Zone One, the highly anticipated fifth novel from MacArthur Fellow Colson Whitehead, hit the shelves and electronic delivery channels yesterday. It deals with the living dead in the city that never sleeps. Here’s what people are saying: “The best book of the fall…Zone One formulates an essential equation: the measure …Read More
Julie Salamon’s extraordinary new book, Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein, includes a moving account of the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright’s visit to Key West for the 2005 Seminar. Wasserstein was already showing signs of the illness which would end her life less than a year …Read More
In an earlier post, we revealed that fellow poets James Schuyler and Elizabeth Bishop were joined in service for their country on the Key West Navy base in the summer of 1943. Schuyler, 19, was enrolled in Sonar School; Bishop, 32, volunteered in the optical shop until the chemicals made …Read More
Another paper treasure from the Key West library: the last library card of great American playwright Tennessee Williams; paired with the “urgent request” to return an overdue biography of John Keats, whose “Ode to a Nightingale,” includes the line “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!” Tennessee, nicknamed “Bird” …Read More
After completing a quiet-but-thorough redesign of our online audio archive, we’re pleased to let you know about the addition of two new recordings. Adam Gopnik’s “The Rituals of Taste” preserves his keynote address from the 2011 Seminar, “The Hungry Muse.” This tour-de-force lecture examines two ideas of taste: one, the …Read More
We’ve just come across a remarkable set of photographs. Donated by the Campbell, Poirier, and Pound families to the Monroe County Public Library, the Heritage House Collection contains more than 400 images of Key West from the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Of greatest interest to us is a handful of …Read More
Lanford Wilson died this week. The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright was 73. Wilson participated in the Seminar twice, first in 1986 for an event dedicated to the work of Tennessee Williams; and again in 1990, for “New Directions in American Theater.” He served as an adviser to our board for the …Read More
Tennessee Williams would turn 100 this weekend, were he still with us. A happy birthday to his memory, with thanks to the good people at saveourpines.com for passing along the following from a 1953 letter to Maria St. Just née Britneva: “A few last golden days in the Key West …Read More