Description
Book SynopsisAn eclectic collection by writers who have lived, worked, and played in Key West, Florida.
Key West has long been America’s most vibrant writers' colony, tracing its writerly roots to Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, John Hersey, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, and Elizabeth Bishop. More recently, Thomas McGuane, Robert Stone, Judy Blume, Robert Richardson, Ann Beattie, Philip Caputo, Alison Lurie, and Meg Cabot have added their luster to the island’s literary heritage. This collection includes a treasure trove of more than sixty essays, reminiscences, musings, and poems about Key West. It features the town’s best-known writers: Lurie, Blume, Caputo, Cabot, McGuane, Beattie, Shames, Lee Smith, Frank Deford, Phyllis Rose, Glenn Frankel, Joy Williams, Barbara Ehrenreich, Billy Collins, and on and on.
Table of ContentsTABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword by Carey Winfrey
Preface by William Wright
ISLAND FEVER
Vroom, Vroom by Frank Deford
Finding Mañana by Mirta Ojito
Welcome Home by Meg Cabot
Poetry Workshop Held in a Former Cigar Factory in Key West by Billy Collins
Standoff at Sea by Mary Kay Zuravleff
The Geographical Cure by Lee Smith
Our First Time by George Cooper
A Susurration of Palms by Thomas Swick
Lucky Ducking by Arlo Haskell
Duck, Boogie by Mark Hedden
Otherwhere by Hal Crowther
Floating Island by Kathryn Kilgore
Squall by Jeffrey Cardenas
Turtle Eggs by Brian Antoni
The Last Resort by Alison Lurie
Grinnell Street Rag by Rosalind Brackenbury
Homesick by Peyton Evans
Varadero Dreaming by Alejandro F. Pascual
Be Careful What You Wish For by Judy Blume
Two Houses by Joy Williams
Second Thoughts by Pico Iyer
Invisible Island by Arlo Haskell
Serving in Florida by Barbara Ehrenreich
Paradise Lost by Philip Caputo
Key West Is Ruined by Nancy Klingener
This Beautiful Place by Daniel Menaker
Key West by Harvey Shapiro
The Forever Cycle by Thomas McGuane
ABSENT FRIENDS
Hemingway’s Key West by Joy Williams
Farther Out by Paul Hendrickson
A Poet’s House by Lynn Kaufelt
Where Greatness Lived by Arida Wright
Ready and Willing by Thomas Travisano
Late Air by Elizabeth Bishop
Gregorio Valdes, 1879-1939 by Elizabeth Bishop
Charming Tennessee by Lynn Kaufelt
Tennessee in Extremis by Joy Williams
Killing Me Softly by Thomas McGuane
Ebb and Flow by John Leslie
A Good Omen by Joy Williams
Bard of Pleasures by Phyllis Rose
Oral History, Interviews by Nancy Klingenerr
Ellen Welters Sanchez
Kermit “Shine” Forbes
Not of This World by Alison Lurie
Merrill at the Gym by Bill Yankee
Key West Aquarium, The Sawfish by James Merrill
A Poet at Heart by Phyllis Rose
Letter from Key West, For Elizabeth Bishop by John Malcolm Brinnin
Watching Screwball Comedies with Harry Mathews by Ann Beattie
Dear Harry by Rosalind Brackenbury
The New Tourism by Harry Mathews
Walks in the Wild by Hal Crowther
Key West Cowboy by Glenn Frankel
Sunburned Sage by Hal Crowther
American Dreamer by Michael Mewshaw
Misnomer by Elena Castedo
Remembering Liz by Joy Williams
One of a Kind by William Wright
Full Moon, Key West by Elizabeth Bishop
