The Key West Mystique
Key West Island News
Key West Island News connects Key West residents and friends of the island, fosters our One Human Family culture and advances understanding of shared goals for our island community
Linda Grist Cunningham | Columns and news analysis
Key West Island News editor Linda Grist Cunningham has written more than 4,000 columns — in print and on the web — since 1968. She hates writing and is compelled to do it anyway.
Key West holidays | Best ways to celebrate December on the island
I'm taking a page from my dad's December rule book: Starting on Dec. 1, which is his birthday, he declared the twelfth month his personal holiday. Sing off-key that earwig of a birthday song every day? Sure. Why not? Take a break from the grinding chaos of daily...
Hurricane evacuation | Realistically, getting out ahead of a Cat 3 is not easy to do
Can we agree on one thing about hurricane evacuation? Can we put aside our fascination with minutiae and our escalating outrage with over-development, failing infrastructure and political partisanship, and agree on this: Monroe County, Key West and the other Keys...
Traffic in the Keys | Decades in the making, welcome to gridlock
And, just like that, traffic in and around the Triangle came to a halt on Nov. 14. Why? Well, we're beautifying the entrance to the island, which will be nice to look at while sitting in the twice-a-day, locals-special rush hour that brings traffic to gridlock from,...
The TDC audit | Good intentions go sideways in the Keys
The shocking Monroe County audit of its Tourist Development Council dropped publicly Nov. 1, just days after Fantasy Fest ended its 2023 run and one day after the death of the TDC's longtime director, Harold Wheeler, who retired in September 2017. The 32-page audit...
Time to remember why we live in Key West
Woke up this morning with nothing to say. I know, I know. Hard to imagine, huh? So much going on, so much to be worried about. I just couldn't muster the interest to push the outrage button. And I'd forgotten why we live in Key West. In fact, I could hear my mother...
Fantasy Fest royalty | Are we on the right charitable track?
I'm about to touch a third rail of the 2023 Fantasy Fest royalty campaign. Some of you are gonna go all cancel culture on me by the end; others may agree. Either way, here's the rail: What does it say about us as a community when we can raise $587,375 for puppies and...
Dear Connor is a collection of columns Linda writes for her grandson, Connor. Though he may never read them, they help her make sense of the world.
Dear Connor: Nine promises that we will be OK
Being OK doesn't mean the next several years will be moonbeams and unicorns. The next decade will be harsh, unsteady, inexplicable and frightening. We will, as a country, walk with that awesome shadow of the valley of death. History tells us that we must face our worst selves before we can create our best.
Dear Connor | The day the young ones took charge
History will remember the march as the coming-to-power of Xers and Millennials. Though there were aging baby boomers aplenty in the crowd and at the microphones, the marches around the world saw these elders step aside to open the way for younger women.
Hurricane Irma | In September 2017, Linda Grist Cunningham created and launched a Facebook Page that aggregated news coverage during Hurricane Irma. She was off-island at the time visiting her mother in Virginia. Her husband remained in Key West. Over the three weeks that she and her partner journalists John Teets maintained around-the-clock coverage, they reached almost a million people around the world. These are the columns she wrote each day. Hurricane Season is always June 1 – Nov. 30.
Hurricane Irma | One year ago, we awaited the storm
Why did so many decide to stay on the island, defying the mandatory Hurricane Irma evacuation orders and flirting with destruction? The answers are as complicated as the Keys. Re-reading my 2017 columns reminded me just how powerful we were as an online community. To each of you who followed along, who shared your stories and your tears, I say "thank you." It was a tough time. It's been a tough year.
Hurricane Irma | How did news coverage get so confused?
By Sept, 5, 2017, five days before Hurricane Irma battered Key West and the Florida Keys, I was swearing -- or at least muttering unpleasant comments under my breath. I was, as some will remember, visiting my mother in the Shenandoah Valley and...
