Craig Pittman is the author of six books about Florida, including "Oh, Florida! How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country," (2016) which became a New York Times bestseller, and "Cat Tale: The Wild, Weird Battle to Save the Florida Panther" (2020). His most recent book is "The State You're In: Florida Men, Florida Women, and Other Wildlife (2021). He's also written "The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World's Most Beautiful Orchid," (2012) which delves into the wild world of orchid-smuggling; "Manatee Insanity: Inside the War Over Florida's Most Famous Endangered Species" (2010) and, with Mathew Waite, "Paving Paradise: Florida's Vanishing Wetlands and the Failure of No Net Loss" (2009). He also co-hosts the "Welcome to Florida" podcast. He is a native Floridian and graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him "the most destructive force on campus." Since then he has covered a variety of newspaper beats and quite a few natural disasters, including hurricanes, wildfires and the Florida Legislature. His reporting on Florida environmental issues, first for the Tampa Bay Times and now for the Florida Phoenix, has won numerous state and national awards, and his freelance work has appeared in the Washington Post, Politico and CrimeReads. In 2020 he was named a Florida Literary Legend by the Florida Heritage Book Festival. He lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., with his wife and two children.