Diane Roberts with Dream State

Midtown Reader is excited to welcome Diane Roberts for the re-release of her book, Dream State, which features a new preface!

About the Book:

Part family memoir, part political commentary, part apologia, Dream State tells the grand and sometimes crazy story of Florida through the eyes of one of its native daughters. Acclaimed journalist and NPR commentator Diane Roberts has many family secrets to tell as she reveals how her ancestors settled in Florida and wove themselves into the very fabric of the state.

With a storyteller’s talent for setting great scenes, Roberts lays out the sweeping history of eight generations of Browards and Bradfords, Tuckers and Robertses. Rendering Florida’s inhabitants with a deep, familial affection and exposing the real people whom Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard fictionalized for years, Dream State ultimately reveals the cogs and wheels that make the state tick.

About Diane Roberts:

Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee, which probably explains her unhealthy fascination with Florida politics and college football. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, The New Republic, and The Atlantic Monthly. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays to that network as well as pieces for the BBC. In addition, she writes weekly for the political website The Florida Phoenix.

Roberts is also the author of four books, most recently Dream State, a historical memoir of her Florida family, and Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America. She lives in Tallahassee, except for the times she runs off to Great Britain, desperate for a different government to be mad at.