The Florida Roundup - Florida Summer Reading Series: 'No Ordinary Bird' and 'The Purple Ribbon'

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

On this edition of The Florida Roundup, we feature some of the fiction and creative nonfiction that you should read in our Summer Reading Special. Authors Artis Henderson (No Ordinary Bird) and Kip Lyman (The Purple Ribbon) join to talk about their novels. In No Ordinary Bird, Henderson writes about her father, a pilot involved in a South Florida drug smuggling operation in the 1970s and 80s who died in a plane crash — a crash that she survived (1:10). The Purple Ribbon is the debut novel from writer Lyman. A psychological thriller set in Fort Pierce, the story follows two separate individuals manipulated by an evil, otherworldly force. Lyman talks about the book and her real-life experience that inspired it. (30:30)

Today on the Florida Roundup, our annual summer reading special. We have two Florida thrillers for you, one from Kip Lyman, a first-time novelist. She says she lives in a haunted house in Fort Pierce and credits heavenly inspiration for her book. It was divine intervention. The story was written. It was out there floating around and all of a sudden it said, I choose Kip Leinen. It's the Purple Ribbon and Innocent Enough Name, but this novel is a modern thriller with some really terrible acts of violence and inspiring acts of bravery.

The other thriller today is from artist Henderson. It's part autobiography and part investigation. She spent years looking into her father's life as a major marijuana smuggler in Florida and his death, tracing back to a federal agent who investigated it. I did not have the nerve to ask him if he killed my father. I'm Tom Hudson in Miami. This week, it's the Florida Roundup's summer reading special. Hello, this is Monica White from Tampa, Florida.

You're listening to the Florida Roundup. Tom Hudson. Thanks, Monica. We always appreciate a little help from our friends with our program. Today, it's our annual summer reading special, and we've got a couple of books by Florida authors that are real thrillers. One is a novel from first-time writer Kip Lyman. She moved to Florida from Connecticut when she was a teenager, and thank goodness, because otherwise she says she would not have become a novelist. I fear that the book would not ever have come into existence. if I had not moved to Florida. Kipp says she now lives in a haunted house in Fort Pierce.

And one night, the book just came to her. Boom. Not the idea for the book, but the book. It was divine intervention. You know, the story was written. It was already written. And it was out there floating around. And all of a sudden it said, I choose Kip Leinen.

The Purple Ribbon is the name of that book. It's an innocent enough name, but this not. novel is far from innocent. It's a modern thriller with some really terrible acts of violence and really inspiring acts of bravery and courage. The other thriller is artist Henderson's life. It's part autobiography and part investigation. Her father came to Florida just after World War II. He was a teenager. He worked in construction during the post-war building boom. He drove a taxi, even started a plant nursery, and then he wound up in the service where he learned to fly. By the early 1970s, he was a pilot for Eastern Airlines based in Miami.

South Florida in the 1970s and early 80s meant temptations, lots of temptations. Florida was key to his path, but Florida in this very specific era. Artis' dad started smuggling marijuana from Jamaica on his days off. Then he smuggled more and more and a lot more. He hired more pilots, hired more planes, bought. islands in the Bahamas as way stations. He got rich and moved to a farm in Georgia. Artist was five years old when she and her dad went up for a short sunset flight one night. The plane crashed, killing her dad. She spent years investigating his life and death, exploring

uncovered conspiracies, even tracing back to a federal agent who investigated her dad's death. I spoke to him. I did not have the nerve. to ask him if he killed my father. And that will forever be one of my greatest regrets. I don't know why I didn't ask him, except I didn't want to hear him lie. So we've got two thrillers from two Florida authors. They're up next on our annual summer reading special here on the Florida Roundup.

Let us know what book you're taking out to the beach. or up to the mountains or just out on the back deck. Email us, radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. We start with artist Henderson. She was born in Georgia, but raised by a single mom in Fort Myers after her dad died.

There is so much more to his and her story, though. It's the subject of her book, No Ordinary Bird, drug smuggling, a plane crash, and a daughter's quest for the truth. Now, if you think you know the story by the title, just wait. Artists, thanks so much for joining us. Early in the book, you write, quote,

I'm grappling with this story as much as I'm reporting it. Tell us about the main character of your book, who also happened to be your father. How do you describe him? My father is a complex character. Tilton Lamar Chester Jr. He grew up in central Georgia, poor, really poor. In the late 1930s and 1940s, he eventually came down to South Florida.

