You’re sitting in Ernest Hemingway’s writing studio in Key West, a small second-story room with windows looking out over the clear blue waters of the writer’s own backyard swimming pool. A hunting trophy adorns one wall and a cat drowses contentedly on the floor, occasionally twitching its six-toed paws as it dreams of feline adventures.
The small sunny room seems full of lingering creativity. Not of ghosts, of course, because the spirit of Ernest Hemingway surely has more important things to do than peer over your shoulder as you gaze wonderingly around his book-lined study. But perhaps the ghost of some long-ago inspiration — some indefinable essence that helped spark his epic novels and short stories — still echoes, waiting for another writer to sense it.
Visitors stroll on the entrance path of the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum in Key West. (Photo by Rob O’Neal, Florida Keys News Bureau)
And suddenly, you do sense it. It fills your soul, quickens your heartbeat and sends ideas tumbling over one another in your mind as they shape themselves into the bones of a story.
Quickly, almost feverishly, you begin to type.
This scenario might sound improbable, but it’s not — at least, not for the talented writer who wins the Florida Keys Flash Fiction Contest. That’s because the contest’s prize includes the opportunity to work in the Key West writing studio that once belonged to internationally renowned author Ernest Hemingway.
Announced Jan. 7 at the 34th annual Key West Literary Seminar, the unique writing competition is open to residents of the U.S. and several other countries who are at least 21 years old.
If you’re the winning writer, as well as the sojourn in Hemingway’s study you’ll receive a $1,500 air travel card for your flight — and accommodations in a beautiful residency cottage at The Studios of Key West for 21 nights between July 5 and July 31, 2016.
The fiction contest winner receives a 21-night stay at one of The Studios of Key West’s residency cottages in historic Old Town Key West, like the one pictured here. (Photo courtesy of Studios of Key West)
Plus you can mingle with everyone from aspiring writers and poets to white-bearded “Papa” Hemingway look-alikes during literary and lifestyle events at Hemingway Days 2016, scheduled for July 19-24.
You’ll also get a $500 debit card for meals and incidentals, and a Key West Attractions Association VIP pass that provides free admission to intriguing island city attractions.
Enticing as those elements are, the prize component that has writers drooling (at least metaphorically) is the chance to spend up to 10 days writing in the studio where Hemingway penned literary classics when he lived in 1930s Key West.
Those classics include “The Green Hills of Africa,” “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “To Have and Have Not,” which depicts the island during the Great Depression.
Hemingway Look-Alike Contest winner Wally Collins poses with a feline companion at the legendary author’s former Key West home. (Photo by Andy Newman, Florida Keys News Bureau)
Part of the Spanish colonial estate at 907 Whitehead St. that Ernest owned (now the Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum), the writing studio can be viewed from its gated doorway by visitors touring the historic site. But until now, it has never been opened to a writer hoping to create a masterpiece worthy of its former occupant.
“We have never provided this kind of chance for anyone before,” said Mike Morawski, the museum’s chief executive officer. “For a writer to be able to occupy Hemingway’s same space, and soak in the same creative atmosphere he did, is a priceless opportunity.”
So how do you enter the competition for a chance to win this once-in-a-lifetime Key West residency?
Enter the contest today … for your chance to make Key West literary history.
Entry is free. And only one entry per person will be accepted, so make sure you choose your absolute best.
The winning story will be chosen based on originality and creative merit — and the final judge will be a representative of the critically acclaimed Key West Literary Seminar.
If your story is judged the most compelling of all the entries, you’ll be notified by May 20, 2016 (a perfect time to start planning your trip and residency!). And then, prepare to begin your next writing project in Ernest Hemingway’s study … and, like he did, make your own place in Key West’s literary history.
