THE HUNGRY MUSE

Each year in January, the Key West Literary Seminar explores a different literary theme, bringing acclaimed writers and readers from all over the world together in this historic island city. Four days of readings, conversations, lectures, panel discussions, and parties add up to an event that is one of today's smartest and most high-spirited literary gatherings.

This year, for the first time, we explore food in literature. The Hungry Muse will present dozens of today’s most compelling, thought-provoking, and funniest writers– memoirists, novelists, poets, historians, journalists, and all manner of lettered gastronome, gourmand, and epicure. It promises to be a mouthwatering and fascinating investigation not simply of the stuff we eat, but of all the things food stands for in our thoughts and words and stories.

When asked why she wrote about food, the incomparable M.F.K. Fisher answered, "It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and intertwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it ... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied ... and it is all one."

The Hungry Muse will consist of two independent four-day sessions. For a general sense of the Seminar program, please download the .pdf of the schedule for last year's event. We will announce the complete 2011 program in late summer or early fall. Our Writers’ Workshop Program takes place January 9 - 13.

Session One: January 6 - 9, 2011

Diana Abu-Jaber, Roy Blount Jr., Frank Bruni, Billy Collins, Jason Epstein, Jonathan Gold, Darra Goldstein, Daniel Halpern, Madhur Jaffrey, Judith Jones, Harry Mathews, Bich Minh Nguyen, Molly O’Neill, Julia Reed, Ruth Reichl, and Calvin Trillin.

Session Two: January 13 - 16, 2011

Elizabeth Berg, Roy Blount Jr., Kate Christensen, Billy Collins, John T. Edge, Adam Gopnik, Gael Greene, Jane Hirshfield, Madhur Jaffrey, Mark Kurlansky, David Mas Masumoto, Nicole Mones, Bich Minh Nguyen, Molly O’Neill, Michael Ruhlman, Calvin Trillin, and Kevin Young.

You may register for either or both Seminar sessions, with or without a writers’ workshop. Admission to the Seminar is $495; this includes all literary events at the San Carlos Institute, as well as social events at various venues. Admission to the writers' workshops is between $400 and $450. An early sell-out is likely, and so advance registration is strongly encouraged. For more information, click the registration link at the bottom of this page.

For a multi-media look at our most recent Seminar, Clearing the Sill of the World: an exploration of 60 years of American poetry, check out its archive on our online journal Littoral.

—THE HUNGRY MUSE—
Complete Speakers List
Writers' Workshop Program
Awards & Financial Aid
Lodging Guide