By Sara Johnson Allen Author Naomi Jackson, who was named one of Publishers Weekly’s “Writers to Watch,” told the audience gathered for her Saturday afternoon reading that the Key West Literary Seminar provided her with a unique opportunity to ­be with both her peers and her heroes. “It’s like my …Read More

By Audrey Wick Edwidge Danticat spoke Sunday afternoon during the Key West Literary Seminar's free and open to the public session thanks to the generous support of Peggy V. Helmerich and the Helmerich Trust. Haitian-born Danticat read from The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story, which was released in ...Read More

By Amy E. O’Neal Each year, the Key West Literary Seminar presents three prizes for emerging writers: the Cecelia Joyce Johnson Award for a short story, the Marianne Russo Award for a novel in progress, and the Scotti Merrill Award for poetry. Winners receive a fully paid trip to the ...Read More

While Rowan Ricardo Phillips took the podium on the blue-lit stage of the San Carlos Friday morning, amid palm fronds, paper moon, and nautical rope, Jamaica Kincaid set her black coffee on the ledge of the chasm – the open orchestra pit in the Key West High School Auditorium. Poised ...Read More

By Sara Johnson Allen Joshua Jelly-Schapiro's conversation with novelist Marlon James, winner of the prestigious Man Booker Award among many others, began with what he was reading. Jelly-Schapiro noted that James arrived to the San Carlos Institute auditorium with three “new” used books. James quoted Cormac McCarthy saying, “books come ...Read More

By Dana De Greff "We didn't have a title for our talk because we like to be free," stated writer and photographer Teju Cole at the opening of the self-proclaimed "barbershop talk" Friday morning. Along with poet and editor Ishion Hutchinson, and poet, essayist, and translator Rowan Ricardo Phillips, the three went on ...Read More

By April Conley Caryl Phillips read from his forthcoming novel A View of the Empire at Sunset, whose main character is based on novelist Jean Rhys. After a brief background on Rhys’s biography and history in the Caribbean as someone who spent her early life in Dominica, Philips explained that when ...Read More