Bringing Jesse Home: A Story of Canine Rescue

Come visit with Author Dorothy Smiljanich as she discusses her book, "Bringing Jesse Home"

"Set in rural north Florida, as well as sunny Clearwater, “Bringing Jessie Home, A Story of Canine Rescue, Human Redemption” celebrates the bond between human beings and their canine companions. It tells the true story of Jessie’s unexpected appearance, a curious coincidence of names, a magical fox, a guinea pig in a shoe box, a visit to Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’ Cross Creek in search of a hobbled piglet, a life-changing stint as a volunteer at Best Friends animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah and what one philosopher called “the great shining of inner worlds.”

Dorothy Smiljanich is an award-winning editor and writer who has worked for Florida newspapers including the Gainesville Sun, the Clearwater Sun, the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), and, most recently, the Tampa Tribune, where she was travel editor. Her 2007 biography, Then Sings My Soul: The Scott Kelly Story, was published by the Florida Historical Society Press and won the Charlton Tebeau Book Award for Best General Interest History Book that year. She wrote the text for Quite The Show, which features nature photographs of Paynes Prairie and was published by the Friends of Paynes Prairie. She has a B.A. and an M.A. in English from the University of Florida and taught there, as well as at the University of South Florida in Tampa and St. Petersburg College in St. Petersburg. She was born in Camden, N.J., grew up in Clearwater, and now lives in Gainesville, Florida.