Key West Literary Seminar

Brooks and Unsworth to give Keynotes

Gala Evening with Gore Vidal Planned

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Newsboy._Little_Fattie.jpg Pulitzer Prize-winning Australian novelist Geraldine Brooks will deliver the John Hersey Memorial Address on Thursday, January 8, 2009, during the first session of our twenty-seventh annual Key West Literary Seminar: Historical Fiction and The Search for Truth. Booker Prize-winner Barry Unsworth will have the honors for the second session, delivering his keynote on January 15.

Each year, we begin the Seminar with The John Hersey Memorial Address, established by members of the literary community in fond remembrance of Hersey (1914-1993), a much-loved figure in Key West, where he lived with Barbara, his wife, for many years. Hersey's writings include the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Bell for Adano, Hiroshima, A Single Pebble, and Key West Tales.

On Saturday, January 10, we will host a special Gala Evening with Gore Vidal. The famed iconoclast and prolific writer returns to the island he came to know as a friend of Tennessee Williams in the 1950s. This event is in memory of John Malcom Brinnin (1916-1999), another greatly-loved Key West figure, the author of several collections of poetry, as well as biography and social criticism including Dylan Thomas in America, The Third Rose: Gertrude Stein and Her World, and The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic.

Click here for pictures of John Hersey and John Malcolm Brinnin from the KWLS archives.

Image of six year-old newsboy, "Little Fattie," is by photographer Lewis Hine, 1910. It is in the public domain.

The journal of the Key West Literary Seminar features recordings from our audio archives, exclusive interviews, essays, news about the Seminar, and dispatches from Key West's literary past and present. It is created by Arlo Haskell. Send email to arlo [at] kwls [dot] org

Each January, we explore a different literary theme through lectures, panel presentations, readings, informal gatherings, and discussions. In January 2011, we explore food in literature with our 29th annual Seminar, THE HUNGRY MUSE.

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About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by Arlo Haskell published on June 13, 2008 12:54 PM.

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Audio recordings on this page and elsewhere on www.kwls.org are being made available for educational and noncommmercial use only. All rights to the recorded  material belong to the author or authors speaking. © 2008, 2009.

The Key West Literary Seminar Audio Archives Project is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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National Endowment for the Arts