Meet the Author: John Henry Fleming |
Wellington Branch
Saturday,
August 15, 2009
2:00 p.m. |
"John Henry Fleming’s Fearsome Creatures of Florida is required reading for anyone who lives in Florida, has ever lived there, has relatives who live in Florida, ever went to Florida on vacation, has ever flown over Florida on route to somewhere else, has ever dreamed about Florida, ever even once had a fleeting thought about Florida, ever heard Delius’s Florida Suite, or ever read Charles Willeford or John D. MacDonald. Much ingenuity, much wit, much verbal magic -- this book is sheer pleasure."
— Peter Straub |
 John Henry Fleming, a Florida-based author and creative writing teacher at the University of South Florida in Tampa, will be appearing at the Wellington Branch on Saturday, August 15, at 2:00 pm. A book signing will follow. Preregister.
John Henry Fleming is the author of “The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman” (1996), a Florida novel set in the 1890s about a Miami postmaster with a grand scheme for turning the beaches of southern Florida into the vacation paradise they were meant to be. Many reviewers found this book to be a thoroughly enjoyable novel. The “Christian Science Monitor” praised this "delightfully far-fetched tale," saying "the satiric thrusts are shrewd, yet good-natured, the characters agreeably wacky, and Fleming's prose is not only first-rate but ingenuously evocative of 19th-century parlance."
He has also written short stories that have appeared in many literary journals.
John Henry Fleming’s latest book, “Fearsome Creatures of Florida,” is a “bestiary” of Florida creatures. A bestiary is a traditional type of book comprised of a collection of short descriptions and stories about all sorts of animals, real and imaginary, usually accompanied by a moral. Accurate scientific descriptions are given no more weight than totally fabulous accounts. John Henry Fleming’s fascinating mix of the real and the imaginary invites us to expand our notions of what Florida is really like beyond its prefab veneer. The Florida Book Review website says of this book: “There’s plenty of good writing here.” |
About “Fearsome Creatures of Florida”:
They sinuate through ficus hedges and tunnel under beach towels. They lurk in mangroves and springs. Some you can smell a mile away. Others you don't notice until they grab at your ankles. They're known as Storm Devils and Peat Fairies, Skunk Apes and Were-Panthers, and they're the wildly imaginative bestiary that populates John Henry Fleming's FEARSOME CREATURES OF FLORIDA. Fleming offers an eerie portrayal of the parallel lives of modern-day Floridians and the living landscape -- at once gorgeous and menacing -- that surrounds them. Matched with haunting illustrations by David Hazouri, these tales may forever change your view of the Sunshine State. |
Related Sites:
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Preview Some Creatures:
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Posted: 07/27/09 |
