Coming eVENTS

WHAT: 

Casa Feliz November Parlor Series

WHEN: 

Tuesday, November 19, 2024 (6:00-8:00pm)

Reception at 6:00 p.m., Program at 6:45 p.m.

Light refreshments will be served.

HOW: 

Pre-registration is required. Register your attendance BY CLICKING HERE.

Join the Winter Park History Museum and Friends of Casa Feliz for an engaging evening with Central Florida’s favorite historian and first-time novelist, Joy Wallace Dickinson.

About the Book:

Central Florida in the era when Casa Feliz was home to the Barbour family (1932-1951) offered a haven for well-heeled winter visitors and patrons of the arts to shake off the snowflakes and blossom in the sun. But just as bright sunshine produces spots of shade, it’s not surprising that the Sunshine State also harbored dark, mysterious areas, where some folks walked on the wild side. Illegal gambling had deep roots in Florida, especially through bolita, the lottery-style numbers game that was the bread and butter of underground Florida. At the Flamingo Café outside Orlando’s city limits, patrons could also engage in casino gambling in a secret back room. Join author Joy Wallace Dickinson to venture into the shadows and also kick off the release of her first novel, Secrets of the Flamingo Café.

 About the Author:

From 2000 to 2023, Joy Wallace Dickinson hundreds of “Florida Flashback” features for the Orlando Sentinel about aspects of Central Florida’s past. She’s also the author of three nonfiction books and one historical mystery and has received honors from the Florida Historical Society, the Historical Society of Central Florida, and AIA Orlando, for work that promotes an appreciation of historic architecture. In a past life, she worked at Stanford University Press and as a book and publication designer in San Francisco, where she helped complete graphic-standards projects for both Hewlett-Packard and Apple Inc.