I recently caught up with the elusive Bob Morris [See Biography ] who informs me that after 20 years as a reporter and columnist for the Fort Myers News-Press, USA Today, Orlando Sentinel, and The New York Times Regional Newspaper Group, he left the industry in 1994 to freelance; and beginning in 1997, moved to Santa Barbara, California to launch AQUA , an international travel magazine dedicated to the pool and spa industry.
He then returned to Florida in 1999 to assume the editorships of Caribbean Travel & Life and Gulfshore Life magazines.
Longing for more creativity, Morris put pen to paper and wrote his first novel, ``Bahamarama'' in 2004, a compelling mystery set in the Caribbean, which became a finalist for the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best first novel. Since then, he has written four other novels all set in the Caribbean and Florida: ``Jamaica Me Dead’’, ``Bermuda Schwartz’’, ``A Deadly Silver Sea’’, and ``Baja Florida.’’ He’s also authored a number of e-book nonfiction works, including: ``Gut Check, ``Short Road to Hell,’’ ``All over the Map.’’ ``The Whole Shebang’’, and ``The Man with the Fish on his Foot.’’
Some of his most memorable moments as a newspaper columnist were writing humor columns for the Sentinel during the 1988 and 1992 presidential campaigns, where he got to know and became fast friends with Dave Barry, the Pulitzer Prize-winning American author and columnist, who wrote a nationally syndicated humor column for The Miami Herald from 1983 to 2005.
After graduating from college in the 1970’s, while contemplating his place in the universe, Morris lived for six months at a kibbutz in Israel; his last assignment was walking the perimeter of the kibbutz carrying an Uzi on night patrol. He knew this gig was up when the kibbutz leader told him if he wanted to stay in Israel any longer; he would need to join the army. A mighty tall order for such a young man, to be sure, especially an Episcopalian, so Morris moved on to other adventures.
In addition to his bright witty newspaper columns, one of Morris’s most enduring legacies while at the Orlando Sentinel was in organizing (beginning in 1986), the ``Queen Kumquat Sashay Parade'' held in the heart of downtown Orlando with about 60 or 70 groups sashaying about with such wildly peculiar names like the ``World’s Worst Marching Band’’, the ``Tourist Liberation Brigade’’, ``Poor White Trash Powder,’’ the ``People Who Have Seen Elvis Recently’’ the ``Leona Helmsley Defense League’’, and the ``Legion of Failures.’’ The parade came to a thunderous climax when a queen was selected by the crowd, the only qualification being that she have red hair, like a kumquat.
This grand tradition ended in 1997 when Morris moved to California.
Aside from his fiction writing, this fourth generation Floridian continues to contribute to a number of magazines, including National Geographic Traveler, Bon Appétit, and Islands. In addition, he teaches creative writing with courses on Food and Travel Writing and Crime Fiction at Rollins College in Winter Park Florida just adjacent to the city of Orlando. One of his favorite exercises is assigning students to write the first 25 pages of a crime novel.
In his continued quest for new challenges, in 2009 Morris launched Robb Report Exceptional Properties, for Curtco Media, a magazine aimed at those who own vacation homes around the world, best described as a hybrid travel and real estate magazine. Morris informs me they will be re-launching the magazine in January 2013 as LIV: Home + Away, with an increased emphasis on home design and international travel.
And in 2010 he founded Story Farm , a custom publishing company that creates books, magazines, and strategic publications for a variety of clients with a particular specialization in cookbooks for popular restaurants and collectible coffee-table books for resorts, hotels, architectural firms and others.
Having spent two decades working for newspapers, when I asked Morris about the current hardships of the industry, he told me that his heart splits in two every morning when he steps out his driveway and picks up a skinny stripped down copy of the Orlando Sentinel, now just a shadow of its former self. Still, he’s amazed at the pioneering work that newspaper journalists continue to produce despite budget constraints and corporate idiocy. ``The advances in new media show us’’ Morris told me, `` that even if newspapers go away, which they sadly will, the craft of journalism will not disappear. Indeed, I fully expect for it to flourish.’’
Having successfully reinvented himself since leaving the newspaper industry, does Morris have any suggestions or sage words of advice for so many out of work print journalists looking to blaze a new career path? ``The hardest thing for longtime newspaper journalists to learn is to think entrepreneurially’’ Morris says. `` When you leave the biz and you are out there freelancing it is just like launching a new business. You have to spend a lot of time promoting yourself, pursuing the money-side of the equation, and devoting considerable time toward figuring out a way to turn a profit while still doing honorable good work. You have to sell, sell, sell. The very idea of that is anathema to many journalists, but if you don't learn to do it then you ain't gonna make it.’’
Despite juggling a number projects, Morris is trying to clear a path in his schedule to pound out another novel, his sixth. `` Life is most excellent’’ the journalist turned entrepreneur turned novelist says.
A graduate of the University of Florida with a degree in journalism and communications, Morris lives in Winter Park Florida with his wife. They have two grown sons, who are living on their own, ``thank God!’’ he jokes.
-Bill Lucey
[email protected]
August 3, 2012
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