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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.
- GenresNonfictionEssays
192 pages, Paperback
First published March 24, 2026
About the author
Rachel Knox
1 book13 followersRachel Knox is a writer and bookseller from St. Petersburg, Florida.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
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.
March 29, 2026
SO GOOD. Such beautiful writing. Raw. Emotional. Entertaining. I’m obsessed.
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.
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.
April 7, 2026
A stunning series of essays by a first-time author. Rachel Knox is a native of Florida, a USF instructor and a bookseller at my favorite bookstore, Tombolo Books in St. Petersburg. All of those come into play in this collection.
Knox grew up camping in the state parks, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, chillin' at the beach. She worked at crappy beach bars and listened to the tales told by the old drunks who hung out in the bar for no other reason than they couldn't stay home and drink. She went away to New York to study but then got homesick and moved back.
But she's also kept a sharp eye on the state's image in pop culture, too. These essays mix her observations on such wildly disparate Florida-centric topics as the neo-noir girl power movie "Wild Things," serial killer Aileen Wuornos, the art movement known as the Florida Highwaymen and Ralph Waldo Emerson's trip to St. Augustine (and possible involvement in a same-sex romance).
By far my favorite piece is the one in which she defends her reason for coming back to Florida and continuing to live here, but there are wonderful lines throughout the rest. I was particularly taken by one in the Highwaymen chapter, in which she writes of her time in New York, "An essay I wrote about manatees revealed that over half of my classmates were not aware they were actual, non-mythical creatures." She professes to be shocked, but I bet she was a little bit pleased, too.
As a longtime fan of Florida and its hidden surprises, I recommend this book wholeheartedly, and I look forward to seeing what Knox writes next. Here's hoping she winds up with her own shelf in Tombolo!
Knox grew up camping in the state parks, swimming in the Gulf of Mexico, chillin' at the beach. She worked at crappy beach bars and listened to the tales told by the old drunks who hung out in the bar for no other reason than they couldn't stay home and drink. She went away to New York to study but then got homesick and moved back.
But she's also kept a sharp eye on the state's image in pop culture, too. These essays mix her observations on such wildly disparate Florida-centric topics as the neo-noir girl power movie "Wild Things," serial killer Aileen Wuornos, the art movement known as the Florida Highwaymen and Ralph Waldo Emerson's trip to St. Augustine (and possible involvement in a same-sex romance).
By far my favorite piece is the one in which she defends her reason for coming back to Florida and continuing to live here, but there are wonderful lines throughout the rest. I was particularly taken by one in the Highwaymen chapter, in which she writes of her time in New York, "An essay I wrote about manatees revealed that over half of my classmates were not aware they were actual, non-mythical creatures." She professes to be shocked, but I bet she was a little bit pleased, too.
As a longtime fan of Florida and its hidden surprises, I recommend this book wholeheartedly, and I look forward to seeing what Knox writes next. Here's hoping she winds up with her own shelf in Tombolo!
April 27, 2026
There’s something about Anywhere Else that hits different when you’re from St. Pete.
Reading it feels like a quiet conversation you didn’t realize you needed—one that pulls nostalgia out of you in waves. It captures that strange, shared feeling so many of us have about Florida: how deeply we love it, even while knowing exactly why others don’t. It’s messy, beautiful, frustrating, and somehow still home.
Rachel’s essays weave her personal experiences into something bigger, something collective. You start to realize it’s not just her story—it’s ours too. The way she reflects on place, identity, and belonging makes you feel seen in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve grown up here.
It’s a reminder that loving Florida often comes with contradictions. People criticize it, stereotype it, even dismiss it—but those of us who are from here understand there’s something real beneath all of that. Something worth holding onto.
This book doesn’t try to resolve those contradictions—it just lets them exist. And that’s exactly why it works.
Reading it feels like a quiet conversation you didn’t realize you needed—one that pulls nostalgia out of you in waves. It captures that strange, shared feeling so many of us have about Florida: how deeply we love it, even while knowing exactly why others don’t. It’s messy, beautiful, frustrating, and somehow still home.
Rachel’s essays weave her personal experiences into something bigger, something collective. You start to realize it’s not just her story—it’s ours too. The way she reflects on place, identity, and belonging makes you feel seen in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve grown up here.
It’s a reminder that loving Florida often comes with contradictions. People criticize it, stereotype it, even dismiss it—but those of us who are from here understand there’s something real beneath all of that. Something worth holding onto.
This book doesn’t try to resolve those contradictions—it just lets them exist. And that’s exactly why it works.
April 2, 2026
Reading books about Florida feels a little like buying a used car - It really helps if the salesperson is honest and genuinely knows cars.
Carfax or not, both Florida and used cars generally come with disappointment and unwelcome surprises. So, delighted I was when I took Anywhere Else for a spin and discovered Rachel Knox knows Florida, genuinely loves Florida, and like me is often embarrassed by Florida. A somewhat begrudging albeit enthusiastic “Cracker," by birth and choice, Knox makes a compelling case for looking a bit beyond Disney, Miami, and Florida-Man. A collection of thoughtful and deeply personal essays invite the unparalleled Florida sunsets to spread their softer, warmer hues over her glades, farms, double-wides, Miami Mansions and sandy shores. The scenes are thought provoking, emotionally bracing, and fun. "Anywhere Else - Essays on Florida" is very different and thoroughly engaging approach to looking at the Sunshine State. Knox has given us a very intimate tourist brochure that will surely woo many, as it did me.
