Patricia Engel We are delighted to learn that Patricia Engel has signed a two-book deal with New York-based publishing house Grove/Atlantic. The winner of our 2009 Marianne Russo Scholarship, Engel tells us to look for Vida, her debut collection of short stories, in the Fall of 2010. A novel, as yet untitled, will follow. You can read Engel's work online in Guernica, Slice, and Boston Review (here and here). Vida's title story, about a Colombian girl who is trafficked into prostitution in Miami, is in print in Harpur Palate 8.1. Check Littoral again soon for an audio recording of Engel's reading from our 28th Seminar this past January.

Congratulations, Patricia!

Photos by Michael Blades Marilynne Robinson has been named the winner of the 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction for her third novel, Home. Robinson, who joined us at the 27th Key West Literary Seminar this past January, was the unanimous choice of the judges, who cited Home for the "luminous quality" of its writing, as well as its ability "to draw the reader into a world of hope, expectation, misunderstanding, love, and kindness."

The Orange, awarded at a ceremony in London last night, is given annually to the best English-language novel written by a woman. It is considered one of the U.K.'s most prestigious awards, and includes a cash prize of £30,000. Past winners include Valerie Martin, and this year's shortlist included Samantha Hunt, both of whom joined Robinson in Key West for our recent Seminar.

photo by Robert Van Otteren Three-time United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has been named the keynote speaker for the 28th annual Key West Literary Seminar. Pinsky will deliver the John Hersey Memorial Address on Thursday, January 7, 2010, to kick off Clearing the Sill of the World, a celebration of 60 years of American poetry that will feature a total of eight Poets Laureate, including current Laureate Kay Ryan, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, and our guest of honor Richard Wilbur.

As Poet Laureate from 1997-2000, Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, an enormously popular initiative dedicated to celebrating, documenting, and encouraging poetry's role in Americans' lives. This unique project resulted in a series of video documentaries showcasing individual Americans reading and speaking personally about poems they love, as well as an anthology, Americans' Favorite Poems, that is now in its 18th printing. In addition to this project, Pinsky has championed poetry's presence in American life with columns in The Washington Post and Slate, television appearances on The Simpsons and The Colbert Report, and videos on internet outlets including YouTube and BigThink. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Gulf Music; collections of essays including the National Book Critics' Circle Award-nominated Poetry and the World; and translations including the work of Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz and a landmark version of Dante's Inferno that received the Los Angeles Times Book Award in poetry and the Howard Morton Landon Prize for translation.

The John Hersey Memorial Address was established by members of the literary community in fond remembrance of Hersey (1914-1993), an acclaimed journalist, novelist, short-story writer, and 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.

We are now accepting applications for our 2010 Scholarship Program. Click here for complete details.

The Key West Literary Seminar's three named scholarships- the Joyce Horton Johnson Fiction Award, the Marianne Russo Scholarship, and the Scotti Merrill Scholarship- recognize excellence in a manuscript submission from an emerging writer. Each provides full tuition to our January Seminar and Writers' Workshop Program, support for travel, lodging, and living expenses while in Key West, and an opportunity to appear on stage during the Seminar. In addition to these scholarships, we provide limited financial assistance to writers, students, teachers, and librarians who would otherwise not be able to attend the Seminar or Writers' Workshop Program.

In only two years, our scholarship program has supported more than 100 individuals with nearly $100,000 in fee waivers and lodging and travel assistance. This assistance is made possible by extraordinarily generous support from our community. We are grateful to Joyce Johnson, The Dogwood Foundation, and The Rodel Charitable Foundation-Florida for providing the endowments which will support our scholarship program for years to come; to Judy Blume's KIDS Fund for financial assistance to teachers and librarians; and to our board of directors and the many individuals whose support allows young writers to join the Seminar and Writers' Workshop Program each year.

Visit our Scholarships page for complete application guidelines and a list of past winners.

We're happy to announce that two of our most popular faculty members will be returning for the Writers' Workshop Program next January 11-14. Two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins will offer a three-day workshop titled "Strategies in Reader-Based Poetry." "'Reader-based poetry' might sound as redundant as the medical field known as 'patient care,'" Collins explains in the course listing, "but, sadly, that is not the case. Our gathering will have as its starting point the poet's duty to engage and sustain the attention of a reader."

