Pinellas County is a county located on the west central coast of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 959,107, which makes it the seventh-most populous county in the state. It is also the most densely populated county in Florida, with 3,491 residents per square mile. The county is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Clearwater is the county seat. St. Petersburg is the largest city as well as the largest city in Florida that is not a county seat.
St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 258,308, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. It is the largest city in the state that is not a county seat. Along with Clearwater, these cities are part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, the second-largest in Florida with a population of around 2.8 million. St. Petersburg is on the Pinellas peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and is connected to mainland Florida to the north.
Michael Joseph Connelly is an American author of detective novels and other crime fiction, notably those featuring LAPD Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and criminal defense attorney Mickey Haller. Connelly is the bestselling author of 31 novels and one work of non-fiction, with over 74 million copies of his books sold worldwide and translated into 40 languages. His first novel, The Black Echo, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1992. In 2002, Clint Eastwood directed and starred in the movie adaptation of Connelly's 1997 novel, Blood Work. In March 2011, the movie adaptation of Connelly's novel The Lincoln Lawyer starred Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller. Connelly was the President of the Mystery Writers of America from 2003 to 2004.
The Tampa Bay area is a major metropolitan area surrounding Tampa Bay on the Gulf Coast of Florida in the United States. It includes the main cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater. It is the 18th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a population of 3,175,275 as of the 2020 U.S. Census.
The Tampa Bay Times, called the St. Petersburg Times until 2011, is an American newspaper published in St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It has won fourteen Pulitzer Prizes since 1964, and in 2009, won two in a single year for the first time in its history, one of which was for its PolitiFact project. It is published by the Times Publishing Company, which is owned by The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, a nonprofit journalism school directly adjacent to the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus.
Dorothy Allison is an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focuses on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She is a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison has won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
Sterling Watson, M.A., University of Florida, Emeritus Professor of Literature and Creative Writing, co-director of Writers in Paradise and former director of the Writing Workshop at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, is a fiction writer and screenwriter.
The Tampa Bay hurricane of 1921 was a major hurricane which affected Central Florida and the western Caribbean Sea in late October 1921. It was the major storm that stuck the continental United States latest in the calendar year until Hurricane Zeta in 2020. The eleventh tropical cyclone, sixth tropical storm, and fifth hurricane of the season, the storm developed from a trough in the southwestern Caribbean Sea on October 20. Initially a tropical storm, the system moved northwestward and intensified into a hurricane on October 22 and a major hurricane by October 23. Later that day, the hurricane peaked as a Category 4 on the modern day Saffir–Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (230 km/h). After entering the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane gradually curved northeastward and weakened to a Category 3 before making landfall near Tarpon Springs, Florida, late on October 25. It was the first major hurricane to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area since the hurricane of 1848 and the last to date.
The Chinsegut Hill Manor House is a United States historic site approximately five miles northeast of the city of Brooksville, Florida on Chinsegut Hill. Chinsegut Hill, at an elevation of 269 feet (82 m), is one of the highest points in peninsular Florida. It is located in Hernando County north of the city of Brooksville. The manor’s address is 22495 Chinsegut Hill Road. Begun in the early 1850s, the structure has remained relatively unchanged since.
Jennifer Allen is an American author and commentator. She has worked for the NFL Network and as an on-air reporter. She is the daughter of football coach George Allen and sister of politician George Allen and football executive Bruce Allen.
Lisa Unger is an American author of contemporary fiction, primarily psychological thrillers.
Anne Hull is an American journalist. She was a national reporter at The Washington Post for nearly two decades. In 2008, the Post was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, citing the work of Hull, reporter Dana Priest and photographer Michel du Cille for "exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials".
Katy Munger, who has also written under the names Gallagher Gray and Chaz McGee, is an American writer known for writing the Casey Jones and Hubbert & Lil series. She is a former reviewer for the Washington Post.
Amy Hill Hearth is an American journalist and author who specializes in stories about women. She is the author or co-author of eight nonfiction books, including the oral history Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, a New York Times bestseller for 113 weeks, according to its archives.
Lucy Morgan is a long-time reporter and editorialist at the Tampa Bay Times.
Sarah Addison Allen is an American and New York Times bestselling author.
Steph Cha is a Korean American novelist and fiction writer, who has released three novels in the crime fiction genre about her detective protagonist Juniper Song, Follow Her Home (2013), Beware Beware (2014) and Dead Soon Enough (2015). Her most recent book is the stand-alone crime fiction novel, Your House Will Pay (2019), which won the LA Times Book Award.
Leonora LaPeter Anton is an American journalist with the Tampa Bay Times. Anton was a co-recipient of the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.
Sophia Mallonée Gholz is an American writer of children's books, both fiction and non-fiction.
Lori Roy is an American mystery fiction and Southern Gothic author. Since 2011, Roy has released five books and two short stories. Of her works, Roy won the 2012 Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author with Bent Road and the 2014 Edgar Award for Best Novel with Until She Comes Home. With her Edgar Award wins, Roy became the first female author to win these two Edgars. Bent Road was also picked by the State Library of Kansas as one of the Kansas Notable Books for 2012. Apart from writing, Roy worked in accounting for Hallmark Cards.
