Hemingway Days Festival

Hemingway (Ernest) Days Festival

Week including July 21

This week-long celebration of Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), the American novelist and short-story writer, is held in Key West, Fla. The festival has been held since 1980 during the week of Hemingway's birthday, July 21. Hemingway made his home in Key West at one time, and his novel, To Have and Have Not (1937), is set there. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in fiction in 1953 for his short heroic novel about an old Cuban fisherman, The Old Man and the Sea, and he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954.
A short-story competition, with a first-place prize of $1,000, drew a total of 981 submissions in 2000. Lorian Hemingway, the writer's granddaughter and a writer herself, is the coordinator of the story contest.
Other events include a street fair, a Hemingway look-alike contest, a fishing tournament, an arm-wrestling competition, and a party and concert at the Hemingway Home and Museum.

CONTACTS:
Florida Keys Tourism Council
1201 White St., Ste. 103
Key West, FL 33040
800-771-5397 or 305-292-1880; fax: 305-294-1699
www.fla-keys.com
Hemingway Home and Museum
907 Whitehead St.
Key West, FL 33040
305-294-1136
hemingwayhome.com

SOURCES:
AmerBkDays-2000, p. 539