There’s a place in Florida where the horizon seems to float. Where sawgrass hums with the breath of wind, and herons lift like ghosts above still waters. This is the Everglades—an ecosystem often misunderstood, often threatened, but never quite tamed.
It is not a swamp. It is a slow-moving river, twenty to fifty miles wide and just a few inches deep, slipping southward from Lake Okeechobee to Florida Bay. It is a mosaic of marsh, prairie, mangrove, and cypress, pulsing with life and mystery. It is sacred, wild, and deeply American.
A Living System Unlike Any Other
Dubbed the “River of Grass” by writer and conservationist Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the Everglades is home to more than 350 species of birds, 40 species of mammals, and countless reptiles, amphibians, and insects. It’s the only place in the world where alligators and crocodiles live side by side. The endangered Florida panther prowls here. Manatees drift in warm channels. And in the quiet shadows of cypress domes, ghost orchids bloom like something out of legend.
I haven’t yet visited the Everglades myself—but I’ve spent hours reading, researching, and dreaming about it. From field guides and conservation journals to oral histories and first-hand accounts, the Everglades has taken root in my imagination like water seeping into soil.
A History Written in Water
Before it was drained and dissected by canals, the Everglades belonged to the Tequesta and Calusa, Indigenous peoples who knew its rhythms and relied on its abundance. Later, the Seminole and Miccosukee took refuge here—navigating its maze of waters, building homes on tree islands, and living in step with the land.
But settlers didn’t see a wonder—they saw an obstacle. In the 20th century, much of the Everglades was dredged, redirected, and diminished for development and sugarcane agriculture. It’s lost more than half of its original size.
And yet, it persists.
A Land of Mystery and Story
Even from afar, the Everglades stirs the storyteller in me.
I’m drawn to the contrast—the stillness and the danger, the hidden and the vast. Local folklore overflows with ghost lights, lost ships, and elusive creatures like the skunk ape. It’s a place where you can imagine entire stories blooming in the shadow of a cypress tree or beneath the murky water of a slough.
Though I haven’t walked its trails, I’ve written characters who might. I’ve set scenes in fictional estuaries, on shell mounds and shifting riverbanks, all shaped by the spirit of places like this one.
Why It Matters to Writers
The Everglades is more than a backdrop—it’s a presence.
In writing, place is never just a setting. It affects mood, decisions, relationships. A character raised in such a place might carry the Everglades in their posture, their silence, their resilience. The water, the wildness, the waiting—these become metaphors for emotion, for memory, for survival.
Florida is more than just sunshine and sea shells. It’s also hurricanes and hiding places. And the Everglades sits at the crossroads of all of it.
If You’re Ever Curious
I may not have stepped into its waters—yet—but if you’re intrigued, here are a few ways to get closer to the Everglades:
Read The Swamp by Michael Grunwald
Visit Everglades National Park’s website for interactive maps and stories
Explore Indigenous perspectives through the Miccosukee Tribe’s cultural centers
Watch the PBS documentary The Swamp: Nature’s Kingdom
Read The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas
Final Reflection
The Everglades reminds me of the kind of story that unfolds slowly. One you have to listen to, patiently. One where the most powerful moments arrive without fanfare.
It’s a place that teaches us how to pay attention. How to notice what moves just below the surface.
And one day, I hope to see it in person—to feel the quiet, the heat, the still water under a wide sky. Until then, I’ll keep writing toward it.
Because some places don’t just deserve to be visited—they deserve to be understood, honored, and imagined.