Tyler Gillespie, author of The Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State and Florida Man: Poems, traces the course of this icon of the weird from the old website Fark.com (“We Don’t Make the News. We Mock It”), looks at the long history of Florida Man/Woman-type stories (e.g., “Edna May’s recipe for being a successful wife to the ultra-rich” from the Alachua Booster in 1912), explains the reason Florida Man could become famous (the state’s Sunshine Law), and confidently predicts which state will be the next Florida. – Literary Hub
