Speaker Clarissa Thomasson, Author

CLARISSA THOMASSON

         Clarissa Thomasson was born and raised in Miami, Florida. She received a BA in English Literature from Duke University and an MA in English from the University of Florida. Thomasson taught English, journalism, and creative writing in Montgomery County, MD, until her retirement.

            Her first two novels, Defending Hillsborough and Reconstructing Hillsborough were chosen by the North Carolina Association of Public School Librarians for use in the high school study of the Civil War. Lorinda’s Legacy was “pick of the month” at Greensboro, NC Barnes and Noble.

            In 2000, Thomasson returned to Florida and now resides in Venice, FL. where she has written five children’s books in her Little Green Monkey series, four novels: Florida Shadows, Florida Secrets, Florida Sunset and Surviving Sarasota set in Southwest Florida, a World War II novel—Over the Bridge—and Venice Dreamers, which highlights Venice’s original settlers. Thomasson’s stage plays, Over the Bridge and Florida Shadows, each won first place in the Clarence “Bud” Jones Playwriting Competition at the Firehouse Theatre in LaBelle, FL, in 2014 and 2015.

            Thomasson is also a freelance writer–having written for GRAND magazine, Yesterday in Florida—where she won a 2005 Florida Trust for Historic Preservation Award for her contributions to Florida history—and Eastside Venice Neighbors—where she wrote monthly articles on Florida history. She is also a contributor to the Venice Gondolier.

            Thomasson’s newest book,  Forgotten Florida, which tells the story of the earliest American settlers on Florida’s west coast, was released September 1, 2022.

Forgotten Florida: An Engaging Story of the Building of Tallahassee, the Establishment of Key West, and the Settlement of Sanibel Island