There is a house on Navin Avenue that’s been sort of speaking to Shae Krispinsky. It’s a big pink one, and she first saw it on one of her many walks through Seminole Heights. Krispinsky is a Tampa songwriter and novelist who has lived in the neighborhood for a decade now. Last year she finally built a home in Old Seminole Heights, effectively anchoring herself in an inspiring neighborhood, but she first dipped her pen into the realm of writing in first grade.
“My first text-based story came from reading a book in first grade. It was about two friends who had a fight. I didn’t like how it ended, so I dictated a new story, with the resolution I wanted, to my mom, and then took it into class the next day and read it to everyone,” Krispinsky said in a 2017 interview with Vending Machine Press. “No one cared, but for me it was powerful, god-like. I get to create lives and alternate realities and mete out my idea of justice? Yes, please.”
These days Krispinsky, who is just one of over a dozen local musicians playing the Heights Unites Music & Arts Festival, steps away from the page and hits the pavement for strolls when she needs to refill her well of inspiration. Her eyes — always bright and full of wonder when she performs — wander as she roams the streets. Little throughways like Navin Avenue pull at her more than others. That big pink house was flirtatious and would not leave her alone.
“I kept going back to it and walking its few blocks, to the point where I worried the people who lived there might think I was casing their houses, but I kept going. I started wondering what the life of the person who lived there would be like,” Krispinsky told CL. “And of course I wasn’t going to try to meet the real person who lives there, so I made up this life, this character, and because I’m a big ol’ softy, it turned into this love story.”
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The narrative — full of “moonshine and murder and lots of other metaphors” — is spiraling into what Shae calls a sprawling road-trip novel-in-song that she’s working on with her Americana/indie-rock band (appropriately called Navin Ave.). Krispinsky often references other parts of America in her songs, but the roots of her tunes are firmly planted in the Sunshine State.
“This story journeys from the North to the West to the South, [but] it couldn’t have started without my neighborhood here in Tampa,” she said. But for a while, because of 2017’s now-notorious Seminole Heights murders (the alleged perpetrator of which has been caught), Krispinsky’s neighborhood felt a little locked up. She abandoned her porch and those inspirational walks. The random nature of the killings made daily life a little more harrowing. She — and everyone in the area — predictably grew cabin fever-ish.
“No one wanted to live in fear, but you didn’t want to put yourself or anyone you care about at risk, either,” Krispinsky said. “It was eerie to drive through silent, un-peopled streets. I wondered how long things would take to get back to normal.”
She knows things won’t ever get back to normal for the four families who lost loved ones, but Heights Unites — organized in part by the 501(c)(3) South Seminole Heights Civic Association (SHCA) — seeks to at least wring some semblance of positivity out of the tragic events. The SHCA wants a neighborhood that is more bike-friendly and walkable.
SHCA president Stephen Lytle said that funds raised at the event will go toward neighborhood improvements, and eventually a coalition of neighborhood associations and businesses will band together to create an endowment scholarship dedicated in the names of the murder victims. Lytle — who lives in South Seminole Heights with his wife and their dog, Hippo — is getting a lot of help putting the festival together, too. Keith Ulrey, owner of Microgroove Record shop and founder of long-running Tampa indie label New Granada Records, booked all the bands and will stage manage.
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The lineup reads a little bit like a CL Music wishlist and is packed with acts we’ve profiled over the years. Illsoll, an artist collective based in Tampa Heights, will complete a mural on the north end of Brew Bus as the day rolls on. The bands and visual artists are all local and there are no vendors, so that the focus never comes off of the creative community which has been integral to Seminole Heights’ rise to being recognized as one of the coolest neighborhoods in America. Lytle said he’s pre-sold close to 500 tickets, and he hopes to see about 1,000 folks move through the festival throughout the day.
Krispinsky, for her part, has openly admitted to longing occasionally for a split between living here and in Roanoke, Virginia, where she went to college. But she knows Tampa is her home. If she left, Krispinsky said she’d miss that family she’s chosen and those who have chosen to adopt her into their own families. She’s been on tour and is always left pining for the venues and scene supporters back home.
“It’s not this elitist, cooler-than-thou kind of place. People are friendly, even to the shy weirdos like me. I’ve come to feel that Tampa is my home,” she said. “I’d also miss all the live oaks and the whiffs of citrus and jasmine in the air and the sunsets and not having to ever drive in snow. I’m always struck by how lucky we are.”
This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 1, 2018.