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.