Also returning to the program is Dara Wier, director of the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-director of the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action. Her four-day workshop, "Discovering What You Want to Say," promises to stress the importance of "poets as readers of their own poems, and poets as writers who thrive on upsetting some of the conventions of writing and reading." In contrast to Collins's approach, Wier says "It's most important for you to be your own best reader, not your only reader, but your most insightful, alert, aware, difficult, hungry, demanding, and encouraging reader."

Other faculty include E.J. Miller Laino, whose four-day workshop is called "Getting To The Next Level: The Practice of Poetry." Miller Laino has published poems in journals and magazines including The American Poetry Review and New York Quarterly, and teaches creative writing and poetry workshops at Florida Keys Community College. She first taught in our program in 2003.

More writers' workshops and faculty members will be announced in the coming weeks. Our Writers' Workshop Program main page will list all faculty members and provide links to course description, requirements, and biographical material. Click here to register for a writers' workshop.

Photo by Fred Viebahn We are delighted to announced the addition of Rita Dove to our roster of speakers for the Key West Literary Seminar next January. Dove joins current United States Poet Laureate Kay Ryan, and past Laureates Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Robert Pinsky, Maxine Kumin, and Mark Strand for our 28th annual event, intended as a celebration of 60 years of American poetry and a tribute to Richard Wilbur, himself a former Laureate. Dove served two terms in the office, from 1993-1995, and was also appointed a Special Bientennial Consultant in 1999. At 40 years old, she was the youngest poet to hold the office, appointed each year by the Librarian of Congress and meant to serve as "the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans."

Dove's collections of poetry include Thomas and Beulah, which won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize; a 1993 Selected Poems; and the forthcoming Sonata Mulattica. Her collaboration with composer John Williams on the song cycle Seven for Luck was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and her play The Darker Face of the Earth has been produced at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and the Royal National Theatre in London, among other venues.

You can learn more about Rita Dove on her KWLS Speaker Page. See all of this year's speakers here.

Register for 2010.

Video coverage of the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar has begun to air on cable television channel C-SPAN's Book-TV and is available on their website. Our entire January 10 program will air Saturday March 14, 2009, from 10:00 a.m until 3:45 p.m.; again (for the nightowls) on Sunday March 15, from 11:00 p.m. until 4:45 a.m.; and again during the weekend of April 4, 5, 6. The nearly six hours of programming from our January 10 sessions includes Gore Vidal in conversation with Jay Parini, Eric Foner's dazzling lecture "Who Owns History?," and a fascinating conversation between W.E.B. DuBois scholar David Levering Lewis and Michael and Ivy Meeropol, the son and granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

Check your local listings to find out what channel Book-TV is on in your area, and the program listings for times. Links to videos at Book-TV.org are listed below. (Please note that the C-SPAN video player will launch in a pop-up window, so you may have to disable your pop-up blocker in order to see them.)

    • "Writer Against the Grain": Gore Vidal with Jay Parini
     (you can also see a shorter excerpt of this on YouTube)

    • Eric Foner: "Who Owns History?"

    • Michael and Ivy Meeropol in conversation with David Levering Lewis

    • Barry Unsworth reading from Land of Marvels

    • "How Can We Know (and Tell) What Happened in the Past": panel discussion with Eric Foner, Jill Lepore, David Levering Lewis, Megan Marshall, Patricia O'Toole.

    • "The Boundaries of History, Historical Fiction, and the Limits of Invention": panel discussion with Peter Ho Davies, Sena Jeter Naslund, Megan Marshall, Michael Meeropol, Patricia O'Toole, and Barry Unsworth.

    • Alan Cheuse reads from To Catch the Lightning

    • Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore: "Taking Liberty– Fiction and the Archives"

U.S. Poets Laureate past and present, from top left: Charles Simic, Kay Ryan, Robert Pinsky, Maxine Kumin, Billy Collins, Mark Strand, and Richard Wilbur at center. Photos by Richard Drew, Christina Koci Hernandez, Emma Dodge Hanson, Associated Press, Steven Kovich, Emily Mott, and Stathis Orphanos.

Clearing the sill of the world, the 28th annual Key West Literary Seminar, will feature a cast of poets including seven past and present United States Poets Laureate. The office, appointed annually by the Librarian of Congress since 1937, exists to "raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry," and serve as "the nation's official lightning rod for the poetic impulse of Americans."