And, yeah, from there he built a marijuana smuggling empire in the mid to late 70s and very early 1980s. before he built the drug smuggling empire he grew up he spent his teenage years and his early adult years in south Florida got married had a family divorced then married the woman who became your mother he was a pilot for eastern airlines flying out of miami international airport and then he began flying small planes smuggling marijuana from jamaica into south florida What role do you think Florida played in the choices that your father made when he was an adult? Florida was key to his path. But Florida in this very specific era, Florida in the mid-70s, late 70s, early 80s, drug smuggling was everywhere.

Everybody knew somebody who was bringing in weed. Some people brought it in on sailboats. Some people flew it in on planes. but everybody was bringing it in. Yeah, it's really just wild, just how how president was everywhere. You know, it wasn't just the smugglers. Everybody was involved. It was journalists and judges and attorneys and police officers.

I mean, it was just omnipresent in that time. How do you think your father's life and choices might have been different had he returned to rural Georgia and not stayed in South Florida? and became an airline pilot. Yeah. That's such a good question. It's one I think a lot about in general. I ask myself a lot with the reporting of this book.

You know, what makes some people have this kind of ambition? Is it ambition? Something. Interesting word choice to use there. Right? Yeah. Right. Because, you know, I wonder, you know, if my father had

different opportunities if he had been exposed to different people with this thing he had in him that I'm calling ambition, would he have been something else? I don't know. So as your father made the choices that he made for a variety of reasons, he grew this drug smuggling business fairly quickly. He scaled it up. And he himself stepped away from flying the actual drugs. into Florida from the Caribbean and was kind of managing the operation. He ultimately was indicted by the federal government in 1983 on over 30 counts, drug trafficking, racketeering, and others. He was accused of leading this group of pilots bringing marijuana and cocaine into Florida using a string of islands that he wound up buying in the Bahamas. You were about three years old

at this time. Do you believe your father was guilty of the charges that he faced in that indictment? Oh, of course. He was quite open about his drug smuggling. He admitted to it readily. You know, in newspaper interviews, TV interviews, he claimed that he was doing this with the, how to say, permission, the blessing of the U.S. government. And that adds a different layer to the story. And I want to get to that layer in a second as we kind of. walk through this very complex character of your story, your father here. There was one federal

prosecutor in the case against him who went to prison for soliciting a bribe. There was another who was fired after sleeping with the key witness to a grand jury the night before she testified to the grand jury that led to the charges against your father. Federal prosecutors were accused of fabricating evidence. As you uncovered this story as an adult, as you reported this story out for your book. How has that experience and what you learned shaped your view of the American justice system? Oh, goodness. We are getting into the serious stuff now. It's very, gosh, how to say this. I am someone who, how to say this, I feel, so I'm 45. My sense, and maybe Maybe this is just my sense, but you'll have to tell me what you think.

My sense is that this questioning of the U.S. government of a feeling of corruption, a feeling of conspiracy, is a relatively recent part of the zeitgeist. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this is just my own personal social media algorithm in this moment. But when I was growing up, you know, sort of Bill Clinton era, I just don't remember people questioning the sort of justice of the U.S. government at that time. So now I do feel like that is being questioned. And certainly my experience over the last 10 years of researching this book has, how to say this, left me with a lot of doubts, questions about our system. What are some of those questions that you have, either specifically about your father's complicated case and we'll get to the possible covert operations that he may or may not have been involved in? Or more bigger picture questions that you have about American justice.

forgive me that was a nervous laugh I did when you were asking that right because these are very serious very weighty questions especially in this political moment that I am trying very hard not to answer head on so can I just take like 20 seconds to sort of compose myself. Yes, of course. Yes. Take your time. You just have such a unique perspective on this, the personal experience, obviously, but also the journalism that you accomplished by looking back at your father's story. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I think what I was trying to say before about growing up in the 80s and early 90s was, I had this feeling of, you know, that the U.S., we were the good guys,

and this feeling of justice in this country and that if you do right, you know, you will be rewarded. And, you know, it's complicated, right? Because, yes, my father was smuggling marijuana, which was illegal. Still illegal. But you know, here we are 50 years later, and marijuana is legal in so many places. And everything I found out about my father was people said he was a really good guy and patriotic. They called him Captain America. And I think my father also had this sense of justice and a belief in the U.S. system.

