Hello and welcome to Meet the Writers, I'm Georgina Godwin.
My guest today has shaped Miami's literary life for more than four decades.
He founded the first books and bookstore in Coral Gables back in 1982,
turning a tiny space into one of the most respected independent bookstores in the United States.
Two years later, he became one of the founders of what would grow into Miami Book Fair,
now an eight-day multilingual celebration that brings hundreds of writers to the city every year.
Alongside all of that, he's hosted the podcast, The Literary Life,
and helped produce several major book-to-film adaptations.
Mitchell Kaplan, welcome to Meet the Writers.
Georgina, it's great to be with you.
Thank you for having me on your show.
Well, thank you for inviting me to Miami Book Fair.
Let's begin right here in Miami Beach where you grew up.
What kind of reading culture surrounded you as a child and who were the people or the teachers or the books that really influenced how you would grow?
Well, that's wonderful of you to ask that.
I did grow up on Miami Beach in a house where my parents were big readers.
And as I was growing up, a lot of my reading was geared more political or politically oriented.
I grew up in the 60s and early 70s.
But I also had some remarkable teachers in high school and even before that.
So reading and authors in the literary life was something that was so valued that I saw writers as heroes to a large extent.