Most people envision sun, surf, and sand when they picture Key West. Book lovers, however, imagine libraries, shops, and studios. That’s because the south Florida city is North America’s premier literary destination, the home of Judy Blume, Ernest Hemingway, and Nova Scotia’s own Elizabeth Bishop, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

Thanks to the Key West Literary Seminar, Bishop’s legacy is experiencing a renaissance. The organization, whose flagship program is an annual four-day seminar exploring a unique literary theme each January, bought Bishop’s former home in the heart of the city’s old town. They’re in the middle of an ambitious restoration to transform it into a must-visit site, the crown jewel in a destination overflowing with literary pedigree.

Bishop’s remarkable accomplishments include serving as the United States Poet Laureate from 1949 to 1950 and winning the 1956 Pulitzer Prize in poetry. However, her early years were much humbler. Elizabeth Bishop was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1911. Her father died when she was just eight months old, and by 1916, Bishop was effectively orphaned when her mother was institutionalized with mental health struggles. Her maternal grandparents, who lived in Great Village, N.S., (about a 30-minute drive west of Truro) cared for her for several years before she was shuffled through a series of family homes in the U.S.

Bishop loyally returned to Nova Scotia every summer until she was 19 and the province featured prominently in her work. In “First Death In Nova Scotia,” Bishop grieves the death of her cousin Arthur, which occurred when she was seven years old. Her grandparents’ Nova Scotian abode was one of the “three loved houses” she laments in her acclaimed opus, “One Art.” Another was her home in Key West, the spot that the Literary Seminar is transforming.

Today, Key West is lauded for its impressive literary legacy, but when Bishop arrived at age of 25 in 1937, the city’s creative flowering was just beginning. For a young poet, the community was an affordable destination filled with tropical delights. Correspondence from that era details Bishop’s joy at her surroundings, as she marvelled at the birds, flowers, and fruit. Her friends included journalist Pauline Pfeiffer, who lived nearby with her husband, Ernest Hemingway.

At first glance, Key West and its sparkling blue waters are as different from Central Nova Scotia and the dark grey Bay of Fundy as it gets (especially in winter). But Arlo Haskell, executive director of the Key West Literary Seminar, sees a connection between the two destinations.

Coastal places “always have a very cosmopolitan way about them; they’re a mixing pot of cultures,” he says. Ports welcome people, and their customs and traditions, from around the world. For writers like Bishop, being close to the ocean made it easy to nurture interest in diverse communities, cultures, and people who had a sense of “otherness” about them.

Visitors can glimpse the vibrant streets that so captivated Bishop by joining the Old Town Literary Walking Tour organized by the Key West Literary Seminar. Small groups of 12 or fewer participants enjoy a 90-minute stroll through the city’s historic old town with stops outside sites associated with Bishop as well other literary greats. That list includes famous names like Judy Blume, Ann Beattie, Robert Frost, Ralph Ellison, Shel Silverstein, Tennessee Williams, Wallace Stevens, and many more.

Key West residents sometimes brag that their city once contained the most Pulitzer Prize winners per capita, and a peek at the tour’s suggested reading list gives credence to that claim. But you don’t have to be a bookworm to appreciate the gorgeous houses, beautifully maintained gardens, and stories of literary hijinks and artistic misadventures. While you’re just steps away from the shops and bars of the main drag, it feels like you’re in another world altogether. As tour guide Scott Burau says, “You miss something special if you don’t get off Duval Street. This tour is a way to see a different life here.”

Fittingly, the itinerary begins at the Monroe County Public Library, which dates to 1959. The library’s Florida Keys History Center is “dedicated to the stewardship, knowledge, and understanding of the historic, cultural, and ecological diversity of the Florida Keys” and is home to many writers’ artifacts and archives.

Soon, Elizabeth Bishop’s home will be the star attraction of the Old Town Literary Walking Tour, exposing all visitors to a Nova Scotian treasure. Bishop bought the 1890s-era home in 1938 for US$2,000, with financial support from her romantic partner Louise Crane. By the time she sold the property in 1946, she had written many pieces which would appear in her debut work, North & South. The property was then a private family home for more than 70 years until the Key West Literary Seminar bought it in 2019.

Since then, the Literary Seminar has embraced the challenge of restoring the home with gusto. Its campaign includes extensive historical and architectural studies, structural reinforcements, and repairs and restoration efforts. It’s on track to open to the public in early 2025.

The highlight of the property will be the Reader’s Garden. “The garden experience will be the primary public face of the home,” Haskell says. “There will be a public garden that will have some permanent exhibits. It will be planted with plants that were significant to Bishop and will include exhibits introducing (the public) to her life and her in the context of the U.S., a kind of outdoor museum if you will.” The Literary Seminar is currently in talks with Vassar College, Bishop’s alma mater, about putting together a collection of her postcards to showcase in the space.

While the Bishop property is an attractive house, it is much more than a lovely building owned by a famous writer. As a queer woman working in the 1930s and 1940, Bishop was bucking the constraints of conventional womanhood by embarking on her own independent, creative path — a path that would have been much harder to walk back home in ultra-conservative Depression-era Nova Scotia.

Her house was a cozy sanctuary, a place where she expanded her intellectual and creative horizons and crafted some of her finest art. Home and belonging were central to Bishop’s work. Haskell reflects that it has always been so important to tell stories from different parts of the human experience and to look at history through the eyes of more than one individual or community.

That is precisely what Bishop did throughout her career and, with the Literary Seminar preserving her legacy, she will continue to do so for years to come.