And I think he was very surprised at the end at the way things unfolded. Because I think he had been led to believe that he would be protected. What did your reporting uncover about why he believed his drug smuggling activities? would be protected from the American justice system. In the early 1980s, when the Iran-Contra affair was first underway, the small part that I believe my father knew about was that the CIA needed to get, guns to Nicaragua. And the people they used to run those guns were often drug smugglers.

Because these were good people to do it, right? They've experienced pilots, bush pilots, used to operating in difficult terrain. Many of them had planes that were equipped with, you know, stole, short takeoff and landing equipment. And then in exchange for that, these drug smugglers were given a sort of get out of jail-free card. So, though I don't have any direct evidence of my father doing that, I believe he knew about it, and I do believe he was approached to do that.

And your lack of direct evidence is not. not for the lack of trying. You detail pretty extensively some of your reporting efforts to get information from the Drug Enforcement Agency, the DEA, from the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, and from the Federal Bureau of investigations, the FBI. Yes, that's correct. I filed Freedom of Information Act requests, but what I got back was so evasive as to be essentially useless. Though I will say sometimes the truth is in the blank spaces. What's not being said.

What's not being said, the truth in the blank spaces. Many of the agencies responded to your request for information with the will not confirm nor deny statement. Is that the space between the words that you're talking about? It is. I'm wondering how you are viewing some of the contemporary news, as you and I are talking, were just days after the Trump administration

took Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, out of Caracas and to New York City to face an indict. of charges of drug trafficking. We've seen the U.S. military target boats that the Pentagon says are used to smuggle drugs in the Caribbean, ultimately headed to the United States. These are contemporary headlines. How do you view this news of the ongoing war on drugs involving the Caribbean and Latin America? I'm thinking.

No problem. Music is the space between the notes, sometimes artists, right? It's the moments to think. I think we'll need a whole symphony to cover. I can't help but think you, again, have this very personal as well as professional perspective on these contemporary headlines, given your family's history, but also what you have been able to uncover as you were investigating your father's own story. I do. I'm trying so hard not to say the thing, but I will say the thing, which is, it's all theater.

The War on Drugs in the 1980s. This Now. Artist Henderson is the author of No Ordinary Bird, Drug Smuggling, A Plane Crash, and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth. We will hear the rest of the story of growing up with a drug smuggling day. her investigation into his life and death, and her long search to find some understanding of the choices her dad made in his life that shaped her life. Our summer reading special will continue.

I'm Tom Hudson, and you are listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. This is John Jacobson from Naples, Florida. You are listening to the Florida Roundup. Here's Tom Hudson. Hey, John, thanks for lending us a hand for our annual summer reading. reading special. We like to feature Florida authors and Florida stories during these programs,

and we have both today. Still to come is the debut novel from Kip Lyman. It's a thriller set in Fort Pierce. Now, Kip wrote the book in her home, which she says she shares with a ghost. But first back to Artis Henderson. Her dad was a pilot of Eastern Airlines out of Miami back in the 70s and 80s, and that's when he started smuggling marijuana from Jamaica on his days off. His narcotic business took off and he made millions of dollars eventually moving to a farm in Georgia. That's where he died when the small plane he was flying fell from the sky with a five-year-old artist on board. The official explanation was the plane ran out of gas. Artist's book is No Ordinary Bird, Drug Smuggling, a plane crash, and a daughter's quest for the truth.

I want to bring the circle of your father's story to a conclusion as you do when you write about it. in the book, he was under indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice. As you say, in the book, he kind of promised that he had a story to tell that would, quote, shake the U.S. government to its core. And you go on to detail some of those early stages of the Iran-Contra affair, the allegations of drugs for guns into Nicaragua. And your dad died in a small plane crash on his farm in Georgia. It was 1985. You were almost five and you were on board that plane. I can't even imagine carrying that trauma. You went back and spoke decades later to witnesses and others around at that time of the crash and other aviation experts. The official

cause, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates all airplane crashes in the United States was that the plane ran out of gas. Do you believe that the crash was an accident, or do you believe that your father was a casualty of perhaps what he may have known about covert operations? I believe my father was murdered. By whom? That's a very good question.

