JUNE 14TH BOOK SIGNING HOSTED BY TOMBOLO BOOKS AT SEVEN C MUSIC
St. Petersburg, Florida – (June 9, 2022) – St. Petersburg musician and author Paul Wilborn’s announces the debut of his new novel FLORIDA HUSTLE, followed by a series of book signings. . Check out wilbornwrites.com for appearances. Published by St. Petersburg Press and available at Tombolo Books (St. Petersburg), Oxford Exchange (Tampa), and as a print and e-book on Amazon.com.
Critics have lavished early praise on the book, calling it: “…an irrepressible Florida frolic filled with lost dreams, forlorn love, and horror movie lore.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review).
PAUL WILBORN’S APPEARANCES/BOOK SIGNINGS: FLORIDA HUSTLE LIVE!
Tuesday, June 14, 2022 from 7pm to 8 pm
Florida Hustle: An Evening with Paul Wilborn
Seven C Music, 535 22nd Street South, St. Petersburg
Hosted by Tombolo Books at Seven C Music to celebrate the launch of the new novel
Phone: 727-755-9456
Sunday, June 19, 2022 from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm
Florida Hustle: An Afternoon with Paul Wilborn
The Oxford Exchange, 420 W. Kennedy, Tampa
Phone: 813- 253-0222
Wednesday, June 22, 2022 from 7pm to 10 pm
Florida Hustle: Meet & Greet Paul Wilborn and see a Mario Bava horror classic film
Greenlight Cinema
221 2nd Avenue North, St. Petersburg
Phone: 508-816-8968
FLORIDA HUSTLE is set in 1982, as the phenomenal success of Friday the 13th spawned a string of cheap slasher-film copycats, shot around the Sunshine State.
FLORIDA HUSTLE is published by St. Petersburg Press and available at Tombolo Books (St. Petersburg), Oxford Exchange (Tampa), and as a print and e-book on Amazon.com.
FLORIDA HUSTLE PLOT:
Aspiring filmmaker Michael Donnelly has two obsessions. One is Italian horror movies, and the other is Dawn Karston, a teen-age scream-queen, known for dying horribly in a string of cheap slasher flicks.
Michael, who shares a Palm Beach mansion with his defense contractor father, believes Dawn deserves better material and that he is just the 17-year-old for the job.
But obsession, like filmmaking, is a risky business. To Dawn and her LA manager, Michael’s comic book story boards, rendered in blood-red ink and mailed to the actor’s home address, look more like death threats than movie pitches.
With Dawn’s new project, Swamp Fiend 2, about to shoot in the Florida Everglades – just an hour from Michael’s house – the producers convince his family that something must be done.
When Michael gets wind of a plan to lock him up at a plush retreat for the rich and deranged, he flees to a sketchy motel in West Palm Beach. There, he enlists an aging con man and his fiercely ambitious teenage girlfriend to help him reach the set of Swamp Fiend 2. Michael doesn’t realize his new partners see him as an opportunity to satisfy their own obsessions.
Florida Hustle is set in 1982, when America was led by a celebrity president, when the phenomenal success of Friday the 13th has spawned a string of slasher-film copycats, and when Florida was morphing from a low-rent vacationland into a mega-state famous for Disney theme parks, Seminole Indian casinos, and a flourishing B-movie industry.
PAUL WILBORN BIO
A native of Tampa, Paul Wilborn collected multiple awards from the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors during a journalism career that included stints at the Tampa Tribune, The St. Petersburg Times and the Associated Press in Los Angeles. He won the Green Eyeshade Award from the Atlanta Chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, the South’s top writing prize. Based on a selection of his writing, Wilborn was chosen for the Paul Hansel Award, Florida’s top journalism prize. He was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan.
His plays have been produced at Stageworks, Off-Center Theater, Radio Theater Project and University of Michigan.
A pianist and singer, he has led several bands including Paul Wilborn and the Pop Tarts and Blue Roses. He produced the long-running American Songbook Series at American Stage.
In the 1980s, Wilborn was a founding member of Ybor City’s Artists and Writers Group, which created multiple themed art and music events in the Tampa’s historic district.
Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto is Wilborn’s debut short story collection. The book won the Gold Medal for Fiction in the 2019 Florida Book Awards. He recently completed Florida Hustle, a novel set in South Florida.
Wilborn is executive director of the Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College and lives in Saint Petersburg with his wife, the film actor Eugenie Bondurant.
For further information on Paul Wilborn, contact wilbornwrites@gmail.com.