Carfax or not, both Florida and used cars generally come with disappointment and unwelcome surprises. So, delighted I was when I took Anywhere Else for a spin and discovered Rachel Knox knows Florida, genuinely loves Florida, and like me is often embarrassed by Florida. A somewhat begrudging albeit enthusiastic “Cracker," by birth and choice, Knox makes a compelling case for looking a bit beyond Disney, Miami, and Florida-Man. A collection of thoughtful and deeply personal essays invite the unparalleled Florida sunsets to spread their softer, warmer hues over her glades, farms, double-wides, Miami Mansions and sandy shores. The scenes are thought provoking, emotionally bracing, and fun. "Anywhere Else - Essays on Florida" is very different and thoroughly engaging approach to looking at the Sunshine State. Knox has given us a very intimate tourist brochure that will surely woo many, as it did me.
April 2, 2026
Rachel’s own line from this book sums it up well: She wants her art (and her book) to be seen “maybe not as an exact copy of their particular lived experience, but recognizable in its shades and contours. I want them to see its truth and feel encouraged.”
While I am not a Florida native, I have (somewhat unexpectedly and begrudgingly) found a piece of home in this state. Rachel’s book, which tackles those feelings of pride, defensiveness and sometimes embarrassment, captures living here so so well. Even those who have never stepped foot in the sunshine state, I’d highly encourage you to read this book for its beautiful prose and masterful storytelling.
While I am not a Florida native, I have (somewhat unexpectedly and begrudgingly) found a piece of home in this state. Rachel’s book, which tackles those feelings of pride, defensiveness and sometimes embarrassment, captures living here so so well. Even those who have never stepped foot in the sunshine state, I’d highly encourage you to read this book for its beautiful prose and masterful storytelling.
May 17, 2026
I always feel drawn to books about Florida. As a Floridian, I wonder if these stories will capture the contradictions about this state- simultaneously loving the natural beauty of its beaches and marshes and yet, constantly feeling horrified and disappointed in it politically. I love it here; I hate it here. This book fully embodies those contradictions.
"... I hope that by reading this book, in seeing Florida through my eyes and the art that tries (and sometimes fails!) to tell a more nuanced story about this place, you might think more deeply about your perception of this place."
Pick this book up if you want Florida stories that are at once raw, honest, and beautiful.
"... I hope that by reading this book, in seeing Florida through my eyes and the art that tries (and sometimes fails!) to tell a more nuanced story about this place, you might think more deeply about your perception of this place."
Pick this book up if you want Florida stories that are at once raw, honest, and beautiful.
April 11, 2026
Poignant, entertaining, and deeply emotional—anywhere else is my favorite book of the year so far. I recommend it strongly to everyone, Floridian and otherwise, to give you a new perspective or a deeper appreciation for the contentious state so many call home. Can’t wait to see what Knox does next 💙
April 20, 2026
Featured on NPR right before my trip to Key West. Some interesting insights from a writer who grew up in Florida, moved to NYC and returned to her home state. Commentary on living in the place where lots of people come for vacation yet look down upon the folks who actually live there. Lots of connections to movies. Anyway, not as good as I had hoped. Got me ready for my vacation, though :)
May 3, 2026
Absolutely loved this book—she captures the landscape I live in with humor and honesty and so much heart. The final chapter had me in tears because she gave words to all I feel about this place that is, ultimately, home.
May 20, 2026
Excellent! A must read for anyone but especially if you grew up in Florida. Like my childhood written out before me taking me back to feelings and moments I thought were lost forever the good and the bad. Excellent writing honest and entertaining.
Review of advance copy received from Author
A collection of insightful and powerful essays about Florida from a native's eye.
April 21, 2026
If you’re from Florida or lived here for a long time, definitely worth a read. Funny, thought-provoking and heartwarming!
May 14, 2026
4.5 ⭐️
May 3, 2026
I greatly admire Knox’s writing ability. She is authentic and unafraid to be real about her feelings, and there’s a bravery in the way she shares her story and perspective. She touches on so many facets of a young woman’s heart, especially in light of all she has experienced, and that vulnerability gives her work a powerful depth. I found myself agreeing with her wholeheartedly: Florida truly is a special place, quirks and all. If you don’t live here, you really don’t know what you’re missing.
Even if a reader doesn’t agree with every perspective Knox offers, this collection leaves a lasting impression. You come away understanding—and even loving—Florida more because of the way she sees it. It’s a thoughtful, heartfelt book that lingers long after the final page. Bravo Rachel!! you have written a wonderful book. I hope that you continue writing.
Even if a reader doesn’t agree with every perspective Knox offers, this collection leaves a lasting impression. You come away understanding—and even loving—Florida more because of the way she sees it. It’s a thoughtful, heartfelt book that lingers long after the final page. Bravo Rachel!! you have written a wonderful book. I hope that you continue writing.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews