'Anywhere Else' is a book of essays about a love-hate relationship with Florida

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 671 Ratings

🗓️ 7 April 2026

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Writer Rachel Knox says there was a point at which she wanted to escape Florida. She moved away to New York, but eventually returned. Her new essay collection Anywhere Else works through her love-hate relationship with the state through the lens of pop culture. In today’s episode, she speaks with NPR’s Scott Simon about media representations of Florida in shows like The X-Files, and Knox’s reflections on why she once wanted to leave.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, I'm Tim Bedermius, and this is NPR's Book of the Day.
0:06.5	We're all from somewhere, a city, a state, a country, and this place can sometimes be a
0:11.5	point of pride, or it can propel you elsewhere in search of greener pastures.
0:16.6	For writer Rachel Knox, this place is her home state of Florida.
0:20.5	She writes about her relationship to it in a new book, anywhere else.
0:24.8	Knox spoke about the book and were to find great bagels in Florida with all things considered host, Scott Detrow.
0:32.3	The writer Rachel Knox describes her home state like this.
0:36.2	No one hears that you're from Florida and says in response,
0:39.1	ooh, lucky.
0:40.5	Your Florida provenance becomes your defining characteristic.
0:43.6	Their eyes widen or they chuckle or they launch into a series of questions that are both nonsensical and revealing of the wide gulf between their understanding of the state and your own experience living there.
0:53.6	But also like this.
0:56.2	I love it here because I hate it too.
0:58.5	I love it because someone has to.
1:00.6	Many people already do.
1:02.1	And they deserve champions and advocates and political allies and food banks.
1:06.1	There was a point, Knox says, where she wanted more than anything else to escape Florida. She moved to New York, but she felt so drawn to her home state, the good and the bad, that she ultimately moved back. That love-hate relationship with her state is something she wrestles with in her new collection of essays called Anywhere Else.
1:24.5	Rachel Knox, welcome to All Things Considered. Hi, thanks for having me.
1:27.4	What do you want people to understand about Florida after reading this book? anywhere else. Rachel Knox, welcome to All Things Considered. Hi, thanks for having me.
1:27.7	What do you want people to understand about Florida after reading this book? Well, I hope that
1:33.6	after reading the book, people have a better sense that Florida isn't just the things that they
1:39.5	see in headlines or news stories, that there are actually real people who live here that like living here,
	...

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