SUNSHINE STATE
Keeping Reading Alive Talks Mitchell Kaplan and Les Standiford are legends in Miami’s world of the written word; they’re now together at sea to share their success stories BY GERRY BARKER
MIAMI IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES has been characterized as “a modern day Casablanca,” with its cultural mix of immigrants, Cuban refugees and a drug war. All the elements for a good, hardboiled detective story. It was against this backdrop that Mitchell Kaplan and Les Standiford met. Kaplan, owner of the Florida book chain Books & Books and co-founder of the Miami Book Fair and Standiford, a professor at Florida International University and author of several best sellers, were recently aboard the sailing yacht Sea Cloud Spirit to deliver a series of lectures and reflect on their careers. MEETING OF THE MINDS “I had just opened my [Coral Gables] bookshop in 1982,” says Kaplan, “and Les came in as a visiting professor at FIU. There was an immediate connection and friendship.” “I was trying to be a writer,” says Standiford, who resides with his family in Pinecrest, “and Mitchell had just set out to be a bookseller. He told me he had all these ideas about a book fair that was going to shut down central Miami and bring 400 or 500 authors to town.” Standiford was skeptical. But by 1985, when he became a permanent member of the FIU faculty, “the bookstore was thriving and the book fair was taking place. And Mitchell was right.” “When it comes to books and reading, Miami has always been underestimated,” says Kaplan. Book buyers there were as sophisticated “as you find in New York City or anywhere else. I knew if we brought writers of note to Miami,
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