Two new books from Florida natives take a look at the 'wild wacky stuff' going on in the state

Florida-based authors Craig Pittman and Tyler Gillespie will be at the Miami Book Fair to promote their newly-released books that cover the "Florida environment," the Miami New Times reports.

"Covering the Florida environment is the greatest beat in American journalism," Pittman says. "Because number one: They pay you to run around on a boat now. And again, number two: You get to cover some of the wild, wacky stuff that goes on in Florida. Alligators battling pythons. A religious cult that smuggled giant African/Afghan land snails into Florida cause they thought drinking the mucus would make you healthy."

"Each chapter kind of looks at something similar, something that's either misunderstood or that I'm personally afraid of," Gillespie says. "For writing my book, I looked at different things that I thought were misunderstood about Florida, and I started with the misconception of Florida Man and all of that and looking into the history of that and then my own personal experiences and interviewing someone who was a Florida Man headline or Florida Woman."

Read it at the Miami New Times.