VEER Collective

As native Floridians, we are thrilled to share WE CAN'T HELP IT IF WE'RE FROM FLORIDA: New Stories From a Sinking Peninsula, an anthology of stories and essays.

Florida is more than just fodder for hard-boiled crime novels and zany farces. This anthology of new stories and essays challenges a star-studded line up of current and former Floridians to write about the state through a literary lens, though not without the requisite weirdness. The Florida within this book contains: lightning, oil spills, road rage, a lizard tied to a balloon, swimmers, sleepwalkers, characters that love Florida, characters that hate Florida, and at least three sinkholes. Featuring new writing by Lidia Yuknavitch, Sarah Gerard, Kristen Arnett, Laura van den Berg, Lindsay Hunter, John Brandon, Jaquira Díaz, Alissa Nutting and many more.

• Paperback // 6 x 9 
• Ed. Shane Hinton
  

The Florida Man meme lodged itself into the national consciousness through viral headlines like “Florida man threw live gator in Wendy’s drive-thru window.” But there’s much more to the meme than a punchline. In this innovative collection, Tyler Gillespie strips away the accepted myths of his home state and its inhabitants in poems centered on Florida’s history and culture. He uses a lyric mix of journalism, science, family lore, and lived experience to reveal complex realities of the state and a redemption that’s wondrously messy and surprising.

Since the collection’s initial publication in 2018, Florida has become even more chaotic and unsafe. In this time, too, Gillespie emerged as one of the state’s rising literary voices for his wit and style. This second edition revisits the original collection and extends its themes with 20 new poems that form the chapbook-length addition HEAT ADVISORY.

“Gillespie has published an empathetic book of poems.” – WASHINGTON POST

• Paperback
• 5.5″ x 8.5″
• 128pp
• LGBTQ+

Ryan Rivas has lived in Orlando’s Colonialtown North neighborhood for over a decade. In Nextdoor in Colonialtown, he pairs photos of the neighborhood with conversations assembled from the area’s Nextdoor.com posts. The result is at turns absurd and abject, goofy and gothic, paranoid and profound. By displacing his familiar surroundings, Rivas evokes the broader White imaginary underlying colonialism and suburbanization.

• Pub date: December 10 2024 [reissue]
• Print Length: 88 pages
• Dimensions: 6×6”
• Paperback
• ISBN: 978-1-957392-08-0
• 2022 limited edition hardcover: sold out

All his life, the unnamed narrator of this darkly comic and deeply strange novella has believed he’s a lizard person. After an incident at work, he’s sent to a coastal resort for intensive therapy to confront the truth of his peculiar identity. But amid days of lounging by the pool with his fellow recoverings, intensive sessions with a therapist, and the appearance of a love interest with ill intentions, his self-discovery remains elusive. 

• ISBN -13: 979-8-9861105-8-5
• 72 pp.
• Cover artwork and design by Angelo Maneage
• Edited by Maryam Qureshi

Moonlight Over Sea Trees catalogs the exhibit of the same name, which took place in 2023 at the Hand Art Museum in Deland, FL, featuring the work of the visual artists Edgar Heap of Birds and Michael Maxwell. With a primary focus on Heap of Birds’ Neuf series and Maxwell’s Night Drawings, the book explores the ways both artists engage with the natural world through abstraction. Including an array of images, an artist talk, and three essays––by Teresa Carmody, Luca Molnar, and Claire Voon––that contextualize the works and consider the artists in relation to one another, Moonlight Over Sea Trees is an engaging and inspiring look into Heap of Birds’ and Maxwell’s work and practice.

• Presented by Burrow Press
• 11″ x 8.5″
• Hardcover
• 72pp