Florida Man: Text, Image, and Multimedia Approach to Self-Publishing and Promoting Autofiction and Memoirs

The “Florida Man” archetype of the mid-twentieth century lives on through the lively subversion of rigid gender expectations torn apart by the counterculture—an era when resistance turned to campy rainbow colors, blinding Anita Bryant’s bullhorn-fueled preaching.
Join author and photojournalist Matthew Bamberg for an evening of queer historical quirks, outrageous storytelling, and a National Enquirer-style drama-orama of love-ins, drug cartels, and the dawn of the occult New Age.
A gay Florida Man belts out the “Floridaesque” landscape of 1970s Miami during a burgeoning counterculture that cracked open sultry closet doors to let in fresh air. Drawing on his popular essays and composite novel Coconut Grove Chronicles, Bamberg explores the bizarre, vibrant collision of gay, Cuban, and Jewish cultures in Coconut Grove—a scene that made San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury look second-rate.
What to Expect:

Retro Party: Journey back to 1972 to experience life as a suburban working boy selling orgy butter, bongs, and coke spoons in a head shop facing the back patio of The Hamlet, one of Coconut Grove’s first gay bars.
The Psychological Closet: Take a deep dive into the internal realities of growing up in the closet while navigating the cosmic auroras of an astrologer mother who charted planets for cartel wives.