Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto, is a collection of linked short stories about the young artists, writers, poets, musicians and actors who inhabited Tampa’s Ybor City in the 1980s. Drawn by urban authenticity and cheap rents, they created a surreal, chaotic arts scene set against the backdrop of the empty cigar factories and shotgun shacks of Tampa’s immigrant past. Ybor drew international artists like James Rosenquist, Jim Dine and dozens more, and mirrored what was happening in New York’s Alphabet City.The stories are fictional but they capture the spirit of the district during the 1980s. The collection is illustrated with photos from the era by Bud Lee and David Audet.

Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto

Literature & Fiction

Wilborn, Paul

Genre Fiction

St. Petersburg Press

Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto, is a collection of linked short stories about the young artists, writers, poets, musicians and actors who inhabited Tampa's Ybor City in the 1980s. Drawn by urban authenticity and cheap rents, they created a surreal, chaotic arts scene set against the backdrop of the empty cigar factories and shotgun shacks of Tampa's immigrant past. Ybor drew international artists like James Rosenquist, Jim Dine and dozens more, and mirrored what was happening in New York's Alphabet City.The stories are fictional but they capture the spirit of the district during the 1980s. The collection is illustrated with photos from the era by Bud Lee and David Audet.

Cigar City: Tales from a 1980's Creative Ghetto (Revised Edition)

In 1980s Florida, an aspiring filmmaker, obsessed with a B-movie scream queen, flees his family’s Palm Beach mansion, teams up with an aging con man and his ambitious girlfriend and heads to a film set in the Everglades, only to find himself mired in a swamp of competing cons and hustles.\n“…Relentlessly clever plot… It’s an antic, very Floridian tale, populated with larger-than-life characters and full of Carl Hiaasen–style dry humor and Elmore Leonard–style sharp descriptions. The characters all have penchants for funny one-liners, and a kind of zany logic binds their very strange separate worlds. Wilborn packs a lot of fun and human insight into a slim number of pages. An irrepressible Florida frolic filled with lost dreams, forlorn love, and horror movie lore.” 
-- Kirkus, starred review

Florida Hustle

Humor & Satire

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Books by Wilborn, Paul

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Wilborn, Paul. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Cigar City: Tales From a 1980s Creative Ghetto

Cigar City: Tales from a 1980's Creative Ghetto (Revised Edition)

Florida Hustle