Craig Pittman (writer)


Craig Pittman is an American journalist and author of four books. He is a reporter and columnist for the Tampa Bay Times. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival honored Pittman as a "Living Legend".

Books

According to The New York Times, Pittman's 2016 book, Oh, Florida! How America's Weirdest State Influences the Rest of the Country, is a "compulsively readable," native son's view of the state he "obviously loves," in which he makes a persuasive case that Florida has an outsize influence on the national culture. The book grew out of a series of articles Pittman wrote for Slate. The book, which covers such topics as driving in Florida, gambling in Florida, and sin and salvation in Florida, contains one of the earliest published uses of the phrase "Drainpipe of America." In February 2017 it won the Florida Book Award gold medal for Florida nonfiction.

The Scent of Scandal

This non-fiction book, which focuses on a Florida court case involving charges of orchid smuggling, is the only book ever classified as "True Crime/Gardening."