Joining us in Key West next January are Richard Wilbur, Laureate from 1987-1988 under Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin, who called him "a poet for us all, whose elegant words brim with wit and paradox. He is also a poet's poet, at home in the long tradition and traveled ways of the great poets of our language." Maxine Kumin, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1973, served as Laureate from 1981-1982, where she was noted for a popular series of poetry workshops for women she started at the Library of Congress. Mark Strand, whose most recent work is Man and Camel, served from 1990-1991. His work has earned Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes and has been called by Octavio Paz "the opening to a transparent verbal perfection." Robert Pinsky, currently the poetry editor at Slate, served an unprecedented three terms as Laureate, from 1997-2000. While in office, Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, which documents thousands of Americans of diverse occupations, education, and backgrounds reading and talking about the poems they love. Billy Collins served two terms as Laureate, from 2001-2003, and founded Poetry 180, a teaching aid for high school students based on the belief that "poems can inspire and make us think about what it means to be a member of the human race." Collins has joined us for the Seminar nearly every year since he left office, and is an annual favorite of the students who join us from Key West High School. Charles Simic, a Yugoslavian immigrant who later served in the U.S. Army, is a MacArthur Fellow, a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and a Pulitzer Prize winner. He was appointed Poet Laureate in August of 2007, on the same day he received the $100,000 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry." The current Poet Laureate is Kay Ryan, winner of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize from The Poetry Foundation and an Ingram Merrill Foundation Award. Of her work, Ryan has said "An almost empty suitcase-that's what I want my poems to be. A few things. The reader starts taking them out, but they keep multiplying."

You can learn more about these and the other poets joining us in January by visiting our speakers page, which contains biographical information and links to resources like interviews and audio recordings from around the web. To learn more about the office of Poet Laureate, visit the Library of Congress.

Update: We've added an eighth Laureate: Rita Dove.

Register for 2010: clearing the sill of the world

The San Carlos Institute panorama. Photo by Curt Richter.

As we unpack the boxes, the discs, the jump drives, and the emails from our 27th Key West Literary Seminar– Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth– we've uncovered this fine collection of pictures and quotes (thanks, Nan Klingener). Visit our podcasts page to listen to readings and talks by Allan Gurganus, Geraldine Brooks, and Barry Unsworth; and check back often for many more in the year ahead.


"The true parts of my story are the least probable, the most unbelievable," said Elizabeth Gaffney, author of Metropolis, shown here with Dominion author Calvin Baker. Photo by Nick Vagnoni.


Michael Meeropol after a discussion with his daughter, Ivy about the complicated legacy of his parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Photo by Nick Vagnoni.


Andrea Barrett, at left, responding to a question about what she's working on now, said she started researching the delay and eventual spread of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, aided by Sir Arthur Eddington, which led her down many pathways of reading ("To say I start incoherently would be generous," she said)– and one of her major realizations so far is that "everything begins with an E." This would include Einstein, eclipses, Eddington, the ether of space (which she said started her off on the first place) and, of course, e=mc².

Samantha Hunt explained the genesis of her novel The Invention of Everything Else– she was at a museum exhibit that included a reference to Alessandro Volta, realized she didn't know much about him and should look him up when she returned home. But once in front of her computer, she found herself instead looking up Nikola Tesla, the man who invented radio and AC electrical technology and is at the center of her novel. She said she thinks she looked up Tesla because she was thinking of "the 90s hair metal band." "I actually sent them copies of the book, but never heard back from them," she said.
Photos by Nick Vagnoni.


"History is told from the present and that present changes."– David Nasaw, historian and biographer, at the opening of the second session. Photos by Nick Vagnoni.


Rachel Kushner and Chantel Acevedo discuss Cuba and the politics of historical fiction. Photo by Nick Vagnoni.


William Kennedy reading from a work-in-progress. Photo by Curt Richter.

For the writers who join us each January, one of the highlights is the Friday night writers' party. Seward and Joyce Johnson hosted this one at their southernmost home. Photos by Curt Richter


Thomas Mallon and Phyllis Rose


Calvin Baker and Andrea Barrett


Barry Unsworth and Lily Prigioniero


William Kennedy

We should have some pictures and words about Session 2 later today. In the meantime, check out Chauncey Mabe's coverage in Off the Page, the books and culture blog for the Florida Sun-Sentinel.

An innovative collaborative project, combining Curt Richter's Key West portrait photography and the literary talents of over a dozen writers, is now on view at the Key West Armory, 600 White Street. Entitled "Still and All," the exhibition comprises 18 exquisite images, each with an accompanying biographical text panel. An opening reception will be held on Thursday 15 January from 5 to 9pm, and the public is invited.

Still and All has been produced as a partnership between The Studios of Key West and the Key West Literary Seminar, and began during Curt Richter's initial visit to the island as Artist-in-Residence in January 2008. Based at the Mango Tree House, on the campus of The Studios of Key West, Richter shot over 60 subjects ranging from local shop-keepers to notable visiting writers. As a first-time visitor to the island, he found inspiration in both his new subjects and his temporary tropical home.

"I came to Key West without any preconceived goal or ambition. I began meeting people, and then started asking them to sit for a portrait with my 8 x 10 camera. After the first dozen, I realized how special this place is. My entire understanding of the island, and its sense of place, emerged from the experience of taking these portraits."

Back at his home base in Helsinki, Finland, Richter processed and printed his Key West portraits throughout 2008. And after editing hundreds of images, he began planning a new body of work to coincide withe the 2009 season.

"The Literary Seminar announced its upcoming theme, 'Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth', and that inspired us to invite writers to contribute new biographies for each portrait," says project coordinator and director of The Studios, Eric Holowacz. "We wanted to play around with the notion of what is being perceived and what is considered true, and we wanted to add a strong literary component to the exhibition. We wanted new, impossible stories."

Here's a selection of photos from Session One of the 27th annual Key West Literary Seminar. See more– by photographers Curt Richter, Oliver Parini, Michael Blades, and Nick Vagnoni– and upload your own photos on our facebook page.


Gore Vidal and Jay Parini onstage for the John Malcolm Brinnin Memorial Event. Photo by Oliver Parini.


This year's stage was designed by Michael Boyer with portrait painter Elionora Hinds. Photo by Curt Richter.


In the crowd for Gore Vidal. Faces, left to right, include Peter, Marc Mewshaw, Mike Mewshaw, Linda Mewshaw, Donald Stewart, Luisa Stewart, Peter Matthiessen, Marie Chaix, Harry Mathews, Lincoln Perry. Photo by Michael Blades.


At the Sunday conch chowder luncheon in the garden of the Oldest House: Allan Gurganus, John Wray, Sarah Sarchin. Photo by Curt Richter.


Fabian Bouthillette and Oliver Parini at the lighthouse dinner Friday evening. Photo by Curt Richter.

Photo of Peter Matthiessen onstage at the Key West Literary Semianr by Michael Blades. Story by Nan Klingener.

Peter Matthiessen, winner of the 2008 National Book Award for fiction, returned to the Seminar with a talk and reading about Shadow Country, the novel that reworks the story he told in the Watson trilogy, Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man's River, and Bone by Bone.

Matthiessen said it's not a revision but a distillation and in some ways an entirely new work. "Virtually every sentence is changed," he said.

He spoke about the research and imagination that went into telling the story of Edgar Watson, who was gunned down by the residents of Chokoloskee in 1910. "Very little is known about him, but a great deal was written about him," Matthiessen said. "It was all myth and legend.... The only hard facts, literally, were what I could find on gravestones."

Watson was reported to have killed dozens of people, and he did get into a lot of disputes– especially when drunk, Matthiessen said.

"He was very good about everything he did except keeping his temper," Matthiessen said. Some of those fights took place right here in Key West, where Watson would come to trade and buy goods. "He had a notable fight on Duval Street with somebody or other," he said.

Watson usually behaved respectably in Fort Myers, where his daughter was married to a banker. "When he was in Key West or Tampa, he was a demon– especially in Key West."

Photo of Barry Unsworth by Nick Vagnoni. Story by Nan Klingener.

Barry Unsworth made it worth getting out of bed Sunday morning with an illuminating talk explaining why and how he writes historical fiction, and why we read it. The talk was titled "Why Bother With the Past?"

"We haven't got any choice in the matter," Unsworth said in answer to that question. "The past is being forged moment to moment as we live."

