LAUNCH EVENT: Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don’t, Get Around in South Florida

Ever been robbed via canal? Divorced on the 95 express bus? Had your car break-down on an off-ramp?

This anthology of “only in Miami” stories embraces the entire, zany experience of getting around in Miami.

Edited and with an Introduction by Lynne Barrett

Lynne Barrett is the award-winning author of Magpies and editor of Making Good Time: True Stories of How We Do, and Don’t, Get Around in South Florida.  She teaches at Florida International University and edits The Florida Book Review.

Featuring 31 true stories by 32 award-winning South Florida writers:

Diana Abu-Jaber, Chantel Acevedo, Preston L. Allen, Jan Becker, Madeleine Blais, Richard Blanco, Terence Cantarella, Antolin Garcia Carbonell, Joe Clifford, Jennine Capó Crucet, Anjanette Delgado, Denise Duhamel & Julie Marie Wade, Patricia Engel, M.J. Fièvre, Steven Harris, Fabienne Josaphat, Larry Lebowitz, Louis K. Lowy, Sammy Mack, Jennifer Maritza McCauley, Blanca Mesa, Nick Moran, Marina Pruna Moré, Lauren Doyle Owens, Alex Segura, Les Standiford, Thomas Swick, Monica Uszerowicz, Nick Vagnoni, Ana Veciana-Suarez, and Norma Watkins.

Featuring design & art direction by Topos Graphics and original cover art by Anuj Shrestha.

Praise for Making Good Time

“If you’ve ever tried to get from one place to another in South Florida, you will love this book.”

T.D. Allman, author of Miami: City of the Future

“Hold on to your roof mattresses: Making Good Time is a loving, alarming, definitive collection of only-in-Miami road tales. Some of South Florida’s most treasured writers tackle one of its true miseries—and now I’m nostalgic for I-95 traffic.”

Kenny Malone, Co-host of NPR’s Planet Money

“Making Good Time” takes us inside a car broken down on the side of an off-ramp, a divorce occurring in real time on a county bus, and a house being robbed by boat. A collection of wonderful true stories, the book imaginatively illustrates how our cities, infrastructures, and the way we get around shape our destinies and our lives.”

Richard Florida, author of The Rise of the Creative Class

About the moderator: 

P. Scott Cunningham (b. 1978) is a poet, translator, essayist, and community organizer originally from Boca Raton, FL. He is the author of Ya Te Veo (University of Arkansas Press, 2018), selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. His work has appeared in The Awl, Harvard Review, POETRY, A Public Space, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, Monocle, RHINO, The Guardian, PANK, Electric Literature, and others. His translations of Alejandra Pizarnik, César Vallejo, and Frank Báez have appeared in Omniglots, H.O.W. Journal, Waxwing, and The Miami Rail. He is the founder and director of O, Miami, a non-profit organization that celebrates Miami, FL through the lens of poetry, and the co-founder & executive editor of Jai-Alai Books, a regional publishing imprint.