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One of the great pleasures of hosting The Miami Book Hub is discovering how much literary energy already exists in our community, often hiding in plain sight.
That truth came through clearly in my recent conversation with Amy Nicole Naim, Vice President and Director of PR and Marketing for the South Florida Writers Association (SFWA). What began as a discussion about one organization became something larger: a reminder that while writing may be solitary work, becoming a writer rarely happens alone.
Amy described SFWA in the simplest and best possible terms: “writers supporting writers.” That phrase stayed with me. In a city more readily associated with beaches, nightlife, and real estate than with books and manuscripts, there is something powerful about a nonprofit community built around encouragement, education, and shared opportunity. Conversations like this one remind me that Miami has its own literary story to tell.
For emerging writers especially, that kind of support matters. Writing the book is only part of the journey. After that comes the confusing world of editing, querying, publishing, marketing, sales, and figuring out where your work belongs. For many, that second phase is far more intimidating than the blank page. Plenty of aspiring authors can imagine writing a manuscript in private; far fewer know what to do once it is finished. Who do you trust? Where do you begin? Should you self-publish, pursue an agent, hire an editor, build a platform, learn social media, or attend conferences?
That is what makes organizations like SFWA so valuable. They do more than cheer people on. They offer practical guidance, useful resources, and reassurance that confusion and self-doubt are part of the process. Amy spoke about the organization’s meetings, contests, newsletter, critique groups, conference, podcast, and opportunities for members to connect and showcase their work. In other words, SFWA is not just a club. It is an ecosystem.
What impressed me most about Amy, and about SFWA more broadly, was the absence of gatekeeping. Too often, creative fields can feel competitive in the least productive—even destructive—way. People hold their contacts close, protect access, and treat other talented people as threats rather than allies. But the culture Amy described was the opposite: members share contacts, amplify one another’s projects, trade advice, and create opportunities for each other. It is a rising-tide-lifts-all-boats model, and Miami’s literary scene is better for it.
Amy herself embodies that spirit. Her own work spans genres and purposes: Advocate, shaped by her family’s health journey and her exploration of holistic medicine; a gratitude journal designed to foster reflection and self-discovery; an upcoming memoir about her transformation from New York luxury brand publicist to Miami mom and author; and a moving project built around a letter from her grandfather about his World War II service. What connects these works is not just creativity, but care: the desire to make meaning from experience and then offer that meaning to others. That, in many ways, is the heart of writing.
Our conversation also touched on the changing realities of publishing. Amy has self-published. I am self-publishing my first novel. And we both acknowledged a truth many aspiring authors discover: whether you pursue traditional publishing or go independent, much of the responsibility still falls on the writer. The old image of the author as a lone genius backed by an all-powerful publishing house has been replaced by something more complicated: artist, entrepreneur, marketer, publicist, and community-builder all rolled into one.
Miami needs more of that. More places where writers can find one another. More institutions—like SFWA, the Miami Book Fair, The Jitney and Books & Books—that treat literary culture as something worth investing in. More reminders that stories are not luxuries; they are part of how a city understands itself.
If my conversation with Amy reinforced anything, it is this: Miami’s literary community is real, vibrant, and growing. Sometimes all it needs is a little visibility, and a few more people willing to say, “Come on in.”
I encourage you to learn more about SFWA and Amy Nicole Naim at SouthFloridaWriters.org, and AmyNicoleNaim.com, respectively.
To view this full interview and other episodes of The Miami Book Hub visit my YouTube channel at YouTube.com/@J.AdrianBetancourt.
