It's official!

The Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum is now a Literary Landmark -- the dedication ceremony today was a great success. Thanks to all who attended this and other One Island One Book events -- see you next year! Above, writer Les Standiford speaks at the dedication. Middle, Mike Morawski and Circulation Librarian Kris Neihouse hold the plaque while it's installed. Bottom, the plaque in its place of honor, right next to the front door.

The big finale

We're on the homestretch of One Island One Book and it's been a great ride -- book groups, documentaries, and just this morning a great talk from Key West Library's own historian Tom Hambright about Key West in the 1930s, when Ernest Hemingway lived here and the Works Progress Administration changed the face of the island (they had this wacky idea that tourism was the future for Key West). We'll finish it all off on Sunday with the dedication of the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum, 907 Whitehead Street, as a National Literary Landmark. This designation, which comes from the Association of Library Trustees, Advocates, Friends and Foundations (ALTAFF) with our own Friends of the Library as co-sponsors, is long overdue -- it will be the eighth literary landmark on our little island alone, and the second honoring Hemingway (the first is his birthplace in Oak Park, Illinois). Anyone with a local photo I.D. gets free admission to the Hemingway Home; writer Les Standiford will speak and we'll be serving refreshments. Hope you can join us!

Les Standiford to speak at Hemingway House dedication

We are delighted to announce that writer Les Standiford, director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University and author of numerous books, both nonfiction and fiction, will be the speaker on Sunday, March 14, when the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum is dedicated as a national Literary Landmark.

Standiford is the author of the John Deal novels and in recent years has written highly regarded works of historical nonfiction, starting with "Last Train to Paradise," which chronicles the building and destruction of Henry Flagler's Overseas Railway, connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland for the first time.
The railroad was destroyed when a Category 5 hurricane crossed the Upper Keys on Labor Day 1935. Hemingway was in the Keys at the time and went to Islamorada immediately afterwards to help in rescue and clean-up efforts. He was outraged at the deaths of hundreds of World War I veterans who were working on a New Deal highway program in Islamorada -- a rescue train was sent too late -- and wrote about the event in a piece for The New Masses.