Or by what? Hmm. Yeah, by what is an even better question. and that there were many people who would have benefited from my father's death in that moment. Through the course of the reporting for this book, I spoke to a man who said that a retired DEA agent had bragged to him about how they sabotaged my father's plane. And you spoke with that former agent as part of your reporting for the book. I spoke to him. I did not have the nerve to ask him if he killed my father.

And that will forever be one of my greatest regrets. He said on the phone that he did not remember the case and that he had to Google my father's name. I don't know why I didn't ask him, except I didn't want to hear him lying. You write in the book, quote, it was rage at the people who had used and discarded my dad, who had decided that he was disposable and less than, that for all his wealth, he was just a poor country boy. They could throw away when they were done.

How do you feel about that rage, that anger, as you have come to the conclusions based upon your reporting that you write in this book. It lives in me. Every day, that rage

is behind everything I do. In the book, I talk about American mobility and this idea that many of us have, that upward mobility is possible. But so much of what I found over the course of reporting this book is that it's not. Even with a fortune, my father made a fortune.

He was never able to, I want to say penetrate those upper layers. But he did. He penetrated them, but he was really never part of the club. You're very circumspect in your writing and always acknowledge the activities that led to your father's wealth. You write that you're tempted to call him reckless. You opt instead to call him calculated. And you say, quote, my dad's moral code was defined in terms I will never fully understand. Do you have any better understanding of it after writing the book?

Yeah. I do. Tell us about that developing understanding. I don't have children, but everything I have come to understand about the people close to me who do have kids is that they want something better for their children. And I think my father wanted to give us, his poor living children, a shot at something better than what he had. And I think that was his compass, which sounds crazy, because who, you know, smuggles thousands of pounds of marijuana and buys islands in the Bahamas and all this, just so his kids get in. go to college. I mean, that sounds ridiculous, and I'm aware of that. But, you know, we did okay his kids. And sometimes I think maybe that's what he wanted, you know. He wanted us to go to

go to school. And, you know, my brother, Terry, who I love deeply and now have a relationship with because of this book. He told me this story about being a teenager and flying with our dad. And, you know, how in that moment our father seemed like he had everything. You know, he was a good-looking guy with all this money and beautiful family. And, you know, he was really cool and people liked him. And, you know, this idea that Terry wanted to be part of the business. the drug smuggling business and do what our dad did. And our dad said, no, this business, this is for dirt bags, people who couldn't make it any other way. And so I think about that a lot in terms of my dad and him doing what he was doing. I don't think anybody would say that his kids are dirt bags, you know?

I don't know, maybe I'm a dirt bag. Well, it's a fascinating, honest, at times heartbreaking story that you tell in the book about your father, artists. Thank you for sharing your time with us today. Thank you for having me. Artist Henderson is the author of No Ordinary Bird, Drug Smuggling, a Plain Crash and a Daughter's Quest for the Truth. The story Kip Lyman tells in her novel is just as tragic, though her tragedy.

is fiction. It's a story based in Fort Pierce where Kipp lives. The book is titled The Purple Ribbon. Kip, thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations on a heck of a read for a first book, for a first time author. It really is truly a page turner here. And let's set some ground rules, because it's a mystery, it's a thriller. No spoilers. Okay. No spoiler. I'm going to do my best for no spoilers. Me too. Okay. Before we get into the story itself, why set the story in Fort Pierce, Fort Pierce, Florida. Why is that the setting for this thriller? Well, a couple of reasons. First of all, it is a beautiful, amazing, sleepy little shrimp town, you know, it's set right on the coast. There's a lot of history here. Just our home, for instance,

is 126 years old, and it has a whole story behind it, and it's actually haunted. As many of the old homes and dwellings here in Fort Pierce, I moved here 15 years ago, and I, love Fort Pierce. It just, it offers, it has so much to offer. We should note, by your claim of a haunted house, this is not a ghost story that you tell. Not at all. It is not, it's a dark story. There's no two ways around that, Kip. This is a dark, dark tale that you tell here. You also have settings in like landa lakes outside of Orlando. You have a state park in a rural area north of Orlando that plays a small but very key geographic role. These are all lesser-known. areas of Florida. What are those types of areas allow for your storytelling? Well, I've been to all of

