Since 2020, Tyler Gillespie has spent a lot of time online and in other landscapes devoid of humans IRL. While undergoing quarantine with his grandmother in Florida, he began expanding his writing practice with new forms of media expression, going as far as recording snippets of a comedy album and creating a pop diva robot persona through text-to-talk technology. Although he eventually abandoned these projects, traces of them can be found in the nature machine!

Throughout this collection, Gillespie merges poetic forms with interstitial moments of sound and visual technologies to playfully theorize the now and to seriously contemplate the future. With dexterity, he threads ideas on cybernetics, pop music, the environment, desire, and recovery to examine how technology has transformed our natures. But ultimately, full of warmth and wit, this book reminds us why, despite everything, we’re still not-yet-machines.

Gillespie will be joined by local poet Heather Sellers and owner and  operator of Print St. Pete, Kaitlin Crockett!

Tyler Gillespie is the author of The Thing about Florida: Exploring a Misunderstood State (University Press of Florida, 2021) and Florida Man: Poems (Red Flag Poetry, 2018). He’s a fifth-generation Floridian and currently teaches at Ringling College of Art + Design. Find out more at TylerGillespie.com.

Heather Sellers, a Florida native, is the author of four poetry collections: Field Notes from the Flood Zone (BOA, 2022); The Present State of the Garden (Lynx House Press, 2021); The Boys I Borrow (New Issues Press, 2007), which was a finalist for the James Laughlin Award; and Drinking Girls and Their Dresses (Ahsahta Press, 2002). She is also the author of the memoir You Don’t Look Like Anyone I Know (Riverhead, 2011), which was an O, the Oprah Magazine Book of the Month Club Choice and an Editor’s Choice at the New York Times. Her popular textbook The Practice of Creative Writing (Macmillan, 2021), is in its fourth edition. Her writing has been featured in numerous publications and anthologies, including Best American Essays, Creative Nonfiction, Good Housekeeping, The New York Times, O, the Oprah Magazine, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, Reader’s Digest, The Sun, and Tin House. She has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a residency at The MacDowell Colony. She directs the undergraduate and MFA creative writing programs at the University of South Florida.   For more information about Heather Sellers, visit heathersellers.com.

Kaitlin Crockett is a librarian at St. Petersburg College, and owner + operator of Print St. Pete, a small community letterpress & risograph printshop. Print St. Pete offers workshops, studio access, and original printed work such as postcards, posters, and zines.