The Key West Literary Seminar is a writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

s' conference and festival held each January in Key West

Key West

Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. It draws an international audience for readings, panel discussions, and workshops.

History

The Seminar was founded in 1983 by David Kaufelt and his wife Lynn Kaufelt, as a program operated by the Council for Florida Libraries. The inaugural event, known as the Key West Literary Tour and Seminar, consisted of readings, panel discussions, literary walking tours, and cocktail parties. This basic format remains unchanged.

In its early years, the Seminar focused on the literary history of Key West

Key West

Key West is an island in the Straits of Florida on the North American continent at the southernmost tip of the Florida Keys. Key West is home to the southernmost point in the Continental United States; the island is about from Cuba....

, a small subtropical town which has been home to Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...

, Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...

, Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...

, and Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

, among others. Subsequent Seminars have been devoted to broader genres or literary themes.

In 1987, the Seminar incorporated as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt corporation, run by a board of directors, with Lynn Kaufelt named as the executive director. In 1988, Monica Haskell became executive director. She was succeeded by Miles Frieden in 1995. Many well-known authors have served on the Seminar's board of directors, including Judy Blume

Judy Blume

Judy Blume is an American author. She has written many novels for children and young adults which have exceeded sales of 80 million and been translated into 31 languages...

, Harry Mathews

Harry Mathews

Harry Mathews is an American author of various novels, volumes of poetry and short fiction, and essays.-Life:Born in New York City to an upper class family, Mathews was educated at private schools there and at the Groton School in Massachusetts before enrolling at Princeton University in 1947...

, James Gleick

James Gleick

James Gleick is an American author, journalist, and biographer, whose books explore the cultural ramifications of science and technology...

, William Wright

William Wright

-Authors, poets and writers:*William Wright , real name of Dan DeQuille, American author, newspaperman, and humorist*William Wright , American author of Harvard's Secret Court: The Savage 1920 Purge of Campus Homosexuals...

, Richard Wilbur

Richard Wilbur

Richard Purdy Wilbur is an American poet and literary translator. He was appointed the second Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1987, and twice received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, in 1957 and again in 1989....

, and John Malcolm Brinnin

John Malcolm Brinnin

John Malcolm Brinnin was an American poet and literary critic. Brinnin was born in Halifax Nova Scotia to two United States citizens....

. An honorary board of directors has included popular singer Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett

James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday"...

, former First Lady Barbara Bush

Barbara Bush

Barbara Pierce Bush is the wife of the 41st President of the United States George H. W. Bush, and served as First Lady of the United States from 1989 to 1993. She is the mother of the 43rd President George W. Bush and of the 43rd Governor of Florida Jeb Bush...

, and writers Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard is an American author, best known for her narrative prose in both fiction and non-fiction. She has published works of poetry, essays, prose, and literary criticism, as well as two novels and one memoir. Her 1974 work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize for General...

, Robert Stone, Alison Lurie

Alison Lurie

Alison Lurie is an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she has also written numerous non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.-Personal...

, and Joy Williams

Joy Williams

Joy Williams is an American singer-songwriter and a member of the folk duo The Civil Wars.-Studio albums:* Joy Williams, 2001 [Reunion]* By Surprise, 2002 [Reunion]* Genesis, 2005 [Reunion]...

.

The Seminar was formerly held at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at Florida Keys Community College

Florida Keys Community College

Florida Keys Community College is a community college located in Key West, Florida . FKCC also operates two additional campuses in the Florida Keys; one in Marathon and another in Key Largo...

 on Stock Island. Since 1993, events have been held on Duval Street

Duval Street

Duval Street is a famous downtown commercial zoned street in Key West, Florida, running north and south from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean. Duval Street is the location of many famous restaurants and bars, including Sloppy Joe's, Fogarty's Restaurant, Bar and Bakery and it's "The...

 at the San Carlos Institute, a historic building whose construction was partly funded by the Republic of Cuba during the 1920s. The seminar begins each year with the John Hersey Memorial Address and features a series of receptions at notable Key West locations.

Through a website, the Seminar offers audio recordings of past events, biographies of past and forthcoming speakers, and information about Key West's literary history.

Key West Literary Seminar themes by year:

• 1983: Key West Literary Tour and Seminar
• 1984: Key West Literary Tour and Seminar
• 1985: Hemingway: A Moveable Feast
• 1986: Tennessee Williams in Key West
• 1987: Writers & Key West
• 1988: Whodunit? The Art & Tradition of Mystery Literature
• 1989: The American Short Story: A Renaissance
• 1990: New Directions in American Theatre
• 1991: Literature of Travel: A Sense of Place
• 1992: Literature and Film
• 1993: Emily Dickson's Dead
• 1994: Biography and Autobiography
• 1995: Journalism
• 1996: American Writers and The Natural World
• 1997: Literature in the Age of AIDS
• 1998: Once Upon A Time: Children's Literature in the Late 20th Century
• 1999: The American Novel
• 2000: The Memoir
• 2001: Science and Literature: Narratives of Discovery
• 2002: Spirit of Place
• 2003: The Beautiful Changes: Poetry
• 2004: Crossing Borders: The Immigrant Voice in American Literature
• 2005: Humor
• 2006: The Literature of Adventure, Travel, and Discovery
• 2007: Wondrous Strange: Mystery, Intrigue, and Psychological Drama
• 2008: New Voices: Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?
• 2009: Historical Fiction and The Search for Truth
• 2010: Clearing the Sill of the World: 60 Years of American Poetry
• 2011: The Hungry Muse: an exploration of food in literature