It’s nice to meet you. I’m Laura, a lover of sunshine, oaks dripping with Spanish moss, and all the people who make this place special. Yeah, sounds cheesy, but it’s true. A story I often tell is about when my husband Chris and I relocated from the Pacific Northwest to Safety Harbor in 2008: we both sighed when we stopped at the marina to look at the bay–it was pure relief. We finally knew we had found home.

My second oldest son (I am a proud mom of 4 adult kids) came to visit soon after and since he loves history as much as I do, we visited the Safety Harbor Museum. We were searching for a book on this gem of a town but . . . there wasn’t one!

2008 was a tough year. Many people had found themselves in financial crisis and of those, many lost their homes, so Chris and I–complete newbies to the area–wanted to rent, but due to a housing shortage, we weren’t able to find a home in Pinellas County. At the time we were searching in only a few places because we still had a son in high school and a good public school was our top priority. Anyway, jobs weren’t so easy to come by, either. I kept applying but got no calls for interviews. It was the first time in my life I had experienced that. Until then, it had never been a struggle for me to find work.

It was Chris who said, “You want to be a writer, so take this opportunity and write.”

We pinched some dimes and made it work. I was soon freelancing for Destination Tampa Bay magazine (thank you, Bonnie Walters!) and spent my days perfecting the craft of writing and connecting with like-minded creatives.

Skip to 2010 and a small cafe on Main Street called Taste. The owners were, and still are, wonderful people. They agreed to let me post a note on their bulletin board asking for other writers to meet there twice a month to start a writers’ and poets’ critique group. It was there I met people who would become lifelong friends and writing partners.

In 2013, Lisa Kothe, (our amazing library director!) emailed me saying History Press had been contacted by people wanting a book on Safety Harbor’s history. So, Lisa had written to local writers and historians with History Press’s request. I am not a historian. But by that point, I had many articles under my belt. Finally, I was able to call myself a writer.

One of the critique group writers was Warren Firschein who graciously agreed to co-write what would become A Brief History of Safety Harbor, Florida.

What I learned writing with Warren was that you must dig deeper than six feet if you want to find the truth. Some history has been buried for so long, there’s simply nothing but fragments of truth left to be uncovered.

Now, eight years after A Brief History of SH‘s publication, Warren lives in another state and I am working on a second book dedicated to Safety Harbor history. This one will be through Arcadia Press, History Press’s sister publisher. Some stories will need more space, though. Some people from Safety Harbor’s past will need me to dig a little deeper.

This is where I will spend more space with the past–more time. I hope you’ll participate, too.