Swamplandia!
''Swamplandia!'' is a 2011 novel by the American writer Karen Russell. The novel is set in the Ten Thousand Islands, off the southwest coast of Florida, it tells the story of the Bigtree family of alligator wrestlers who live in Swamplandia! an alligator-wrestling theme park. ''Swamplandia!'' is Russell's first novel. The book originated as a short story, titled "Ava Wrestles the Alligator", published in the Summer 2006 issue of the literary magazine '' Zoetrope: All-Story'', when Russell was 24 years old. Plot The novel opens with the Bigtree family suffering tragedy and finding their way of life under threat. The family patriarch, Sawtooth Bigtree, has recently been confined to a floating nursing home with dementia and his daughter-in-law, Hilola Bigtree, has recently died of cancer, leaving behind a husband and three teenage children. Meanwhile, a brand new amusement park, The World of Darkness, has opened nearby on the Florida mainland. In light of plummeting attendance and m ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karen Russell
Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, ''Swamplandia!'', was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013. Early life After graduating from Coral Gables Senior High School in Miami, Florida in 1999, Russell received a BA in Spanish from Northwestern University in 2003. She graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University in 2006. A Miami native, as of 2019 she resides in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, editor Tony Perez, and two children. Her brother, Kent Russell, is also a writer. Career and awards Russell's stories have been featured in ''The Best American Short Stories'', '' Conjunctions'', ''Granta'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Oxford American'', and ''Zoetrope''. She was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at the Novemb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Karen Russell (author)
Karen Russell (born July 10, 1981) is an American novelist and short story writer. Her debut novel, ''Swamplandia!'', was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 2009 the National Book Foundation named Russell a 5 under 35 honoree. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" in 2013. Early life After graduating from Coral Gables Senior High School in Miami, Florida in 1999, Russell received a BA in Spanish from Northwestern University in 2003. She graduated from the MFA program at Columbia University in 2006. A Miami native, as of 2019 she resides in Portland, Oregon, with her husband, editor Tony Perez, and two children. Her brother, Kent Russell, is also a writer. Career and awards Russell's stories have been featured in ''The Best American Short Stories'', '' Conjunctions'', ''Granta'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Oxford American'', and ''Zoetrope''. She was named a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" young writer honoree at the Novemb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Osceola
Osceola (1804 – January 30, 1838, Asi-yahola in Muscogee language, Creek), named Billy Powell at birth in Alabama, became an influential leader of the Seminole people in Florida. His mother was Muscogee, and his great-grandfather was a Scotsman, James McQueen. He was reared by his mother in the Creek (Muscogee) tradition. When he was a child, they migrated to Florida with other Red Stick refugees, led by a relative, Peter McQueen, after their group's defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars. There they became part of what was known as the Seminole people. In 1836, Osceola led a small group of warriors in the Seminole resistance during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to Indian removal, remove the tribe from their lands in Florida Territory, Florida to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. He became an adviser to Micanopy, the principal chief of the Seminole from 1825 to 1849. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress. Most of its member stations are owned by non-profit organizations, including public school districts, colleges, and universities. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio List of NPR stations, stations in the United States. , NPR employed 840 people. NPR produces and distributes news and cultural programming. The organization's flagship shows are two drive time, drive-time news broadcasts: ''Morning Edition'' and the afternoon ''All Things Considered'', both carried by most NPR member stations, and among the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular radio p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seminole Tribe Of Florida
The Seminole Tribe of Florida is a federally recognized Seminole tribe based in the U.S. state of Florida. Together with the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida, it is one of three federally recognized Seminole entities. It received that status in 1957; today it has six Indian reservations in Florida. In 1975, the Tribe established tax-free smoke shops and a high-stakes bingo operation that became one of the first tribal gaming endeavors in the United States. These ventures, particularly the gaming operation, have generated significant revenues for education, welfare and economic development. A 2005 tribal audit said it took in $1.1 billion in revenues that year.Sally Kestin, "FEMA paid tribe's hotel tab" ''Sun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Midden
