A Seminar Named Desire - 2022 opening night remarks

I promised a fellow board member I would post these where she could read them. So here they are:

Hello - and welcome to the Key West Literary Seminar. I’m Nancy Klingener, president of the Seminar board of directors. Even for those of us who have hardly left this island in the last couple years, it’s been quite a journey to get here.

First of all, huge thanks are in order. To our hardworking and endlessly flexible staff, led by executive director Arlo Haskell. To my fellow board members who have been so smart and generous and thoughtful as we navigated this unknown territory. To our patrons circle - without your generosity, we would not have been able to create this event in its new venue. To the writers who are joining us to share your work and ideas, despite the uncertainty of the moment. To the volunteers who make this thing run. And mostly thanks to you, our audience - our readers, people who love literature and join us to create this extraordinary community - ALMOST every year. Whether this is your first Seminar or your thirtieth, you are the most essential part this endeavor. Welcome and thank you.

The Key West Literary Seminar was in a new location this year, at the Coffee Butler Amphitheater. It was glorious. Photo by Nick Doll.

The first seminar I attended was the first year it was held at the San Carlos Institute - and it was the Seminar about Elizabeth Bishop. By the end of that weekend, the Seminar was my favorite Key West event and Bishop was my favorite Key West writer. Now my first Seminar as president is in another new venue - a new chapter in the history of this institution.

Speaking of history - just down the harborfront a bit, 200 years ago this March, a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy raised the American flag over Key West for the first time. This of course was NOT the beginning of Key West’s human history - indigenous people lived here. Bahamians and Cubans knew about this island and its deepwater harbor.  And so did pirates - which is why that lieutenant commander was in these parts in 1822.

It wasn’t long before Key West became a settlement, and a city - eventually one of the richest cities in Florida. But I don’t think that piratical spirit was ever eradicated from our DNA. And that’s probably why the island has been home to so many writers, especially writers expressing desires that may not have gone over so well in St. Louis or Michigan. And what led a writer named David Kaufelt, almost 40 years ago, to defy those who said Florida had no literary culture. And start the journey that has led to this moment.

Over the next few days we’ll be adding to Key West’s literary history and, I am sure, adding some much-needed joy to the lives of all of us lucky enough to be here.

I have one more person to thank for MY being lucky enough to be here today - my great-grandfather, Gideon Sundback. A little more than 100 years ago, he patented a device we know today as the zipper. Without his work - and obviously desires - I wouldn’t exist today. And to all of you who have used that device in order to write about or execute your desires - on his behalf I’ll say, you’re welcome.

What I read, and loved, this year

Even though I ventured out more this year than I did in post-March 2020, I still mostly stayed home. On a related note, I may have read more books this year than I ever have before. Here are some of my favorites.

I loved "Matrix," Lauren Groff's most recent novel. It's a departure for her, set in medieval England, but as a longtime lover of historical fiction, I think she pulled it off magnificently. I like almost anything with Eleanor of Acquitaine as a well-drawn character. I've had a minor obsession with her since I was a kid and read E.L. Konigsburg's "A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver." If you have a kid in your life who might be into strong women characters in European history, I highly recommend this book, as well as Groff's — though not for kids.

You can read more here. You can sign up for The Tieline and other WLRN newsletters here.

Photo by Nancy Klingener

The return of some beloved local institutions and the loss of one

I hope you're enjoying the holiday season. When I was growing up in Massachusetts, one of my high school classmates would always go to Florida for the holidays and I remember thinking, that's just wrong. Warm weather and palm trees did not jibe with my New England-formed notions of holiday atmosphere.

Turns out, I was wrong. I love holidays here. Even though we don't have snow and it doesn't get dark as early, there's something about the enthusiasm for adding lights and decorations that makes me happy. A well-lit palm tree or a "tree" made out of lobster traps with buoys for ornaments is a beautiful thing. I love seeing all the bikes, lit up and decorated, and you can ride them around the island to admire everyone else's efforts.

You can read more here. You can sign up for The Tieline and other WLRN newsletters here.

I caught the elves in action, decorating Fred the Tree, while driving up the Keys. Photo by Nancy Klingener

Happy Thanksgiving from the rogue island of Key West

I hope you are enjoying a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday and that, if you're traveling, it's not too stressful.

And I'm really hoping that the blood pressure has gone down for the significant number of Key Westers who had a collective freakout last Wednesday when it was reported that there was draft legislation in Tallahassee that would "abolish the city of Key West."

After having our own small freakout in the newsroom, we (at WLRN) decided not to report on this because ... nothing has actually happened yet. No bill has been filed. No one has even posted, that I know of, an actual copy of this draft legislation — or information about who is sponsoring it.

You can read the rest of this edition of The Tieline here. You can sign up for The Tieline and other WLRN newsletters here.

The founding of the Conch Republic, 1982. Photo from the Ida Woodward Barron collection, Monroe County Public Library

Not the same old story

The 2019 Key West Literary Seminar has come and gone. It was a good one. A great one, in my highly subjective opinion. I was the program chair and the theme was my proposal - born from the plethora of reboots and adaptations like the Hogarth Shakespeare and Austen Project series. Though it changed a lot from my initial conception to its reality on stage - because of the input of committee members, and more. And made it better. I expected more Shakespeare - and was surprised at so much Tempest and so little Lear - and at least some Austen. And all that Homer/classical/Greek mythology stuff! Did not really see that coming, but was so incredibly glad it did.

Highlights? Hard to name any specific sessions because I enjoyed every single one (though if you forced me, I’d name the one pictured above, with Valerie Martin, Emily Wilson and Margaret Atwood, moderated expertly by Kate Tuttle).

Instead I’ll just brag on, I mean celebrate a couple things I REALLY ENJOYED about the Seminar:

• It wound up feeling very woman-centric - and this was NOT by design and, indeed, partially due to the unplanned absence of four men who had been invited and accepted but later dropped out (John Banville, Colm Toibîn, Daniel Mendelsohn and Marlon James). I guess we replaced them with women but that wasn’t an intentional course. Margaret Atwood set the tone with her brilliant, bespoke keynote - not an off-the-shelf speech like we’ve seen occasionally delivered in that space. And I’m especially glad that this wasn’t a Seminar organized around WOMEN and archetypes and influence - it was just archetype and influence, with a bunch of really smart women to talk about it. And a couple of smart men, too.

• The Seminar audience got its first exposure in this space to graphic novels and fan fiction. Graphic novels was intentional and Eric Shanower knocked it out of the park with a really detailed, fascinating talk about his work process in putting together his epic, ongoing Age of Bronze series about the Trojan War. Coolest aspect of that, in some ways? No gods! It’s all humans, doing horrible things to each other, but without supernatural meddling. We’ve talked for a long time about including graphic novels, and even doing a whole Seminar on the subject. I have always advocated for incorporating them into the theme as another form or genre in literature, and I hope we will continue to do so. As far as fan fiction - Naomi Novik started out writing Star Trek: The Next Generation fan fiction. I asked her about it in a panel and it just took off - since most of the audience members had never heard of such a thing and their minds seemed to be blown by the concept. I am NOT advocating for a Seminar on fan fiction, and I don’t think you should feel compelled to seek it out if it’s not your thing. But it is a huge avenue of writing and reading for a LOT of people and I’m glad we acknowledged its existence.

• For the most part, the Seminar was a politics-free zone. Again, not intentional but what a blessed relief. Our current political state did come up, tangentially, on Sunday morning after Joyce Carol Oates’ short story reading and Kevin Young’s talk about Bunk. But it wasn’t a focus and it didn’t get brought into every conversation and it was just SO NICE to hear and think and talk about literature and books and not have every single thing come around again to THAT. Kind of like that period after Hurricane Irma when we were off the grid - but less traumatic. And much more comfortable, temperature- and running-water-availability-wise.

• Not-so-humblebrag: Of all the books that got name-checked a lot during this Seminar, D’Aulaires’ books of Greek and Norse myths probably topped the list. And I was the first to get there (in my intro Friday morning). They really are great, and obviously influential in the lives of a lot of people. I bought a copy of the Norse myths a few years ago when they reissued it with a new introduction by Michael Chabon. I may have to seek out a copy of the Greek myths for myself, too. Maybe after I finish Mythos by Stephen Fry, a book I highly recommend though I don’t think it’s available in the U.S. - I stumbled across it in the Stockholm airport during a layover on our way home last fall.