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Anywhere Else: Essays on Florida
In Anywhere Else, Rachel Knox explores images of Florida in pop culture together with her own experiences growing up in Florida and discussions of issues central to life in the state—class, violence, religion, women’s rights, and sexuality. Knox’s eclectic essays consider subjects including Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, painter Thomas Kinkade and the Florida Highwaymen, Ralph Waldo Emerson in St. Augustine, the X-Files monster of the week, and a queer film made in Florida in 1914. This book is a lively, sharp, and witty read that will be enjoyed by readers both within and far outside the state.
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 24, 2026
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About the author
Rachel Knox
1 book9 followersRachel Knox is a writer and bookseller from St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 9, 2025
A wonderful insight into a true Floridian existence. Knox is just one perspective, one unique seashell among others buried in our white sand beaches, but with a common theme close to my native heart. These essays have a way of tying all Floridians together under the same passing summer cloud, where we can all find solace in one another, as we wait for the storm to pass and bring our sunshine again.
My views are entirely my own and left of my own free will. Thank you to the author Rachel Knox for supplying me with an ARC so I could read and form my own opinion.
My views are entirely my own and left of my own free will. Thank you to the author Rachel Knox for supplying me with an ARC so I could read and form my own opinion.
March 25, 2026
I'm overjoyed about the launch of Rachel Knox's debut collection ANYWHERE ELSE: ESSAYS ON FLORIDA, which offers the last word on spring break, blood temperature gulf waters, Aileen Wuornos, the movie "Wild Things" (as Edgar Gomez has said, "I'll NEVER see "Wild Things" the same way again")--and on the aesthetics, politics, and sheer exuberance of coming from and living in a state that's maligned, misunderstood, embattled, constantly fighting state incursions on civil rights, and constantly resurging to assert the beauty and strength of being their own kind of Floridian, the loving kind, the community-building kind, the defiant anti-repression kind.
"It’s hard to tell what others have exaggerated and what I’ve internalized. The case with Florida, usually, is a mixture of both. Sometimes I set out to tell one story and remember another one, one I would never tell because I am just now realizing its weight, how deeply I buried it in my attempt to not be a person-from-there and just a person."
I particularly loved the crowning achievement of this collection, "Motel Art," an exploration of art, aesthetics, class, religion, shame, higher ed, belonging, and homecoming, with its considerations of the commerce and Christianity of Thomas Kinkade and the wondrous Floridian artists The Highwaymen, about whom she writes, "I’ve pored over the paintings in Monroe’s book, in museums, and at antique markets. It’s one of my life goals to own one of Mary Ann’s paintings. Alas, since the Hall of Fame induction, the going rates for Highwaymen originals have skyrocketed. As of this writing, I am still, myself, a starving artist. But the paintings reflect something on canvas that I’ve never been able to articulate in words: the big, irrepressible power of Florida’s topography, the way its islets and egrets and Everglades render me humbled and speechless. Where Kinkade feels like a charlatan, where he leaves me wanting, Highwaymen paintings strike some metaphorical harpsichord in my heart. They feel holy to me, in a way I can’t explain."
The collection is fantastic.
"It’s hard to tell what others have exaggerated and what I’ve internalized. The case with Florida, usually, is a mixture of both. Sometimes I set out to tell one story and remember another one, one I would never tell because I am just now realizing its weight, how deeply I buried it in my attempt to not be a person-from-there and just a person."
I particularly loved the crowning achievement of this collection, "Motel Art," an exploration of art, aesthetics, class, religion, shame, higher ed, belonging, and homecoming, with its considerations of the commerce and Christianity of Thomas Kinkade and the wondrous Floridian artists The Highwaymen, about whom she writes, "I’ve pored over the paintings in Monroe’s book, in museums, and at antique markets. It’s one of my life goals to own one of Mary Ann’s paintings. Alas, since the Hall of Fame induction, the going rates for Highwaymen originals have skyrocketed. As of this writing, I am still, myself, a starving artist. But the paintings reflect something on canvas that I’ve never been able to articulate in words: the big, irrepressible power of Florida’s topography, the way its islets and egrets and Everglades render me humbled and speechless. Where Kinkade feels like a charlatan, where he leaves me wanting, Highwaymen paintings strike some metaphorical harpsichord in my heart. They feel holy to me, in a way I can’t explain."
The collection is fantastic.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Anywhere Else is a striking collection of essays about Florida, girlhood, and the strange, complicated business of growing up in the Sunshine State.
Knox’s voice feels distinctly feminine. It is vulnerable, raw, and deeply brave in the way it approaches memory, identity, and place. She writes with the kind of honesty that makes you feel like you are sitting beside her on a sandy beach towel, watching waves break and listening to stories that are both deeply personal and strangely familiar.
Through intimate storytelling, the essays pull readers into a version of Florida that feels lived in and organic. It is humid, bright, and culturally rich. Knox lingers in the parts of Florida that never make it onto a postcard but are instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent enough time here to fall for its wildness.
Know writes with a sharp awareness of the outside gaze, the one that turns Florida into a punchline or a headline. Knox speaks directly to the people who roll their eyes at the state while happily booking their next beach vacation. Instead of dismissing that contradiction, she leans into it. She asks how Florida became the country’s favorite joke and what truths might be hiding underneath the stereotype, including the ones inside herself.
Knox explores these questions by weaving together pieces of pop-culture and historical context with her own lived experiences. The result is a textured portrait of place where personal memory and public history keep bumping into each other.
The essays wander through difficult subjects and gritty backgrounds, but the writing never loses its brightness.
Like a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, the prose is vivid and unmistakably Floridian. It is refreshing, a little tart, and clearly tangled in a complicated love affair with the state that made it.
Knox’s voice feels distinctly feminine. It is vulnerable, raw, and deeply brave in the way it approaches memory, identity, and place. She writes with the kind of honesty that makes you feel like you are sitting beside her on a sandy beach towel, watching waves break and listening to stories that are both deeply personal and strangely familiar.
Through intimate storytelling, the essays pull readers into a version of Florida that feels lived in and organic. It is humid, bright, and culturally rich. Knox lingers in the parts of Florida that never make it onto a postcard but are instantly recognizable to anyone who has spent enough time here to fall for its wildness.
Know writes with a sharp awareness of the outside gaze, the one that turns Florida into a punchline or a headline. Knox speaks directly to the people who roll their eyes at the state while happily booking their next beach vacation. Instead of dismissing that contradiction, she leans into it. She asks how Florida became the country’s favorite joke and what truths might be hiding underneath the stereotype, including the ones inside herself.
Knox explores these questions by weaving together pieces of pop-culture and historical context with her own lived experiences. The result is a textured portrait of place where personal memory and public history keep bumping into each other.
The essays wander through difficult subjects and gritty backgrounds, but the writing never loses its brightness.
Like a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, the prose is vivid and unmistakably Floridian. It is refreshing, a little tart, and clearly tangled in a complicated love affair with the state that made it.
Review of advance copy received from Author
A collection of insightful and powerful essays about Florida from a native's eye.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews