Among the Archives: March 2008 Archives

For our fourth annual event, in 1986, we honored playwright and Key West habitué, Tennessee Williams. The graphic design of the program and poster, as in 1985, is simple and direct. The Martha Swopes photograph shows a dapper, not-quite-at-ease Williams, seated in a wicker rocking chair on the telltale terrazo floors of a Key West home. The font is a straight-ahead serif, printed on glossy stock. We were the Key West Literary Seminar and Festival, it seems, and we were administrated by the Friends of the Monroe County Public Library. Then-President of the Friends, Petronella Collins, pens a delightful early statement of our intents: "The correct mix of intellectuality and frivolity has, over the centuries, proved extraordinarily successful. As our Literary Seminar evolved, the keen judgement and clairvoyance of the Council for Florida Libraries was combined with the magic of Key West to produce a mix of very fine quality."

Yes, intellectuality and frivolity. A fine mix indeed, one whose perfect proportions ever eluded Tennessee:

Frankie and I (let's face it!) have fallen into a virtual social oblivion here. A great old Queen Bee named Erna Shtoll or Shmole or something like that has arrived on the scene and become the center of gay society. Bedecked with yellow diamonds like 1000 watt light bulbs on the marquee of a skating rink, she holds continual court on the beach and at the bars, the boys flock to her like gnats. ...

A regular focus of this blog will be the treasures I breathlessly retrieve from the depths of the KWLS archives. This first installment is a poster from our 3rd annual, way back in 1985. It hearkens to a simpler, perhaps more elegant, time: two colors, ink and paper, professional type-setting, an ordinary handsome mug. All you need to know, and little more.