough attention lately. We concur. She calls the book "witty, engaging amd utterly engrossing." But the best part: She says the book is Literature, "the kind that should have a capital L. High praise, indeed! Anyway, if you haven't read it yet, we'd encourage you to do so. Lee's going to be speaking at a special event at Eckerd Confederate Monuments in the South: Place, Memory and Lingering Wounds. It's on October 23  at 7 p.m. in the Triton Room. He's speaking on the removal of Confederate statues, which a focus on the statue of Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, which is the setting for his book.

At Fort Desoto Park and over at Egmont Key, you can have a really great adventure

It's always great to see our favorite places getting their due in the news. Recent case in point: Cathy Salustri's feature in Creative Loafing about 10 things you can do at Fort DeSoto Park. Cathy, as we've seen in the past with her history courses for Eckerd's OLLI program, clearly loves Florida. Most of the pictures accompanying the article are Cathy's, so she spent some time researching the article. (Nice work, Cathy!) She ends with the sunset (the picture above) but there nine other items, including looking for horseshoe crabs and starfish. There's even a trip over to Egmont Key. You're in for an adventure. 

Cathy Salustri suggests books to read this summer, including some cool local authors

Did you happen to see the amazing and talented Cathy Salustri's list of great books to add to your summer reading list? Cathy, of course, in addition to teaching classes on Florida and local history at Eckerd College's OLLI program, is also the arts and entertainment editor of Creative Loafing, author of BackRoads to Paradise: A Journey to Rediscover Old Florida, and a Gulfport resident. But this isn't about Cathy. It's about her recommended reading list.

She had some pretty good ideas, including Unreliable, Eckerd prof turned novelist Lee Irby, new book, (we featured him on April 22), and Jack Davis's The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea, a non-fiction endeavor that's as riveting as they come. (By the way, Jack is speaking at the Gulfport Historical Society tomorrow (Friday) night from 6:30 to 9 p.m.)

But what caught our eye was a mention way down at the bottom of the list about the superb Wendy Wax and her fifth novel in the Ten Beach Road series. The latest one is One Good Thing, and it came out in April, perfect timing for a beach read. The series started with three accomplished women, strangers who end up co-owning a ramshackle cottage at Ten Beach Road in Pass-a-Grille. The series has found a cadre of dedicated fans and is a USA Today bestseller. Wendy is a native of St. Petersburg and a devotee of Pass-a-Grille. If you haven't had the pleasure, you really ought to treat yourself to this series. And read it down on Pass-a-Grille beach. Why not?

If you love Florida history, you really ought to meet author/instructor Cathy Salustri

Did you see the write-up about Cathy Salustri in The Gabber? If you're at all curious about Florida history you'd do well to get to know Cathy. She teaches some of the history sessions in the Eckerd College Osher Lifelong Institute. She's also the author of Backroads of Paradise, a fascinating volume in which she takes a modern-day tour of some of the places detailed in The WPA Guide to Florida. Scholars of the state's history know that the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers Project kept writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Stetson Kennedy, and Carita Doggett Corse employed during the Depression. Cathy is the arts and entertainment editor at Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. She used to write for The Gabber and once worked at the Florida Studies program at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Cathy is working on a new book about small towns in Florida. She lives in Gulfport, one of the small towns she's likely to write about.

Learning of mermaids, underwater shows, and so much more about old Florida days

Back in 1947 by the side of the road near Ocala, a former stunt swimmer set up an underwater show featuring live mermaids and it grew and grew and became the famous Weeki Wachee Springs tourist attraction, one of the best known and most popular attractions in Florida. It's still open and operated now by the State of Florida. If you haven't been, you should go sometime.

But in the meantime, you should get to know more about Florida's history and culture by attending Cathy Salustri's session called U.S. 19: Mermaids, Manatees, and Watermelon Queens, a virtual journey down U.S. 19, which was, back in the day, the main route people took when they came down to Florida's west coast. Cathy, who is the Art & Entertaiment editor for Creative Loafing, knows where of she speaks. She not only holds a master's degree in Florida Studies from the University of South Florida but she has personally explored the length and breadth of the state in search of the quirkiest places. This session promises plenty of insights into the quirkiest state.

U.S. 19: Mermaids, Manatees, and Watermelon Queens will be presented from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Thursday, November 10 in the CEC Flamingo Room at Eckerd College as part of the Eckerd Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Fee is $10 for members and $25 for non-members.