Writing in Tampa BayThe Safety Harbor Public Library began in 1938 with a hundred books and $2.35 raised at a tea party. It is now open seven days a week and is the best free workspace in town for anyone writing a book.
Writing in Tampa BayThe Clearwater Main Library is a landmark building with maker studios, a digitization station, and a harbor view. It is also closed on weekends, and part of it may become something else.
Writing in Tampa BayThe East Lake Community Library in Palm Harbor is where the East Lake Writers' Workshop met, in a side room off the main floor, and where I sat every other week for years while Deanna Bennett ran the table.
Writing in Tampa BayJack Kerouac died in St. Petersburg in 1969 at forty-seven, in a concrete block ranch house in Disston Heights, leaving an estate valued at ninety-one dollars. On the Road has never stopped selling.
Writing in Tampa BayFor fifty years in Ybor City, cigar workers paid a man out of their own wages to sit on a platform and read novels aloud while they worked. They elected him, voted on the books, and struck when the owners…
Writing in Tampa BayThe Poynter Institute owns the Tampa Bay Times, because Nelson Poynter willed it to them so no chain could buy the paper. It is also where much of the modern craft of nonfiction writing was taught and written down.
Writing in Tampa BaySafety Harbor has more workable places to write than towns four times its size. The library for long stretches, the waterfront for the stuck paragraph, Philippe Park for the structural think.
Writing in Tampa BayA man built an eight-story pink hotel on St. Pete Beach because a woman in Spain was forbidden to marry him. It opened in 1928, three hundred percent over budget, and the Fitzgeralds spent a week there in 1930.
Writing in Tampa BayTampa Bay still has a real independent bookstore scene, and each shop takes local books differently. The thing that decides whether any of them can stock you is how your book is printed.
Writing in Tampa BayLibrary talks are the easiest events a local author can get, and the audiences engage harder than bookstore crowds. Getting into the collection is a separate process with different rules.
Writing in Tampa BayThe store will usually say yes if your book is orderable through the standard channel. Then nobody comes unless you bring them. The signing is not the marketing; it is where the marketing gets photographed.
Writing in Tampa BayTampa Bay has more working media than most metro areas its size. None of them want to hear that your book is out. All of them want a story, and your book is the credential instead of the subject.
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
Four short, practical guides on writing, publishing, and selling your book, plus the occasional note when there's something worth your time. No fluff, no daily inbox clutter. Drop your email and they're yours.
We use MailerLite to manage our list and send these emails. Your address is used only to send you what you signed up for. We will not sell it, share it, or use it for anything else, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
