Wekiwa Springs Credit: Photo via JLShoots/Shutterstock
For more than 1,100 days, Cathy Salustri was a big part of the Creative Loafing Tampa Bay newsroom, bringing her love of Florida and the Bay area to readers as the Arts & Entertainment editor.

And while she walked away from her full-time duties in March 2019, then bought the neighborhood publication Gulfport Gabber a year later, Salustri is still in the room at CL, this time in the form of her latest book, “Florida Spectacular.”

Across 128 pages, she passes on Florida Man (and woman) tropes in lieu of a dive into the Sunshine State’s natural wonders (ie Wekiwa Springs, pictured) and a push to shine light on less-famous events or idiosyncrasies about this place we call home—including the belief that the Bay area has evaded a major hurricane thanks to Indigenous burial mounds in St. Pete.

There’s a “Florida Spectacular” book launch on Friday, Sept. 6 at Gulfport Brewery + Eatery.

Readers are invited to submit their own events to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay’s things to do calendar.

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This article appears in Sep 5-11, 2024.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...