these places and have thoroughly enjoyed them. They're so beautiful and rich and easy to describe. And so that made that those parts of the story made it very easy to write it because I could just visualize it and then and put it right down on paper what I was seeing in my mind. It's really interesting. You talk about your old home in Fort Pierce. You talk about the state park north of Orlando. Those are places we would call kind of Old Florida, where old Florida lives. And then you also have that suburban and exurban, you know, neighborhood after neighborhood in Landau Lakes where the aunt of the main character lives and is an important place during her teenage years, for instance. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I actually lived in a neighborhood in Land DeLakes for one year, and it was such a wonderful experience. And in fact, I lived with my aunt. So now you can see how this is starting to come into my personal experiences that I was able to just call upon to write the story and give it, you know, give it depth and give it a lot of meaning and a lot of levels. So let's pull upon that thread here a little bit more, Kip. You lived in Connecticut until you were almost a teenager before coming to Florida. You write in your biography that you loved everything about Connecticut.

Her home, friends, Catholic school, dance, piano, violin lessons, ice skating on the frozen pond behind the house, sleepovers with her cousins, and especially summer nights playing kickball and chasing fireflies. That sounds like an idyllic childhood in Connecticut. it. And then, and then Kip, and then you move to Florida. Yes. What I'm interested in here is how do you think this book would have been different if you had not moved to Florida? Oh, well, I fear that the book would not ever have come into existence if I had not moved

to Florida and had the experiences that I had here in Florida. But Connecticut means so much to me, and I wanted to have that. And it might, in the sequel, I might have a bit more of Connecticut. I'm working on the sequel now. But neither here nor there. Just the whole way that the story came to me is just, you know, a whole very, very unusual, I would think. Share with us that inspiration for this story. This is a very dark tale, you tell here.

Yes. And if anybody, like anyone who's listening to you. listening might know me. They're going to go, there is no way Kip could have written this. And it's true. I literally did not write this, Tom. I did not come up with this terrible twist of theme. Was it the ghosts in your house?

Kim, what are you telling us? Yeah, this is what happened. So I was watching a documentary one evening. It was on Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. And it was very disturbing. And I found it really interesting, some of the subjects that they chose to, you know, to research. back then. So I go to bed. I'm not thinking anything of it anymore. And that very night after watching that documentary, I woke up in the middle of the night around four o'clock in the morning,

my mind was quiet. And all of a sudden, this story and this theme, this twisted, horrible, horrifying theme started flooding into my head. And I thought, oh my God, what is going on? I couldn't ignore it. I tried to ignore it. But I could not ignore it. And then I saw, I thought, okay, fine. I've never thought to write a book in my life. But I said, okay, I'm going to get up and I'm going to go start writing and I put, you know, some of these ideas down. And literally over the course of seven months, I would wake up two or three times a week

in the middle of the night like that with new ideas, new little twists and turns that I literally could not have made up myself, none of this. And then I would get up and then I, like I said, I built the characters and the settings around my own personal experiences, but those dark, terrible, horrifying, you know, parts of this book have nothing to do with anything I've experienced and, you know, or I even made up. I'm glad to hear that, Kip, because I wasn't certain how to ask questions about some of these dark themes. And let's let the audience in on some of these themes here. Violence Against Children, that's in your book, really horrific violence against children, young children,

About as bad and as heinous as it can get. Absolutely, yes. Serious mental health issues are examined. Very serious mental health issues, which with tragic consequences. The relations, how to describe these relations? Tragic relations, taboo. But taboo doesn't even begin to describe some of the relations that you have in this book. Right, yeah.

It's just so, right. You know, it was just so sad because these characters, Chelsea and Tyler and Scott, they're just such real, down-to-earth, real people. And then when that horrible truth is revealed, their three lives, Chelsea, Tyler, and then Scott, when their lives come crashing together, it's just total chaos, and they can't escape it.

