1.) We’re happy to be speaking today with acclaimed author Paul Wilborn; greetings and salutations, Paul! Before we meander down the literary Q&A pathway, how has the summer of 2023 been treating you?
When I’m not writing, I run a music venue in a converted 1920s church in downtown St. Petersburg, Florida. After the slow COVID years, we’ve seen record crowds this summer. My two favorite words in the English language are “SOLD” and “OUT.”
2.) Major congratulations on your new coming-of-age novel Florida Hustle which is not only garnering reader and critical praise in traditional book format but also in a handy-dandy audiobook form! Starting from the top, can you talk about what inspired you to write this beautiful and fun story?
It started as a screenplay while I was living in Los Angeles. I was interested in writing about a young guy who has a crush on a scream queen. I liked the idea that people thought he wanted to kill her, but he just wanted to give her better material. I also wanted to write about my home state. I loved living in California, but I might have been a little homesick for Florida. It was an unfinished screenplay when I moved back to Florida. After I finished my first book, I took it out and decided to turn it into a novel.
3.) Thematically, how is Florida Hustle similar to your previous novel Cigar City? How is it different?
For one, both are set in the 1980s and both are about young people figuring out their place in the world. In the 1980s, Tampa’s old cigar district, Ybor City, was a lot like the East Village in NYC. The immigrants were gone and there were lots of old buildings with cheap rent – great for artist apartments, art studios, and massive happenings with bands and crazy themes. Cigar City is a collection of short stories about that time, though the characters are mostly fictional. I set Florida Hustle in the ‘80s because of John Hinckley, the kid who tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan to impress Jody Foster, and because that was the era of slasher movies and scream queens, as everybody tried to copy the success of Halloween and Friday the 13th.
A lot of my actor buddies in Ybor got killed in the woods in “straight-to-video” slasher films.
4.) Being a native to Florida yourself, what did your research process look like in crafting the scenes in Florida Hustle? Were you familiar enough with the state that the research was more minimal than it might have been if you’d set the book in Maryland or Georgia?
I was paid to roam Florida for the Tampa Tribune and The St. Petersburg Times. It was a dream job for a young reporter. All of the locations in Florida Hustle came directly from my time traveling the Sunshine State – the Cypress Knee Museum, the Seminole Village, Palm Beach – those were places I visited and wrote about. And Michael spends a few nights in a “no-tell motel” in downtown West Palm Beach. Not knowing any better at the time, I stayed in that motel for a few nights.
5.) Did you enjoy satirizing Hollywood in Florida Hustle with the character of Dawn and the making of Swamp Fiend 2?
Writing for the Associated Press in L.A. I saw some cheap movie sets and knew too much about all the bartenders and waiters who dream of being screenwriters and actors. As I was researching the book my wife, Eugenie Bondurant, was cast as The Occultist in “Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It.” When I visited the set, I asked everyone to tell me about the sleaziest production and the worst set they’d ever worked on. Everybody had a story. My Swamp Fiend set was based on their recollections.
6.) Did you grow up enjoying the real-world Swamp Fiends such as John Carpenter’s Halloween or Cunningham’s Friday the 13th?
I loved Halloween and the great horror movies I saw as a kid in the ‘70s. I wasn’t really a fan of Friday the 13th, like my character Michael, I thought the stories were cheesy and the production values were terrible. And the villains were so boring – just these faceless killing machines. As I researched the book, I discovered the ‘60s horror films of Mario Bava and knew those were the kinds of movies my character Michael wanted to make. Bava isn’t well known now, but he was very influential in the horror genre. The original Friday the 13th copied some of the killings from Bava’s classic – Bay of Blood.
7.) Since we’re on the movie trail, what are the chances we could see a film adaptation of Florida Hustle?
Fingers crossed. One of the top film and TV agencies requested a copy of the manuscript. So it could happen. It’s very cinematic, which makes sense since it was originally a screenplay. And I think the Cavanaugh Reilly character is an award-winning role for an aging leading man. So hopefully it will be coming to a theater or screen near you someday.
8.) Can you give us a hint or three as to what you have coming up next? Have you already started plotting a new novel?
I’m writing the final chapters of a new novel. All I can say at this point is it’s about an aging mobster, who has survived four attempts to kill him, and his young bodyguard, who decides to write his boss’ life story.
9.) When finishing a novel, do you generally take time off to recharge the creative batteries?
Maybe a few weeks, but my favorite part of this business is the writing. The hour I carve out to write is my favorite time of day. So I tend to get back to it pretty quickly. And while I do a lot of research, I don’t really know where a book is going when I start. It’s a discovery process for me. I liken it to doing a big table-top puzzle, but not having the picture on the box to show you what the finished puzzle will look like.
10.) At the end of the day, what do you hope readers take away as they finish up their copies of Florida Hustle?
I know they are going to have a good time and a few laughs. I also hope they fall in love with all the characters. I think what sets this book apart from other “Florida” books, is the depth of the characters. I cared about each of them. I think readers will do the same. I think they’ll also see a lot of parallels between the early 1980s and today’s world. The greed, the cons, and the hustles have just gotten bigger.
11.) Final – SILLY! – Question: Favorite coming-of-age movie – American Graffiti, Dead Poets Society, Summer of ‘42, or Stand By Me?
It has got to be Summer of ’42. My personal coming-of-age fantasy is to be the virginal teen seduced on a warm end-of-summer night by a beautiful, older woman. Okay, it’s a cliché, but you asked! Now, I’ve got to see if that movie is streaming somewhere…
Head Honcho, Editor in Chief and writer here on VENTS. I don't like walking on the beach, but I love playing the guitar and geeking out about music. I am also a movie maniac and 6 hours sleeper.
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