Each of us is the result of choices made in the past by our parents, grandparents, and beyond– in Unsworth's case, his father's decision to leave the mining work where sons followed fathers under the ground, go to the U.S. and Canada, and, upon returning to England, work in the insurance business. With those decisions, "he rescued my brother and me from that long chain of continuity, which is what happened in mining villages," Unsworth said.

In his own life, he can trace back the influences not only of his father's choices but of 1930s economic conditions, the aftermath of World War I, 19th century labor disputes, and beyond. Everyone has these "tracks and traces behind us which give us our identifty," Unsworth said.

Our understanding of the past relies on and requires narrative, lines that we can follow to understand who we are, why we're here. "Without this facility, without this necessity of story, we would be lost in the labyrinth," Unsworth said. "We wouldn't find our way."

Unsworth said he writes historical fiction because he has lived outside of England for at least half his life– in Greece, Turkey, and now in Italy– so he doesn't feel the flavor of contemporary English life and chooses not to write about fellow expatriates. And in the places he has lived "the past is always there, lying in wait for you, just around the corner. It's screaming out at you," he said.

In his work, Unsworth said he looks for "patterns in the past which can be applied to the present, given the differences" so that "contradictions and paradoxes serve to illuminate in some way the present."

"The past is another country, we know. It's not recoverable," Unsworth said. Each of us realizes this about our own lives in remembering childhood. "But we know at the same time that we never lost it– it belongs to us; it made us what we are."

Thanks again for the following to board member Nancy Klingener. Photo by Curt Richter.

"The line between historical fiction and historical scholarship is not as hard and fast as we might think."
–Eric Foner, Columbia history professor

"History is not and should not aspire to be a science."
–Eric Foner

"You actually get a time and place if you get their jokes."
–Jill Lepore, Harvard professor, New Yorker writer, and Red Sox fan

"History has so little inevitable about it."
–David Levering Lewis, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner

"Truth is often stranger than fiction, but it's worthwhile pursuing it. I don't like arranging marriages for my historical characters."
–Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize winner and KWLS keynote speaker

"Trouble is our subject matter and it's never-ending."
–Allan Gurganus, author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All

Thanks to Greg Needham for permission to reprint the following from his blog. Greg's agency, Needham Fatica, designed our site.

Gore Vidal spoke in Key West last night and it was a magnificent event. He was here for the 27th Annual Key West Literary Seminar and he packed the house. Vidal was generous with both his thoughts and his time, speaking on the topic of historical fiction for some time, then taking questions from the audience for a good deal longer. C-SPAN was there covering it, so you should be able to see a rerun at some point on one of their three channels.



Gore is one of those towering figures who can relate anecdotes that span such a great swath of American history that you find it hard to believe the man in the stories is sitting in front of you. Last night he told tales of helping his blind grandfather into the Senate Chamber during the Roosevelt administration, chatting with Amelia Earhart and looking over a map of her flight route over the Pacific and of sending a note to Barack Obama, urging him to focus on restoring the Constitution.

He was witty, sharp, caustic and devastatingly funny when he wanted to be. In the midst of the Earhart story mentioned above, he said, off-handed and almost off stage, "She really wasn't that great a pilot... (pause a beat) ...and that was a problem."



He saved his most vicious remarks for the Bush administration and its follies and crimes. When asked about Sarah Palin, the republican vice presidential pick, he was dismissive, saying he felt "she talked like she thought the working class talked, which ended up sounding like she was talking down to them." And although he reminded the audience that he had predicted many years ago that Bush would leave office the most hated president in history, he wouldn't be brought out on predicting the future of the economic crisis. "I don't do that kind of black magic," he said.

Allan Gurganus delivered a talk Friday morning called "A Still Small Voice Under the Cannonade: Field Notes toward Fiction's Pact with History." Photo by Nick Vagnoni. Thanks to [Nancy Klingener](http://boneislandbooks.wordpress.com/) for the following

Allan Gurganus's talk Friday morning was part literary lecture, part stand-up routine. Sources cited included Homer, John Cheever, Grace Paley, Oscar Wilde and, most liberally, Rodney Dangerfield. For anyone who missed it, or wants to recapture the full context, keep a look out for the podcast but here are some excerpts:

    "Liars like historians and politicians tend to overdocument."
    "Myth is gossip grown old."
    "History is agreed-upon hearsay granted tenure."
    "American history is so recent that you can still, from a seated position, touch either wall."
    " ... the term historical fiction sounds as pitifully redundant as, say, creative writing. ... It's like having 'oxygen breather' stamped on your driver's license."
    "History's reason needs fiction's dreams."
    "If I had happened to have been born heterosexual with a trust fund in Akron, Ohio, would I have even been a writer?"
    "Unlike in life itself, in literature powerlessness can win."
    "Who could not love this mutt, history?"
And the all-important closer:
    "We need history so much, we historians and novelists, we keep making it up. And history returns the favor."

The view from the balcony of this year's set, designed by Michael Boyer, working with portrait painter Elenora Hinds. Thanks to [Michael Blades](http://michaelandkathy.blogspot.com/) for the photo.

We've asked some friends and family to help post to Littoral for the next week and a half while the Seminar is underway. Here's the first, from Nancy Klingener, a member of our board of directors and creator of the Bone Island Book Blog. –ed.

Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of "March" and "People of the Book," opened the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar with a terrific keynote address Thursday evening, and she opened the address with a terrific line. "You don't have to be a necrophiliac to write historical novels," Brooks said. "But it helps." In giving the John Hersey Memorial Address, Brooks paid tribute to Hersey, whom she never met but who is buried on Martha's Vineyard, where Brooks lives with her husband, fellow writer Tony Horwitz. (Brooks noted that she loves graveyards and was encouraged to move to the island by one stone with the inscription "At Last, A Fulltime Resident.") Hersey, she said, was a model for her as a journalist and a novelist. "He wrote about heroes but never about heroics," she said.

The address was followed, as always, by a gathering in the lovely gardens of the Audubon House from which we sincerely hope everyone made it home safely before one of Key West's regular, if inexplicable, power outages darkened the island.

The 27th annual Key West Literary Seminar is underway. We got things rolling Wednesday night with a small party for Gore Vidal on Duncan Street, at the former home of Tennessee Williams. Here's a few pictures; you can find more or upload your own on our facebook page.


Gore Vidal and Robert D. Richardson


The Kaufelts, our founding family: Lynn, Jackson, and David


Jane Holding and Allan Gurganus


Bob Richardson, Megan Marshall, and Miles Frieden


Arlo Haskell and Mark Hedden


David Levering Lewis and Evan Corns

"Historical Fiction and the Search for Truth" is now less than a month away. Writers of historical fiction, historians, and a few hundred guests will come together for two long weekends of readings, panel discussion, and lectures at the historic San Carlos Institute; while informal gatherings and parties will take place each evening at local cultural institutions and lush gardens.

The first session, as expected, has been completely sold out. Tickets are still available for the second session, which opens with a keynote address by Booker Prize winner Barry Unsworth on Thursday January 15, and closes on the afternoon of Sunday January 18. Unsworth, who begins the book tour for his new novel Land of Marvels at the Seminar, will be joined by Marilynne Robinson (Home) and Rachel Kushner (Telex From Cuba), two of this year's nominees for the National Book Award; as well as Pulitzer Prize-winner William Kennedy, Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks, Thomas Mallon, and many more.

Admission for the entire weekend, including receptions (with open bar and passed hors d'ouevres) and a light continental breakfast each morning, is only $495. If you have any questions about the Seminar or would like to register, please call Miles at 888-293-9291, or send an email to mail@kwls.org.

We endeavor to make our website as useful and informative as possible to anyone who is planning to attend the Seminar. Here is a brief guide.

    • Complete Schedule of Events for the first and second sessions.
    • Complete list of Speakers, with biographies, bibliographies, and links to resources on the web
    • Key West Lodging Guide, including discounts at hotels and guesthouses for Seminar registrants
    • Our Interview Series– with Barry Unsworth, Geraldine Brooks, Thomas Mallon, and more
    • Our podcast series: free, downlowdable recordings from past events, perfect for the drive or flight to Key West

We will soon begin to release audio recordings from our 1993 Seminar devoted to poet Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979). The event was organized by John Malcolm Brinnin, a friend of Bishop's since the 1940s, and brought together many of Bishop's intimates for a weekend of informal tribute. In many ways, it anticipated the field of Bishop scholarship as we know it today.

At the time, Bishop's extra-literary life was largely unknown to the public; her private letters and unpublished works were still private and unpublished, and the experiences revealed by biographies and oral histories were mainly known to those she shared them with. Brinnin recognized a beginning flood of interest in Bishop, writing in an invitation to Octavio Paz of "the slow but sure rise of Elizabeth's reputation, from the devoted attention of an elite to the acclaim of an ever-broadening audience." He ended up orchestrating an event that offered a richer, deeper, more fully-known Bishop than ever before.

Among those Brinnin gathered in Key West was Robert Giroux, Bishop's longtime editor and publisher, whose reading from her letters (a selection of which he published the following year as One Art) was likely the first public presentation of this important material. Bishop's close friend and fellow poet James Merrill also took part. He read a selection of her poems along with the poems they inspired him to write, linking the pairs with private anecdotes that reveal and offer insight into each poet's creative process. Paz, the Mexican poet and Nobel Prize winner whom Bishop translated into English, joined Richard Wilbur and Ashley Brown, who had translated portions of Bishop's anthology of 20th-century Brazilian poets. Alice Quinn, editor of the 2006 Edgar Allan Poe and the Juke-Box (the "uncollected" Bishop poems) was here with Alice Helen Methfessel, Bishop's companion in her last years and the executor who has made possible so much of what we now know of Bishop. In addition to the readings and discussions, Bishop's watercolors (loaned by Methfessel) were exhibited to the public for the first time. The collection, curated by William Benton and later documented in his book Exchanging Hats, presents a folk-art version of the Key West Bishop knew and loved in the 1930s and 1940s. Finally, in a ceremony coordinated by the Friends of the Library USA, her former home at 624 White Street was added to the national register of Literary Landmarks.

Our audio engineers at Private Ear Recording Studios have remastered the original recordings from nine cassettes and converted them into digital .wav files for our use. We're now in the editing process– listening to the recordings, selecting the material that will be of most use to readers, fans, and scholars, and securing permissions from various copyright holders. The production of these recordings for the web has been a particular goal of our audio archives project. We look forward to sharing them with you here soon.

Congratulations to our friends Peter Matthiessen and Mark Doty, who each picked up a National Book Award at the ceremony in New York last night. Matthiessen, who also won the award in 1979 for The Snow Leopard, was honored in the fiction category this year for Shadow Country. The now-definitive overhaul of his so-called Everglades trilogy was cited by the judges as a "masterpiece" and "an epic of American rise and descent." Doty, our keynote speaker this past January, received the committee's esteemed award for poetry for his Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems. The NBA citation calls Doty a "master" whose work conveys "ferocious compassion."

Visit our podcasts page to hear Doty's 2008 keynote address, and his reading of several Key West-inspired poems. To see and hear Matthiessen reading from Shadow Country, visit the Seminar in person this January.

We are delighted to announce the winners of our three named scholarships. April Puciata has been awarded the Scotti Merrill Memorial Scholarship; Martha Otis has received the Joyce Horton Johnson Fiction Award; and Patricia Engel has won the Marianne Russo Scholarship.

The annual scholarships are given by the Key West Literary Seminar to recognize excellence in a manuscript submission from a new or emerging writer. They provide full tuition to our 2009 Seminar and writers' workshop program, financial support for travel, lodging, and living expenses while in Key West, and an opportunity to appear onstage at the Seminar. We are sincerely grateful to Joyce Johnson, The Dogwood Foundation, and The Rodel Charitable Foundation-Florida for the endowments which will continue to make these scholarships possible for years to come.

April Puciata, a poet, lives in New York City. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in New York Quarterly, New Orleans Review, Salamander, Mangrove, and Salonika. This will be her fifth visit to Key West and her first to the Seminar. Martha Otis lives in Miami and first visited Key West two years ago with her daughter. She teaches writing at the University of Miami and has published fiction in Best New American Voices 2000, the Indiana Review, and Moment Magazine. Patricia Engel also lives in Miami; she learned about the Seminar last year and attended a few of our free-and-open-to-the-public events. Her fiction has been published in Harpur Palate, Driftwood, Slice, and the Boston Review (here and here). In 2007, Engel was selected by Junot Díaz as Featured Emerging Fiction Writer at CLMP's "Periodically Speaking" at the New York Public Library.

