{"id":259513,"date":"2026-05-05T18:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259513\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T18:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T18:10:12","slug":"writer-tyler-gillespie-says-cocoon-was-a-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/259513\/","title":{"rendered":"Writer Tyler Gillespie says \u2018Cocoon\u2019 was a romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to My Favorite Florida<\/a>, a weekly feature from the Tampa Bay Times where fascinating people \u2014 artists, influencers, civic leaders and others shaping Florida\u2019s culture \u2014 share their favorite pieces of Florida culture.<\/p>\n

Tyler Gillespie is a poet, journalist and writing professor at the Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota. He grew up in Pinellas County and is the author of \u201cThe Thing About Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State<\/a>,\u201d and the poetry collection \u201cFlorida Man: Poems, Revisited<\/a>.\u201d He\u2019s writing a romantic comedy about two rival greeting card makers who are forced to collaborate. Gillespie got in touch to share three pieces of Florida culture he loves.<\/p>\n

The 1985 film \u201cCocoon\u201d: It was filmed in St. Petersburg<\/a>, and there\u2019s a scene with the shuffleboard courts, which I live near. The first time I saw it was a few years back at Tampa Theatre. You can\u2019t stream it because of some issues with the rights to the music, so you need a screening or a physical copy. I love the story. Aliens come to town, but we\u2019re actually nice to them. I don\u2019t know if that would be the case in reality, but it gives you hope, right? And I\u2019d argue it\u2019s a romance. They choose to leave Earth and live together forever \u2014 that\u2019s romantic.<\/p>\n

Orange-vanilla swirl: Yellow Banks Groves<\/a> in Largo has been around since the \u201850s. It\u2019s a citrus grove with a really cool gift shop where they have all kinds of shells and kitschy fun, Florida things. After I graduated from college I moved to Chicago and my first winter \u2014 which was horrible and why I can\u2019t live in Chicago \u2014 my grandmother shipped me a box of oranges from Yellow Banks, so it\u2019s very special to me. But the best part is the ice cream. They use the orange juice from their grove and it\u2019s the most amazing dessert.<\/p>\n

Kaitlin Crockett, proprietor of Print St. Pete: Print St. Pete<\/a> in Gulfport is this letterpress studio that also has a Risograph printer, which is basically this sort of defunct Japanese printer technology from the 1980s. They produce really bright colors, like fluorescent orange and pink \u2014 really good Florida colors. And they offer workshops. Kaitlin has done so much for the community with fundraisers and stuff. She\u2019s a librarian, she organized Zine Fest at St. Petersburg College \u2014 and she just had a baby \u2014 so I\u2019m just trying to spread the word about how great she is and her print shop, too.<\/p>\n

Have an idea for someone we should feature in My Favorite Florida? Email cspata@tampabay.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to My Favorite Florida, a weekly feature from the Tampa Bay Times where fascinating people \u2014 artists,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[28,112330,102673,3475,112331,202,204,203,199,201,200,112329],"class_list":["post-259513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-florida","tag-florida-colors","tag-florida-culture","tag-florida-man","tag-gillespie","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tyler-gillespie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}