This pool, one of the first and largest on the island, was built as a surprise for Hemingway while he was in Europe covering the Spanish Civil War. It cost a reported $20,000 -- so much that Hemingway accused his wife of spending his last cent and threw a symbolic penny on the ground. The penny was set in cement and covered in glass and remains there to this day.

2007 Wondrous Strange: Mystery, Intrigue, and Psychological Drama
Moderators: Rosalind Brackenbury, Mary Morris, Michael Wood
John Hersey Memorial Address: Michael Wood

Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Aimee Bender, Michael Cunningham, Tananarive Due, Jeffrey Eugenides, Siri Hustvedt, Wally Lamb, Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates, Steve Stern, Amy Tan, James Tate, Mary Kay Zuravleff

2006 The Literature of Adventure, Travel, and Discovery
Moderators: Patricia Hampl and Michael Shapiro
John Hersey Memorial Address: Pico Iyer
Rosalind Brackenberry, Tim Cahill, Billy Collins, Hal Crowther, Hanns Ebensten, Gretel Ehrlich, Linda Greenlaw, Eddy L. Harris, Tony Horwitz, Pico Iyer, Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Ana Menéndez, Michael Mewshaw, Lawrence Millman, Mary Morris, Dervla Murphy, Kira Salak, Robert Stone, Patrick Symmes, Kate Wheeler

2005 Humor KWLS-2005
(First Session)
Master of Ceremonies: Michael Rosen
John Hersey Memorial Address: Billy Collins
Dave Barry, Roy Blount, Jr., Blanche McCrary Boyd, Christopher Buckley, Billy Collins, Christopher Durang, Clyde Edgerton, Barbara Ehrenreich, Percival Everett, Carl Hiaasen, Alison Lurie, Lorrie Moore, Cathleen Schine, Lee Smith, Calvin Trillin, Wendy Wasserstein, Al Young
(Second Session)
Master of Ceremonies:Patricia Marx
The John Hersey Memorial Address: Calvin Trillin
Paul Beatty, Judy Blume, Blanche McCrary Boyd, Augusten Burroughs, Billy Collins, Nora Ephron, Bruce Jay Friedman, Molly Ivins, Ruth Ozeki, ZZ Packer, Roger Rosenblatt, Cathleen Schine, James Tate, Calvin Trillin, Garry Trudeau, Meg Wolitzer

2004 Crossing Borders
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Bharati Mukherjee
Moderators: Morris Dickstein, Patricia Hampl, Katherine Lanpher
Elmaz Abinader, Clark Blaise, Robert Olen Butler, Lan Cao, Sandra Cisneros, Andrei Codrescu, Junot Diaz, Cristina Garcia, Francisco Goldman, Aleksandar Hemon, Eva Hoffman, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, David Wong Louie, Bharati Mukherjee, Elizabeth Nuñez, Amy Tan

2003 Poetry - The Beautiful Changes
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Derek Walcott
Kim Addonizio, John Ashbery, Lucille Clifton, Billy Collins, Robert Creeley, Martín Espada, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Carolyn Forché, Forrest Gander, Dan Gerber, Jane Hirshfield, Dorianne Laux, Semezdin Mehmedinovic, Sharon Olds, Charles Simic, James Tate, Quincy Troupe, Derek Walcott, Richard Wilbur, C. D. Wright

2002 Spirit of Place
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Peter Matthiessen
(First Session)
Russell Banks, Hal Crowther, Wilma Dykeman, Richard Ford, Dagoberto Gilb, Allan Gurganus, Kent Haruf, William Kittredge, Maxine Kumin, Peter Matthiessen, Valerie Miner, Jay Parini, Robert Richardson, Mona Simpson, Annick Smith, Lee Smith, Deanne Urmy, Joan Williams, Joy Williams
(Second Session)
Dorothy Allison, John Barth, Madeleine Blais, Chitra Divakaruni, Carl Hiaasen, Linda Hogan, James D. Houston, Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Valerie Miner, Gloria Naylor, Howard Norman, Michael Ondaatje, Annie Proulx, Rebecca Seiferle, Lee Smith, Linda Spalding

2001 Science and Literature: Narratives of Discovery
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Stephen Jay Gould
Natalie Angier, Carl Djerassi, Barbara Ehrenreich, Timothy Ferris, Ira Flatow, Robin Fox, Murray Gell-Mann, James Gleick, Stephen Jay Gould, Roald Hoffmann, Sue Hubbell, Lynn Margulis, Dorion Sagan, Dava Sobel, Marcia Southwick, Steven Weinberg, Jonathan Weiner

2000 The Memoir
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Frank McCourt
Russell Baker, Madeleine Blais, Rosemary Bray, Marie Chaix, Walter de Milly, Nancy Friday, Patricia Hampl, Eddy L. Harris, Lorian Hemingway, Joyce Maynard, Frank McCourt, Anchee Min, Jane O'Reilly, Katherine Russell Rich, Wilfrid Sheed, Calvin Trillin, Geoffrey Wolff, Tobias Wolff, William Wright

1999 The American Novel
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: E.L. Doctorow
E.L. Doctorow, Morgan Entrekin, Joseph Heller, Jamaica Kincaid, Alison Lurie, Harry Mathews, Peter Matthiessen, Joyce Carol Oates, Faith Sale, Susan Shreve, Robert Stone, Amy Tan, John Edgar Wideman, Hilma Wolitzer

1998

Once Upon A Time: Children's Literature in the Late 20th Century
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: E.L. Konigsburg Arnold Adoff, Judy Blume, Joseph Bruchac, Laurent de Brunhoff, Bruce Coville, Paula Danziger, Virginia Hamilton, Richard Jackson, Elizabeth Keyser, E.L. Konigsburg, Lois Kuznets, Eden Ross Lipson, Perry Nodelman, Richard Peck, Jerry Pinkney, Rosemary Wells, Nancy Willard, Jane Yolen

1997

Literature in the Age of AIDS
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Edmund White
Ann Beattie, David Bergman, Michael Bronski, Rebecca Brown, Rafael Campo, Robert Dawidoff, Michael Denneny, Mark Doty, Christine Downing, Jewelle Gomez, Rachel Hadas, Andrew Holleran, Diane Johnson, Larry Kramer, Tony Kushner, David Leavitt, Dale Peck, Patricia Powell, Frank Rich, Benjamin Saenz, Sarah Schulman, Abraham Verghese, David Wagoner, Edmund White

1996

American Writers and the Natural World
John Hersey Memorial Lecture: Annie Dillard
Rick Bass, Annie Dillard, Gretel Ehrlich, Jim Harrison, Linda Hogan, Thomas McGuane, Richard K. Nelson, John Nichols, Doug Peacock, Robert D. Richardson, Jr., Frederick Turner, James Welch, Joy Williams, Terry Tempest Williams

1995

Journalism
Madeline Blais, Philip Caputo, Barbara Ehrenreich, Linda Ellerbee, Osborn Elliott, Mark Foster Ethridge, III, Fred Friendly, David Halberstam, Pete Hamill, Louis Harris, Seymore Hersh, David Lawrence, Jr., John Naisbitt, Jane O'Reilly, Anna Quindlen, Brent Staples

1994

Biography & Autobiography
Shana Alexander, A. Scott Berg, Carol Brightman, Chris Chase, Blanche Wiesen Cook, Vivian Gornick, Justin Kaplan, David McCullough, Nancy Milford, James Merrill, Phyllis Rose, Edmund White, Geoffrey Wolff, William Wright

Registration for the 2009 Literary Seminar.