The first time I tried my hand at fiction in high school, it was a way of dealing with people and issues that I couldn’t handle in real life. My friends thought it was hysterical and that I was a little twisted. In college, I again used fiction writing for my personal aims, this time to deal with my frustrating inability to get laid as a freshman at the University of Miami. I thought it might be a way of leveling the playing field. It didn’t change my virginal status, but as the manuscript was handed around the dormitory, I earned a different kind of reputation. I was the guy who remembered and chronicled all the stuff that happened when everyone else was falling-down drunk, and I was the guy who, if you messed with me, would get even with you at the typewriter. My father once said to me, “Nothing bad will ever happen to you because you’ll just write about it and get even.” And isn’t that what the power of the press is all about? Twenty-five years later, I read the latest novel by Florida writer . Hurricane Punch reminded me of, well, me. As I turned the pages and read about people being barbecued by military meals-ready-to-eat lasagna or being fried by the world’s most powerful guitar amp, I remembered the thrill of brutalizing the people I thought were idiots or who had done me wrong. Dorsey, who’s joining us today (April 12, 2007), is a former journalist who made it out alive, having worked at the Tampa Tribune from 1987 until 1999. Hurricane Punch, which was published in February 2007, is Dorsey’s ninth novel. It’s an all-too-funny story about life in the world’s emerging media capital, Tampa Bay, during hurricane season. It skewers the media left and right, which made it perfect for discussion here. Tim Dorsey • • •