Key West Literary Seminar

Nicole Mones is an acclaimed novelist whose works draw from her experiences in China, where she began a successful textile trading business in 1977. Her books, including A Cup of Light, Lost in Translation, and The Last Chinese Chef, frequently explore Chinese culture thro...

Junot Díaz reads from his Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007), and, in far-ranging comments, addresses the danger inherent in a dominant authorial voice. “No matter how many ruses I use,” Díaz says, “I’m the only one speaking.R...

Current U.S. Poet Laureate Charles Simic reads and comments upon his poems “White Room,” “Mirrors at 4 a.m.,” and “The Friends of Heraclitus.” From the 2003 Key West Literary Seminar. From KWLS 2003: The Beautiful Changes This recording is available for noncommerc...

This 2008 reading features poet Kevin Young reading a selection of then-recent work, including “Aunties,” “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” “Black Cat Blues,” “Hang Dog Blues,” “Flash Flood Blues,” “Ode To The Hotel Near The Children...

In response to a panel discussion titled Poets and Their Work: Poetry as Its Own Biography (personal I vs. poetic eye), John Ashbery delivers a “mini-lecture” on so-called confessional poetry and the work of Elizabeth Bishop. At the conclusion of the lecture, Ashbery reads his “Soo...

Kay Ryan is the current Poet Laureate of the United States. Her work has drawn comparisons to Emily Dickinson, Marianne Moore, and Elizabeth Bishop, and like these poets, Ryan’s masterfully concise poems fuse acute observation of the physical world with equally sharp introspection; they are bo...

Acclaimed science and technology writer James Gleick leads Year of the Flood author Margaret Atwood, British novelist China Miéville, and American writer Joyce Carol Oates in a discussion of the tensions between the real and the unreal inherent in writing and reading works of fiction.

Pulitzer finalist James Gleick and theoretical physicist-cum-novelist Janna Levin discuss the tensions between science and art evidenced by her novel, A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines. Why stray from the “facts,” Gleick wonders, in telling a story of Alan Turing and Kurt Gödel, two of...

This podcast features a talk by the immensely charming Mary Kay Zuravleff from the morning of January 14th, 2007. We badly bungle the pronunciation of her name on the intro: we’re sorry, Mary Kay! From KWLS 2007: Wondrous Strange This recording is available for noncommercial and educational us...

Steve Stern spoke at the 2007 Seminar on January 14th, on the topic of “Memories of Amnesia: Jewish Folklore and the Mystery of Identity.” In Stern’s hands this was a funnier topic than the title might lead you to believe; he had them rolling in the aisles, leading one attendee to ...

On January 14th, 2007 Margaret Atwood and Michael Cunningham sat down on the Key West Literary Seminar stage for a conversation on the topic of “Speculative Fiction and the Art of Subversion” From KWLS 2007: Wondrous Strange This recording is available for noncommercial and educational u...

Joyce Carol Oates is the author of more than 50 novels, as well as many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. In this recording from the 2012 seminar, Oates reads “San Quentin,” a short story based on her experience teaching English at San Quentin State Prison in the spring of 2011.