Being that summer is vacation season, like many of you I’m planning a vacay. As I ordered a new bathing suit (yikes!), a travel bag, and sunscreen on Amazon, I found myself thinking about some places I’ve visited that have inspired me to write. One town, Key West, tops my list as a great destination for writers. I’m not alone in my thinking. My famous writers, have not only visited, but have actually lived in the continental U.S.’s southernmost city. Ernest Hemmingway, playwright Tennessee Williams, author Shell Silverstein, poet Wallace Stevens, middle-grade novelist Judy Blume, and mystery writer Tom Corcoran have all called Key West home.
Twenty-six years ago, when my husband was in between corporate jobs, I was also fortunate enough to have lived for five months in a shotgun house in the Meadows neighborhood, near the Key West Historical Seaport District. At the time, my children demanded my attention 24/7. But despite the chaos of diaper changes, nap times, and crying babies and toddlers, the pull of Key West wasn’t lost on me. I mean, who doesn’t notice swaying palm trees, narrow cobblestone lanes lined with hot pink conch houses, and chickens clucking around your stroller? But for me, it was Key West’s colorful history that really gnawed at my soul.
Our neighborhood was located beside the local cemetery, and because open land and grass were in short supply, my small children and I often meandered by the above-ground graves, many of which had images on them. During our walks, it was impossible not think about the island’s rich past—about pirates, shipwrecks, buried treasure, and life-altering storms. Key West is a place of extremes. As a writer, these extremes spoke to me. Extreme weather. Extreme isolation. Extreme wealth. Extreme poverty.
In the 1830’s due to the lucrative nature of its wreaking and salvaging industry, Key West was the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Forty-years later, as a result of these declining industries, the majority of residents were impoverished. Struggle and loss. Who can’t find a story in that?
But you can’t be in Key West without noticing the water, which being a seven-mile island, seems to be everywhere. I’m not a boater or a yachty, but I am a big swimmer. If you assumed that because Key West is a subtropical island that it has great beaches, you’d be wrong. Fort Zachary Tayler Beach is wonderful and pristine, but like the other local beaches, coral reefs hug its shoreline making the shallows difficult to navigate without rubber swim shoes. Zachary Taylor isn’t an ideal sunbathing beach either. The sand there is course, not powdery fine. But Key West is complex like that. It’s layered, prickly, and beautiful all at the same time, just like a good protagonist, a compelling plot line.
And then there’s the feeling of possibility that the island evokes. It could be the bars on Duval Street–Sloopy Joes, The Green Parrot– places where tourists who’ve zipped down Highway 1A and over the Seven Mile Bridge and stumbled off of cruise ships binge drink beer and margaritas and sing Jimmy Buffet’s Brown Eye-ed Girl. When you’re with them, there’s this sense that anything can happen here. Anyone could be here—a drug smuggler, a US President, a Cuban immigrant, a minister from Kentucky, and they likely are.
Key West is a place where both artistic and personal freedom are encouraged… a town where rainbow flags fly, Fantasy Fest trumps Halloween, and street performing acts rule the Mallory Square sunset show. It’s that sense of freedom, combined with its idiosyncrasies, and diverse population that makes it such a great spot for writers.
But Key West’s attraction doesn’t end with its varied population and celebrated open-mindedness. If you’re longing to have your senses triggered so you can write those descriptive scenes, Key West is for you. Spicy scents waft through open windows in Bahama Village and mingle in the air at the famed alfresco dining restaurant, Blue Heaven. As Ella Fitzgerald tunes seep from the Little Room Jazz club on Duval Street, guitar strumming can be heard outside the Hogs Breath Saloon. These sounds, combined with the salty sea air, the scent of coconut sunscreen mixed with the sulfuric odor of seaweed, the beeping of mopeds, revelers whooping, feral cats slinking around banyan tree roots, roosters crowing, historic neighborhoods stuffed with ornate mansions and cigar-makers cottages, the warm breeze tugging at your t-shirt and the sweet taste if key lime pie on your tongue will make even the most tentative writer want to pick up pen.
Key West feels detailed and layered. It’s often dirty, sweaty, too crowded, and loud. But if you shut your eyes, it’s easy to imagine what it must have been like before the invasion of cruise ship tourists, back when Duval Street wasn’t home to a dozen tacky t-shirt shops, and the Conch Training didn’t zip through Old Town spewing Key West fun facts though speakers. Keep your eyes closed a bit longer and try to envision a simpler existence, but one still ripe with challenges. Just for second, allow yourself to picture some of those hardy residents, those Conchs, and if you’re anything like me, you won’t be able to help yourself…you’ll write.