A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation. These features provide a useful resource for archaeologists who wish to study the diets and habits of past societies. Middens with damp, anaerobic conditions can even preserve organic remains in deposits as the debris of daily life are tossed on the pile. Each individual toss will contribute a different mix of materials depending upon the activity associated with that particular toss. During the course of deposition sedimentary material is deposited as well. Different mechanisms, from wind and water to animal digs, create a matrix which can also be analysed to provide seasonal and climatic information. In some middens individual dumps of material can be discerned and analysed. Shells A shell mi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cladium
''Cladium'' (fen-sedge, sawgrass or twig-sedge) is a genus of large sedges, with a nearly worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate regions. These are plants characterized by long, narrow (grass-like) leaves having sharp, often serrated (sawtooth-like) margins, and flowering stems 1–3 m tall bearing a much-branched inflorescence. Like many plants found in wet habitats, it has deeply buried rhizomes that can produce tall shoots with dense canopies. ''Cladium mariscus ''subsp.'' jamaicense'', or saw-grass, is common in marshes and savannas throughout the tropical Americas. One typical and well-known area of extensive saw-grass growth is the Florida Everglades; sawgrass is the plant referred to by the descriptor, "River of Grass". Like many species of the Everglades, ''C. jamaicense'' grows in extremely infertile conditions, particularly wet sites that are low in phosphorus. Dense sawgrass beds are intermingled with other vegetation types. Together they produce a rich arr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve
The Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve (established 1976) is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Florida and the Gulf of Mexico. The reserve encompasses Everglades National Park and Dry Tortugas National Park, including historic Fort Jefferson and the seven Dry Tortugas islands., Ecological characteristics Everglades National Park is a shallow basin tilted to the southwest and underlain by extensive Pleistocene limestones. Dry Tortugas National Park consists of a group of seven coral reefs with three major banks (Pulaski, Loggerhead and Long Key) forming a pseudo-atoll with a mud-bank type formation. The biosphere reserve lies at the interface between tropical and subtropical America between fresh and brackish water, shallow bays, deeper coastal waters and coral reefs, thus creating a complex of habitats supporting a high diversity of flora and fauna. The area of transition from freshwater ( glades) to saltwater (mangrove) is a highly productive zone that incubates grea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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First-person Narrative
A first-person narrative is a mode of storytelling in which a storyteller recounts events from their own point of view using the first person It may be narrated by a first-person protagonist (or other focal character), first-person re-teller, first-person witness, or first-person peripheral. A classic example of a first-person protagonist narrator is Charlotte Brontë's ''Jane Eyre'' (1847), in which the title character is also the narrator telling her own story, "I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me". This device allows the audience to see the narrator's mind's eye view of the fictional universe, but it is limited to the narrator's experiences and awareness of the true state of affairs. In some stories, first-person narrators may relay dialogue with other characters or refer to information they heard from the other characters, in order to try to deliver a larger point of view. Other stories may switch the narrator to different cha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Casino
A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertainment, such as stand-up comedy, concerts, and sports. and usage ''Casino'' is of Italian origin; the root means a house. The term ''casino'' may mean a small country villa, summerhouse, or social club. During the 19th century, ''casino'' came to include other public buildings where pleasurable activities took place; such edifices were usually built on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo, and were used to host civic town functions, including dancing, gambling, music listening, and sports. Examples in Italy include Villa Farnese and Villa Giulia, and in the US the Newport Casino in Newport, Rhode Island. In modern-day Italian, a is a brothel (also called , literally "closed house"), a mess (confusing situation), or a noisy ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cladium
''Cladium'' (fen-sedge, sawgrass or twig-sedge) is a genus of large sedges, with a nearly worldwide distribution in tropical and temperate regions. These are plants characterized by long, narrow (grass-like) leaves having sharp, often serrated (sawtooth-like) margins, and flowering stems 1–3 m tall bearing a much-branched inflorescence. Like many plants found in wet habitats, it has deeply buried rhizomes that can produce tall shoots with dense canopies. ''Cladium mariscus ''subsp.'' jamaicense'', or saw-grass, is common in marshes and savannas throughout the tropical Americas. One typical and well-known area of extensive saw-grass growth is the Florida Everglades; sawgrass is the plant referred to by the descriptor, "River of Grass". Like many species of the Everglades, ''C. jamaicense'' grows in extremely infertile conditions, particularly wet sites that are low in phosphorus. Dense sawgrass beds are intermingled with other vegetation types. Together they produce a rich arr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |