Beloved author and documentary filmmaker Bill Belleville, whose work explored and celebrated the natural world in Florida, has passed away.
Belleville authored three books with University Press of Florida, beginning with Losing It All to Sprawl: How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape, which chronicles how he came to rediscover and love his historic Cracker farmhouse and neighborhood in central Florida even as it was wiped out from under him by development. Belleville’s next book, Salvaging the Real Florida: Lost and Found in the State of Dreams, a collection of essays on the beauty and hidden treasures of Florida’s environment, was the winner of a National Outdoor Book Award. His most recent book, The Peace of Blue: Water Journeys, is a lyrical journey to the natural places in Florida and the Caribbean that have been forged and shaped by water.
Carl Hiaasen once said that Bill Belleville “writes gorgeously and straight from the heart.” Diane Roberts said of Belleville, “He is our William Bartram, the poet of Florida’s fragile beauty, a passionate, intelligent chronicler of our disappearing wonders.” We are grateful to have worked with Bill Belleville as one of his publishers.
Books by Bill Belleville
Losing It All to Sprawl
How Progress Ate My Cracker Landscape
Salvaging the Real Florida
Lost and Found in the State of Dreams
The Peace of Blue
Water Journeys
The Florida Bookshelf 