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.
Queen of All Puddings or Key Lime Pie? The Queen wins
By the time I was 10, cooking dinner for seven was, well, a piece of cake. (Sorry about that.) Sharp knives; hot stove. Boiling water and fry pans. I was the oldest of five under eight; mom needed a hand and I had two. She wasn't what I'd call an adventurous cook but...
Six words to smooth over Key West’s minor irritations
The Cat 5s share a thousand square feet, half a dozen windows, two litter boxes (albeit they are huge), an automatic food bowl and a water dish. Territorial squabbling is inevitable. Shrieking like an Irish banshee when Michael the actual Cat 5 stalks her is Cat 4's...
Cuba and the Keys | Wrestling with frustration, failed politics and compassion
Since the early 1960s, about 1.7 million Cubans have emigrated, most of them making their ways to the Keys, Key West and South Florida. Over the Christmas and New Year’s holiday weeks in 2022, at least 600 Cubans came ashore in the Keys and Fort Jefferson, overwhelming local, state and federal resources.
Key West insurance | Is wind, flood coverage worse than the storms?
Two kinds of residents can ignore the disaster that is Florida wind and flood insurance coverage: The mega-rich for whom a $20,000 annual bill is budget dust and the feeling-lucky homeowners with no mortgages. (Although why anyone would play Key West insurance chicken...
Mallory Square | Let’s mix and match the design options
In case you missed it over the holidays, the latest proposals for re-doing Key West's Mallory Square are posted online. And, unlike what could have been "looks like South Beach" or some generic New England downtown street mall except with a palm tree, these two...
It’s going to be a cold one: Five ways to weather a Key West Christmas
Between shuttling among a bazillion Key West Christmas outings and scurrying about to beat lines at UPS and the post office, I've kept an eye on the weekend weather. Not promising. Well, not promising if one's not partial to wind, rain and chilly. Come Christmas Eve...
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...
