The 42nd Annual Key West Literary Seminar (KWLS) is exploring the “family” of best-selling fiction, biographies, and journalism when it returns for its latest edition. The seminar, taking place Jan. 9-12, explores a different theme each year. It will direct attendees toward the ways writers use the concept of family to narrate and propel the stories of our lives.
This year features Keynote Speaker and Academy Award-winner John Irving, Senior PBS NewsHour correspondent and moderator Jeffrey Brown, and over a dozen prominent voices and authors including Kristen Arnett, Malinda Lo, and Ayana Mathis among others.
The KWLS literary nonprofit invites writers to speak and share their latest works at the seminar and supports the understanding and discussion of such work. It also actively preserves the landmark Elizabeth Bishop House, which the poet resided in during her time on the island. The property, which will serve as the group’s headquarters is set to open to the public in 2025 after extensive restorations.
Addressing the theme, Arlo Haskell, an island Poet Laureate and executive director at the KWLS, revealed that the more time he spent thinking about this year’s focus on “family,” the more exciting and historic it felt.
“If you think about it, family is the oldest subject in the history of the written word. What are the Old Testament, the Torah, or the Greek myths but stories about family?” he asked.
Key West of course pays homage to “family” in its motto and official island philosophy as a result of city commissioners, and later the county, adopting equality activist JT Thompson’s “One Human Family,” which appears all over the island.
This idea of “one human family” according to Haskell, is that if you go back far enough, you discover we are all connected.
“In a sense, that’s what literature teaches us, too. The more we read, the more we can see things from someone else’s perspective, and the greater capacity for empathy we have.”
Even the seminar’s change of location speaks in part to the KWLS history and community. After a few years at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater — a move brought on by the pandemic — the proceedings will once again take place at the historic San Carlos Institute on Duval, where the seminar was previously held for many years.
“Going back to San Carlos will be a homecoming of sorts for us, and that feels particularly fitting for this year’s topic of ‘Family,’” Haskell said.
Visit KWLS.org for more information.
