Meet the Author: Annabelle Tometich

Join us at the first ever Mango Night Market and meet SWFL’s own, Annabelle Tometich. Tometich will be in person signing her book, The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida and Felony as well as hosting a discussion that will be open to the public.

About the author:

Annabelle Tometich went from medical school reject to line cook to journalist to author. She spent eighteen years as a food writer, editor, and restaurant critic for The News-Press in her hometown of Fort Myers, Florida.

Tometich’s writing has appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, Catapult, the Tampa Bay Times, and many more outlets. She has won more than a dozen awards for her stories, including first place for Food & Travel Writing at the 2022 Sunshine State Awards. She (still) lives in Fort Myers with her husband, two children, and her ever-fiery Filipina mother. Her first book is “The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony.”

About the book: 

With clear-eyed compassion and piercing honesty, The Mango Tree is a family saga that navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle’s life, from her childhood days in an overflowing house flooded by balikbayan boxes, vegetation, and juicy mangoes, to her winding path from medical school hopeful to restaurant critic. It is a love letter to her fellow Filipino Americans, her lost younger self, and the beloved fruit tree at the heart of her family. But above all, it is an ode to Annabelle’s hot-blooded, whip-smart mother Josefina, a woman who made a life and a home of her own, and without whom Annabelle would not have herself.