And so they just have to work through it. It's, yeah, it's awful. Now we're trying here our best for no spoilers with Kip Liman author of The Purple Ribbon. It's a psychological thriller based in Fort Pierce. I'm Tom Hudson, and you're listening to our annual summer reading special here on the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio Station. More to come. Stick around. Hello, this is Anne-Marie Tucker from Jacksonville, Florida. You are listening to the Florida Roundup. Here's Tom Hudson. Anne-Marie, great to hear from you, and thanks for the assistance. By the way, if you want to lend your voice to us

and help out. You can just send us an email. Our address is radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Send us a note and we will reply with directions for how you can record yourself and send it to us. Today it is our annual summer reading special. Now we try to feature Florida writers or authors writing about Florida. So what's in your beach bag or your bookshelf? What books are you reading or listening to? Especially those with some connection to the Sunshine State. Let us know. by emailing radio at the Florida Roundup.org. All right, we left off with Kip Lyman and a bit of a cliffhanger, which, you know, kind of appropriate since she's the author of a psychological thriller

titled The Purple Ribbon. It's her first novel, and she based it where she lives in Fort Pierce. Now, there are some really heinous crimes and all but unspeakable connections between her characters. Despite the dark tone, Kip says, it was divine inspiration that led her to write the book. Catholic faith is quite a theme in the book, an important theme for a few of the characters here. Tell me more about that in your writing.

Well, okay, yeah, so I was born and raised a Catholic, and even though my parents were not quite as devout and strict as Chelsea's parents were, I was exposed to some of that. And I thought, you know, that is, one of the things that really made the story take off was there was one decision that was made that affects so many people that wasn't even made by those people that it affected mostly and and yet this decision maker is haunted all along the whole story especially toward the end

and it's you know what though and it's so sad because at the time it was a decision that was made with, you know, the best of intentions, the best of what their faith wanted them, you know, guided them to make. And so it's just, you know, one of those things that really does happen in real life. Certainly it does. But the way that it's explored and expressed in this book is a novel way in a thriller and with tragic consequences that could not be foreshadowed. while making the decisions, which I found to mimic real life.

We all make decisions. Most decisions we make turn out to be pretty small. We make some momentous decisions every now and then and with the consequences of your character's experience. Right, right. But now, Chelsea, I honestly wish I could be more like her. She has such a resilient human spirit. She's a survivor. She's quite a survivor all the way to the very end and beyond.

She knows she, there's always hope. Did you draw from folks in your neighborhood in Fort Pierce and bring in some of those personality, those more positive personality characteristics? I'm not going to ask about the negative personality characteristics of your neighbors, maybe, but more of the positive ones of folks, Floridians you've known since you were a teenager? Well, yes. For instance, Chelsea has a fabulous quirky therapist named Ethel. I was familiar with a very quirky therapist named Ethel,

who's long since passed away. And so definitely Ethel is from my friendship with that dear Ethel. And then have been a guardian at Lightham for well over a decade and, you know, a foster parent. And so my guardian at Lightum lawyer, that's who I fashioned Chelsea at. She's a wonderful, incredible, smart lawyer. Chelsea looks like her. And I told her all about it.

And I, you know, she was my inspiration, you know, for Chelsea. And so, yeah. The Guardian Adelitum program here is featured in the novel. You mentioned your work with that program. You're a volunteer with that program, right? Yes. In Indian River County. Correct.

As Tyler, right, exactly. As Tyler, one of the characters in your book. This is a state program, if folks aren't familiar with it, that exists in real life. It's a real program. It's not just in your novel. It's a real program that has people who represent. present abused, abandoned, and neglected children in court in the justice system. What draws you, Kip, to that work? Well, I moved here to Fort Pierce 15 years ago, and my children were grown

and gone, and I knew I wanted to do something now. I wanted to, and I love children. So, and I wasn't close to my children or grandchildren. So I actually found this flyer very coincidentally, but you know that's god has ways of just putting things right in your path and um and this flyer was about the guardian at lighten program i had not heard of it so i went and i you know i met with them and it was just amazing now the guardian at light and volunteers are so important and they they follow the child they make sure things are you know the child is well cared for and their their critical needs are met then they go into court and they give this virtual tour of that child's life to the judge and to the other members of the court. And then the volunteer can also make recommendations to the outcome of the

case and, you know, back it up with their reasons why. And it's such an important part of for the judge to make that final decision on the children. And I'll tell you, I could not have written this book without my experience that the Guardian of Lighten program gave me and the knowledge that it gave me. When you just described how you encountered the Guardian at Lighten program, you, you used a phrase that one of the characters uses a few times during those decisions that turn out to be momentous, which is essentially God has a plan, God works in mysterious ways. There's a reason why God did this. It's for us to figure out why. Clearly, you're a person of faith. How do you think through that chance or destiny that your faith provides you with? Well, first of all,

as it relates to just this book. Yeah. I never, ever, it was not on my bucket list to write a 500-page psych thriller, okay? I wouldn't even have written a poem if it would have to me. That's not my thing. We should let folks, those 500 pages move awfully fast, Kipp. They do move fast. They do.

