Everything Is the Sea

“In popular culture, Miami can sometimes become a caricature of itself. But the Miami depicted in P. Scott Cunningham’s prose is complex, captivating, and deeply human. Everything Is the Sea is a remarkable and revelatory mosaic of the artists who provide the city with its intellectual and aesthetic texture, and who also, through their work, share Miami with the world. This book shows us how to write about a city and its inhabitants with love, with attention, and with beauty.”—Clint Smith, author of How the Word Is Passed

“Everything Is the Sea is a stunning re-rendering of a Miami that is approached from a place of care and dignity. Cunningham's lyricism and ability to weave interconnecting stories is as impressive as the lens he places on people, the individuals who make up the architecture of a place. With this approach, we are all afforded a newer, more layered and in-depth understanding of a place that has, to many, been a fantasy, or a mythology. Gratitude to this book for a restoration of the real.”—Hanif Abdurraqib, author of There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension

“A moving love letter to Miami, lyrical and wise. Scott Cunningham gives us a new kind of memoir: a book-length investigation of the self that reads like an unforgettable poem.”—Ana Menéndez, author of The Apartment

“A sharp, funny, curious, and compassionate look at the real Miami: full of artists and dreamers.”—Ayşe Papatya Bucak, author of The Trojan War Museum and Other Stories

“South Florida is vividly felt and alive in this prose. Miami’s history is delivered alongside and inside its literature and culture, and there’s particular honor paid to Miami’s often-ignored minority populations and their relationship to art and poetry. Poetry is also vividly felt as a cultural and living artifact in this book, which is a beautiful ode to both Miami and to poetry’s place.”—James Allen Hall, author of Romantic Comedy