Key West: A Guide

Description

Key West: A Guide 2025 is a 45 page book.

“In 2014, Nathaniel Sandler from Bookleggers gave me a copy of a 1949 WPA guide to Key West, my hometown. I read through it for months, curious to see what I recognized from the anonymous writers’ descriptions of landmarks, flora, architecture, and life on the island. Some details were familiar to me, like the description of “a lookout platform or ‘mirador’” on many of the island’s homes, and some I couldn’t place, like the “grove of 300 mahogany trees.” I began writing down the phrases that spoke to me most, either because of how familiar they were or how alien to my own time growing up in Key West. This book is a collection of those fragments, as well as images selected from the original guidebook by Tom.” -Nick Vagnoni

Nick Vagnoni holds a BA from New College of Florida and an MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. He is a Teaching Professor in the English Department of FIU. He is the co-author of Forager: A Subjective Guide to Miami’s Edible Plants (Jai-Alai Books, 2014), and his work has appeared in Eight Miami Poets (Jai-Alai Books, 2015), and elsewhere.

Tom Virgin is an award winning artist and educator. Since 2017, he has been the proprietor of Extra Virgin Press in Little Haiti (Miami), Florida. This book and other recent books have been made possible through the support of his colloborating artists and writers, Miami-Dade County Cultural Affairs, MIA Grants, Oolite Arts’ Ellies Grants, Diaspora Vibe Cultural Arts Incubator, Perez Art Museum Miami, Miami Book Fair, GiveMiami, and Emerson Dorsch who have given Extra Virgin Press a space to create in Little Haiti since 2017.