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 could use a few of those Disney World “utilidors”
Disney World's Key West is not Key West. Though I understand how first-time visitors might find that confusing. Especially if they've tripped across the Disney World promotion videos for its Old Key West Resort. I mean Disney's Old Key West looks like, well, Key...
Buying a Key West home? Wind and flood insurance costs could change your plans
Three things come at a premium when you're living in Key West: An X flood zone, which until Oct. 1, had meant your house wasn't as likely to flood and therefore the mortgage company wouldn't require flood insurance; parking because there isn't any in Key West; and...
Hard to believe but folks do leave Key West — permanently
In the way-back I lived in a place where the first question asked of a newcomer was: Why in the world would you move here? Eight words, each said with inflections of disbelief, as if moving to said place was about the weirdest, least explicable thing one could do. Now...
It’s time for the annual Key West Grumble Season
Look, I get it. There are way more important things to write about than the 600 or so words about to follow. But, darn it, you know it's true. We have arrived once again in Key West Grumble Season. Grumble Season arrives in Key West in tandem with the Autumn Equinox...
Chasing chickens and other Key West critters to discombobulate the unaware
Sigh. It happened so subtly I was unaware. I have become that old lady who chases Key West chickens. Friday was a glorious island day. Sunny skies, summer-into-fall clouds, light breeze. You know the drill. I was neck deep in the pool listening to Zac Brown and...
Get those chairs and tables off Key West sidewalks
Let me get this off my chest: I hate tables and chairs cluttering Key West sidewalks. I'd throw a profanity-laced screech right here, but my mother would frown since she always considered bad words to be useless filler for lazy minds. I fantasize about knocking the...
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 | 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.
Dear Connor: Breaking the loop of endless despair
The 2016 presidential election will, on hindsight, be recognized as the precursor to the catalyst that ignites the transformation of America from fragmented, angry and disillusioned into cohesive, collaborative and powerful. America will move away from six decades of tearing down to four decades of building up and then we'll start the process over.
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 | 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...
Hurricane Irma | Are you ready for the anniversary?
Sunday. Aug. 20, 2017 -- exactly one year ago -- was a perfect island beach day. High temps in the upper 80s, low humidity -- at least for us -- great breezes and sunny skies. No storms on the horizon; all quiet off the shores of Africa from...
