GATOR COUNTRY'S first award nomination!
GATOR COUNTRY'S first award nomination!
It has been a busy couple of weeks filled with good Gator Country news, so let’s jump right into it.
Howdy Friends,
Rebecca is home after traveling to speak at the University of Florida and CrimeScene Mystery BookFest. It has been a busy couple of weeks filled with good Gator Country news, so let’s jump right into it.
Gator Country appeared in Condé Nast Traveller’s article, "9 New Books to Read on Your Winter Getaway.” Contributor Sarah Kuta wrote:
Gator Country explores Florida's complicated alligator poaching underworld through the lens of two colorful characters: an undercover fish and wildlife agent and a legendary poacher who looms large in Sunshine State lore. I love a good true crime story, especially one told by a journalist—even better when the tale involves wildlife and conservation, as this one does.
The Daily News, Texas’ Oldest Newspaper, published a great review of Gator Country. Terri Schlichenmeyer wrote:
This is a book that an adventurous reader will be thrilled by, a history lover will want to have, and a science- and ecology-minded person will devour. Get “Gator Country.” You really shouldn’t miss it.
E.B. Bartels interviewed Rebecca for Fiction Advocate. You can read a section of their conversation below, though we highly recommend reading the full version.
EB: Why alligators? Do you feel as strongly about other reptiles? Personally, I love reptiles—I have two pet tortoises.
RR: We had an alligator who lived in the lake in our backyard [in Florida]. When I was in high school, I used to read back there, next to the alligator, and our neighbors were afraid and wanted to call animal control, and I was like don’t you fucking dare call animal control on our alligator. We had named the alligator! We hung out together. The alligator always just watched me, like oh, that human is here again.
Alligators are so misunderstood. For most of my life, whenever I’ve run into one, they’ve just chilled. You really have to mess up in order to get bitten by an alligator. Very few people ever get attacked by them. The ones that do have usually done something to provoke the attack.
Gator Country is also nominated for the BookTube Prize in Nonfiction, the book’s first award nomination!
That’s all the news we have for you this week. Keep an eye out on your inbox for Rebecca’s updated upcoming events announcement, including a speaking engagement at Word of South Festival in April.
Yours Truly,
Team Rebecca
Rebecca recommended “The Bishop and The Butterfly” by Michael Wolraich on Threads to historical true crime lovers!
About the book: The riveting story of how the murder of femme fatale Vivian Gordon in 1931 brought about the downfall of the mayor of New York City and led to the end of Tammany Hall’s dominance.
Vivian Gordon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat. Her body turned up the next morning in a desolate Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names—businessmen, socialites, gangsters. And something else: a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commission had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes. Had Vivian Gordon been executed to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham’s powerful political machine—the infamous Tammany Hall.
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