Breaking Boxes: Dismantling the Metaphorical Boxes that Bind Us
Gainesville has been my home since childhood, and it’s the place that taught me how much possibility exists when people are supported, encouraged, and given room to grow. After more than twenty years leading and mentoring in real estate, I realized that the biggest barriers people face aren’t external—they’re the internal “boxes” they’ve absorbed over time. Those limits quietly shape how we think, lead, love, create, and make decisions. Breaking Boxes grew out of seeing those patterns emerge again and again in clients, colleagues, friends, and in my own life.
My inspiration to write didn’t come from wanting to be an author; it came from wanting people to stop underliving their lives. In my work, I had a front-row seat to the moments when someone was ready to step into something bigger—launch a business, walk away from a role that no longer fit, pursue a long-postponed dream, or finally choose a life that felt authentic. I saw how often people waited for permission. I wrote Breaking Boxes to give people a framework to claim that permission for themselves.
My work is deeply connected to Gainesville because everything I teach, write about, and speak on was shaped here. Gainesville is a community of reinvention—students finding their path, professionals shifting careers, entrepreneurs taking risks, families navigating change, and long-term residents looking to grow in new directions. I’ve built my businesses here, raised my daughters here, and spent decades walking alongside people in some of their most pivotal transitions. Those stories, struggles, and breakthroughs are woven into the heart of my book.
Being featured in this Love Local issue is meaningful because Gainesville isn’t just the place I live—it's the place that made this work possible. Breaking Boxes is ultimately a love letter to growth, courage, and reinvention, and those values thrive in this community. My hope is that
the book encourages people right here in Gainesville to expand beyond the limits they’ve outgrown and step confidently into the life they’re ready for.
Photographer: Jenny Sherman Photography
I began my writing career in Gainesville as a playwright. When I couldn’t find any theaters to produce my first play, Across the River, I rented an abandoned building downtown, converted it into a makeshift theater, and mounted a production. To everyone’s surprise, especially mine, the play was a runaway success. In subsequent years, I had a string of hit plays, including off-Broadway productions in New York City for my plays Sunset Village (about the underground culture at the world's largest retirement community), and Florida Man (about a Florida Man who digs up his dead father to give him the proper Viking funeral he always wanted).
On the heels of a lost marriage, I moved to the little island of Cedar Key to try to reinvent myself. The running joke among people that know my writing is that I only ever write about one thing—the power of community and the extended families we make for ourselves. In Cedar Key, I found a community that opened its arms for me, taking me in at the lowest point of my life. I shifted my creative focus and began writing novels set in
Cedar Key, populated with characters based on the remarkable islanders that are now my friends and neighbors. When Hurricanes Idalia and Helene devastated the island, our tight-knit community banded together and took care of one another. My best-selling novels Godspeed, Cedar Key and Forever, Cedar Key are love letters to the island and have gained a wide audience around the country. The final book in the trilogy, The Last
Great Stand of Cedar Key, will be out in April of 2026.
Photographer: Michael Presley Bobbitt
"Only Roscoe the parrot knows what happens in the captain's cabin...and he's not talking"
Including scenes of North Central Florida in my historical romances brings me joy. Hiking at San Felasco Hammock Preserve or Paynes Prairie helps me add color and depth as I craft stories about pirates, privateers, and smugglers, some of whom wander through this area in my tales. I’ve received letters from my readers around the world saying, “I didn’t know Florida had history! I thought it was all South Beach and Disney.”
A career in print and broadcast news taught me how to research and write, but while I loved journalism, what I longed to do was to make up stories and guarantee a happy ending. I do that now with my historical romances.
We live in a unique place, enjoying our own Florida lifestyle. We don’t have the beach, but we have springs, woods, horse country, alligators, and even caves (which I explored while writing The Bride and the Buccaneer … and I will never, ever do that again!) Gainesville is an excellent locale for writers, with bookstores and dedicated readers, a fabulous library district, and authors supporting one another. I’m grateful to be here working on my next trilogy, which will include that special North Central Florida touch.
Photographer: Darlene Marshall
"The running joke among people that know my writing is that I only ever write about one thing—the power of community and the extended families we make for ourselves." Michael Presley Bobbitt