Discover Your Own Backyard - Stories

Abstract

Discover Your Own Backyard is a collection of six original stories that examine the intersection between identity and place amidst the swamp and sand of Central Florida. Inspired by my own experience growing up in the Sunshine State, the stories probe the extent to which personhood is a matter of geography, of the places we first call home. From a mother adrift in the wilderness of her own children, to a young girl contending with the nature of sudden loss, to a middle-aged man attempting to make sense of the women in his life, ever leaving, the stories center around notions of family, class, and belonging. The humid, occasionally dangerous, Florida landscape serves as a foil to these searching souls, as the collection asks each of us to consider our own inherited terrains.