They do. Right, yeah. But so when this story flooded into my mind, like it was, to me, it was divine intervention. You know, the story was written. It was already written. And it was out there floating around. And all of a sudden it said, I choose Kiplein. That's going to write this.

Put it down on paper. Because once it came to my mind, it literally became such a passion. I just couldn't stop. It was so much fun. I had so much fun. And I didn't know anything about criminal law or about psychiatry or psychological, like, you know, dissociative identity. I didn't know anything about mental health issues. So, I mean, I knew about dependency law and about the, you know, the Guardian at Leighton program.

But so much research went into the rest of putting this together. And I loved every minute of it. Tell me about the girl from Connecticut who grows up in Florida, stays in Florida, who doesn't feel that divine intervention as an overburdensome responsibility, instead interprets it as this fun opportunity that you just described. Are you, are you talking, you're referring to me? About you? Yes.

Yeah. Oh, wow. That is a good question. Wow. You know, it kind of, it comes and goes. I really don't know how to answer that. I've, you know, I moved to Florida. Unfortunately, both my parents died shortly after that.

I'm sorry for that loss. But I have two older brothers. Yeah. And so, but I've got a tight-knit little tiny family. So my two brothers and my two brothers and my sons. and we're kind of the top of the heap of our family. But so it's just that and is raising my children. I've always felt as though God and the angels and the Holy Spirit have always followed me

everywhere I go. And when there has been a need, it's always been provided for me. And I've worked very hard and I still do. And when I choose to do something, I give it my all. all wonderful things have constantly come into my life. Constantly, still, every day. What do you think the message of this book is? What is the purpose of this story that you feel was given to you by divine grace?

Great. I think the real main takeaway would be no matter how difficult things are, no matter how difficult things look to you that's presented, that just keep, don't give up, you know, keep the faith, try to find out what the message truly is, because so often there'll be like, let's say you're trying to make this phone call and they just won't answer and you can't get through and you can't. And then you find out two days later, thank goodness they didn't pick up because what you were about to say, you know, was so that would be divine intervention in a little tiny way. And sometimes you can figure out what messages are and sometimes you can't.

We always have to have to say that there are reasons for everything. Yeah. Kip Lyman is the author, her first book entitled The Purple Ribbon. Kip, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That's Kip Lyman. She's a first-time author who lives in Fort Pierce.

She wrote the novel, The Purple Ribbon. This is our Florida Roundup's summer reading special. We're always on the hunt for Florida authors or books about Florida. Phyllis emailed suggesting Chambers v. Florida and the Criminal Justice Revolution by Richard Brust. Now, Phyllis says it's about a Florida case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. The author is a former journalist and graduate of the University of Florida, Phyllis writes. This case goes back to 1933. It was a murder in Pompinot.

Four black migrant workers eventually confessed to the crime after being tortured. And the eventual Supreme Court case then banned criminal confessions given through coercion. Phyllis also wrote us to let us know the book won an award for outstanding scholarly book on a Florida history topic by the Florida Historical Society, Chambers v. Florida and the Criminal Justice Revolution. You can send us your book's suggestion by emailing radio at the Florida Roundup.org. And that is our summer book special today. The Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami with assistance from WUSF in Tampa. The show is produced by Bridget O'Brien. Denise Royal is WLRN's senior producer of content streaming and news products.

WLRN's director of live original programming is Katie Munoz, and the vice president of radio is Peter Merce. The program's technical director is M.J. Smith. Engineering Help Beach, and every week from Doug Peterson, Harvey Bessard, and Ernesto J. Aaron Leibos provides our theme music, Aaron Leibos.com. Thanks for emailing, listening, and above all, supporting public radio in your slice of Florida. I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific weekend. You know,