Congratulations to April, Martha, and Patricia. We look forward to meeting you this January in Key West.

We're pleased to announce the theme for our 2010 Seminar. Clearing the Sill of the World, from January 7 - 10, will be a celebration of 60 years of American poetry in honor of our longtime friend Richard Wilbur. A two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, National Book Award winner, and former Poet Laureate of the United States, Wilbur has, in his distinguished career, received virtually every award available to a poet. Our title comes from a line in his poem, "The Writer," which you can see on our home page for the 2010 Seminar. We've begun to assemble an excellent cast of poets for the event, and will be announcing their names in the weeks and months to come.

We're delighted to note that our partners at PennSound have added three more recordings from the KWLS archives. Our 2003 recordings by C.D. Wright and Forrest Gander, and a 2008 recording by Maggie Nelson, all recently posted here at home, are now also part of PennSound's estimable collection.

For years, PennSound has been the best place to go for free, downloadable poetry readings by many of the 20th century's most original poets. We're grateful for the opportunity to work with the good people at PennSound and for the chance to reach their listener-readers. Check out their author index here, where you'll find rare readings by William Carlos Williams, Kenneth Koch, Michael Palmer, and others.

The daily schedule for our 2009 Seminar has been announced. The first session begins at 7:45 p.m. on Thursday, January 8 with a keynote address from Geraldine Brooks. All day Friday and Saturday will be given over to readings and discussions, including Ursula Hegi reading from Stones from the River, David Levering Lewis discussing W.E.B. DuBois, Peter Matthiessen reading from Shadow Country, and a special gala evening with Gore Vidal. The first weekend concludes on Sunday afternoon, with a free-and-open-to-the-public program featuring Sena Jeter Naslund, Allan Gurganus, and Barry Unsworth.

Unsworth returns to deliver the keynote address for the second session, which begins on the evening of Thursday, January 15. The second weekend will include readings by two of this year's National Book Award nominees, Rachel Kushner and Marilynne Robinson; and an on-stage discussion between William Kennedy, Joyce Carol Oates, and Russell Banks. The free-and-open-to-the-public event on the final Sunday features Anchee Min, Madison Smartt Bell, and Francisco Goldman, among others.

Click here to view the schedules for the first and/or second session of the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar.

We are buoyed by the news that Sena Jeter Naslund and Hilma Wolitzer will join us for Session 1 of our upcoming Seminar, Historical Fiction and The Search for Truth, January 8-11 2009. Wolitzer also joins the faculty for our writers' workshop program January 12-15.

Naslund is the current Kentucky Poet Laureate and editor of The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-Lis Press. She is the author of 4 novels, including the immensely popular Ahab's Wife, which tells the story of Una Spenser, wedded to Melville's white whale-hunting captain; and her most recent book, Abundance, which reimagines the world of Marie Antoinette.

Hilma Wolitzer is the author of several novels including, most recently, The Doctor's Daughter, Hearts, and Summer Reading; and a book on the craft of fiction titled The Company of Writers. She has received Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships; and has taught at The Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and right here at the Key West Literary Seminar.

To register for the 2009 Seminar or Writers' Workshops, click here.

We are proud to announce a collaboration with PennSound, the digital poetry archive project at the University of Pennsylvania. PennSound, founded by Charles Bernstein and Al Filreis as part of UPenn's center for contemporary writing, maintains perhaps the finest collection of audio recordings by 20th century poets on the web. Among the more than 1,500 recordings on their site are such rarities as Jack Spicer's 1956 Vancouver lectures; a 1967 recording of George Oppen reading his masterpiece "Of Being Numerous" in its entirety; James Schuyler reading "Hymn to Life" from the Chelsea Hotel in 1986; several recordings of Gertrude Stein in the 1930s; and major collections of readings by Robert Creeley and John Ashbery. We've been working with managing editor Michael S. Hennessey for the past month developing PennSound's KWLS page, which debuts with KWLS readings by John Ashbery, Meghan O'Rourke, James Tate, and Charles Simic. You can read Hennessey's blog post announcing the page here. You'll find the complete list of PennSound recordings, indexed by author, here. And you can read the PennSound manifesto here. Many thanks to Hennessey and all the good people at PennSound for their work in making KWLS recordings part of this important online collection.