Florida Wildlife Corridor
Central Florida Public Media is part of a special statewide investigative collaboration looking at what the Florida Wildlife Corridor Act means for our region. The Florida Wildlife Corridor Act identifies some 18 million acres of land for conservation. It was signed into law in 2021 after receiving unanimous support from state lawmakers. It’s supposed to protect wildlife and natural resources and mitigate the impacts of climate change. In partnership with the Florida Trident, WGCU, and Oviedo Community News, Central Florida Public Media Environment Reporter Molly Duerig put together installments of a series called “Preserve or Develop? The Race Against Time to Protect Florida’s Wildlife Corridor.” Molly joins Engage to share key takeaways from her months of reporting on this project. Oviedo Community News reporter Eric Orvieto also joins us to discuss his work on this statewide reporting collaboration.
Dave’s House
Orlando based Dave’s House has a unique method of ending homelessness for adults experiencing mental health problems. The organization is now developing their new residential community in Seminole County to provide permanent supportive housing. Executive Director, Ellen O’Connor, joins Engage to discuss how supportive housing is central to the Dave’s House model.
Orlando Book Festival
The 2024 Orlando Book Festival takes place this Saturday. It’s a day of events that includes panel discussions for both readers and writers, book readings and signings, and a keynote address from New York Times best-selling author, Tayari Jones. The Orlando Book Festival is organized by the Orange County Library System. It takes place at the Public Library downtown on Central Boulevard. Sarah Fisk is the Events and Programs Planner with the Orange County Library System and coordinator of the festival. Fisk joins us in studio to parse out the festival’s events.
Kerouac House
The Kerouac Project of Orlando is one of the organizations participating in the festival this weekend. The origins of the writer’s fame can be traced to a cottage in the Orlando neighborhood where he lived when his defining novel On the Road was published in the late 1950s. That College Park house is now home to a writers-in-residence program where selected applicants live and work in the same place where Kerouac did. Author Erik Deckers is President of the Kerouac Project of Orlando. Deckers joins Engage to discuss the writers-in-residence program and how Central Florida factored into Kerouac’s fame.
Tayari Jones
In 2019, Tayari Jones published her fourth novel, An American Marriage. The book chronicled the fictional relationship between a man falsely accused and incarcerated for rape and his wife waiting for him on the outside. It shot to the top of the New York Times best seller list. Oprah chose it for her book club. Former President Obama put it on his summer reading list. Jones’s childhood home of Atlanta serves as a backdrop to her novels that focus on family dynamics, racial inequity, and the changing landscapes of America’s Black communities. Her first novel, Leaving Atlanta, is a fictional account of the Atlanta Child Murders told through the perspective of three grade school children. Jones, herself, lived through the fear that gripped Atlantans in the early 80’s, and two of her friends were victims of the real-life serial killer. Tayari Jones has been invited to deliver the keynote speech at Saturday’s Orlando Book Festival. She joins Engage ahead of her appearance at the festival.
