Lecture Series

The Friends of the Key West Library proudly sponsor a weekly lecture series every year from mid-January to the beginning of April. The popular series is free and open to the public. Previous speakers include former U.S. Poets Laureate Maxine Kumin and Billy Collins, authors James Gleick, Barbara Ehrenreich, Judy Blume and Meg Cabot, to name just a few.

All lectures are held Monday evenings at 6 p.m. in the main hall of The Studios of Key West at 600 White Street. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis for each lecture. The doors open at 5:30.

Click here to download a PDF version of the featured speakers for the 2012 season.

2012 Friends of the Key West Library Lecture Series Schedule

January 2012

  • Jan. 9: Margaret Atwood is the author of many novels, collections of poetry and nonfiction works writing in the genres Romance, Historical fiction, Speculative fiction, Science fiction, and Dystopian fiction. Among her notable works are The Handmaid's Tale, Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake, and Surfacing.
  • Jan. 16: Hal Crowther is a prolific journalist and essayist, whose most recent collection of essays, Gather at the River, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. His collection Cathedrals of Kudzu (2000) received many awards including the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council.
  • Jan. 23: Florida historian Seth Bramson has written many books about various aspects of Florida history including From Sandbar to Sophistication: The Story of Sunny Isles Beach (2007) and Boulevard of Dreams: A Pictorial History of El Portal, Biscayne Park, Miami Shores and North Miami (2007), but he is perhaps best known for his writings on the last railway to connect Key West with the mainland, the subject of his new book The Greatest (Railroad) Story Ever Told: Henry Flagler and the Florida East Coast Railway’s Key West Extension.
  • Jan. 30: James Gleick has written many books on science and related subjects, including Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman and Chaos: Making a New Science. The Information (2011), his most recent work has been praised in reviews in The New York Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review.

February 2012

  • February 6: Clinical psychologist Roberta Isleib is the author of eight mysteries, including the Cassie Burdette golf mystery series and the Rebecca Butterman advice column mysteries. Her books and stories have been nominated for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She is the past president of Sisters in Crime National and her new mystery is set in Key West.
  • Feb. 13: Cultural historian and popular lecturer, David Garrard Lowe, is the author of the books Stanford White's New York; Beaux Arts New York; Chicago Interiors; Lost Chicago; and Art Deco New York, in addition to many essays and lectures on as diverse subjects as Mark Twain, the fate of New York architecture, Cole Porter and the French Riviera.
  • Feb. 20: Roberta Marks is a visual artist who works in many genres including sculpture, construction, oil painting and collage. Her work is in the collections of more than 25 institutions in the US, France, Switzerland and England including the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
  • Feb. 27: The South Florida author Les Standiford has written several novels including Spill (1991); Deal to Die For (1995); Presidential Deal (1998); and Black Mountain (2000); and non-fiction books including The Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Building of the Overseas Railroad to Key West (2002). His most recent book is Bringing Adam Home: The Abduction that Changed America (2011).

March 2012

  • Mar. 5: Diana Abu-Jaber is most recently the author of Birds of Paradise, an Indie Books Pick; as well as of the award winning memoir, The Language of Baklava; and the best-selling novels Origin and Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the American Book Award. Her first novel Arabian Jazz won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award.

    *Note: Paul Hendrickson, originally scheduled for March 5, is nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award and must be in New York to attend the event. We congratulate and wish him well.
  • Mar. 12: Internationally known political pollster and pundit, Lou Harris, has for many years offered standing-room-only audiences his annual political summary and prognosis. He plans to do so again this year.
  • Mar. 19: The well-known author of fiction and nonfiction, Joy Williams has written novels (The Quick and the Dead, 2002, and State of Grace, 1990), short stories (Honored Guests, 2005) and travel literature (The Florida Keys, which has gone through many revised editions).
  • Mar. 26: Arlo Haskell is the publisher of Sand Paper Press and media director of the Key West Literary Seminar. He is the author of Joker, a collection of poems, and currently at work on two historical projects: a transcription of Charles Olson’s previously-unpublished Key West Notebooks, which illuminate a seminal period of the influential poet’s life; and a pictorial history of Key West’s Jewish community from 1883 to the present.