Annual Ernest Hemingway festival
Hemingway Days is an annual celebration of the life of Nobel Prize winning author Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Florida. The festival runs for three days each year, coinciding with July 21, Hemingway's birthday. The festival was founded in 1981 by Michael Walton as a promotional stunt for Sloppy Joe's Bar, of which Hemingway was a frequent patron when he lived in Key West. It most notably features the yearly Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, which is operated by the Hemingway Look-Alike Society.
Other attractions include a “running of the bulls” spoof, a street fair and the Key West Marlin Tournament which is a fishing competition, and a short story competition.
Background.
Ernest Hemingway lived in Key West, Florida, for 12 years, mostly when he was in his 30s; he visited and then quickly moved to the island in 1928 and lived there until late 1939. During this time, he published "A Farewell to Arms" (1929), which he had already written, and wrote some of his most famous works including "To" "Have and Have Not" (1937) and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (1940), the former being about Key West during the Great Depression. He covered the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s.
Spending his mornings writing and the rest of the day fishing and drinking, he became a frequent patron of Sloppy Joe's Bar in this period of his life, and spent time big-game fishing with local fishermen he made friends with, eventually obtaining his own boat, the "Pilar", in 1934.
History.
In December 1980, manager of Sloppy Joe's Bar Michael Walton read about a Bad Hemingway Contest in which writers parody Hemingway's writing style. As a promotional stunt for Sloppy Joe's Bar, he decided to centre a look-alike contest and other events around Hemingway's birthday on July 21, during a slow, humid season for the bar. Hemingway Days thus began in 1981, featuring a short story competition, the Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, a Caribbean street fair, an arm wrestling tournament, and a "running of the bulls". The literary aspect of the occasion was relatively lightweight, with an emphasis being placed on its social side, and the bull running portion of the event was retired due to safety issues in the summer weather. On one early year, the United States Postmaster General unveiled a first-day-of issue 25 cent stamp bearing Hemingway's image.
Walton moved to West Virginia in the mid-1990s after 16 years running the event. It was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with most contestants being between 60 and 80 years old, an age group susceptible to the virus.
Hemingway Look-Alike Contest.
The Hemingway Look-Alike Contest is an annual contest held since Hemingway Days' first event in 1981. It is held at Sloppy Joe's. in which contestants compete to be Hemingway's best look-alike. It is held by the Hemingway Look-Alike Society.
The contest takes place over three days, with two preliminary rounds, and a final taking place on the last day. Previous winners of the competition form a panel of judges. Contestants, who are often "heavy-set" men and largely wear khakis or fishermen’s sweaters, take turns to imitate Hemingway's mannerisms, often adopting the "Papa" persona from Hemingway's later years. As a result, winners are often referred to as "Papas", whereas contestants who have not won are called "Wannabes" No cash prize is offered for the winner. A spokesman for the society stated in 2015 that some competitors had returned to compete in the contest for up to 20 years without winning.
History.
The contest has been held since Hemingway Days' first event in 1981, inspired by the Bad Hemingway Contest that Whalton read about in 1980. For its first iteration, Whalton simply "called everybody [he] knew in Key West who ha[d] a beard."
The Hemingway Look-Alike Society was later established. Over time, it developed into a service organization which, as of July 2024[ [update]], has funded more than $350,000 in scholarships for Florida Keys students and sponsors a youth baseball team in Cuba. David Douglas, who had begun attending the contest in 2000 and won it in 2009, is the current president of the society as of July 2024[ [update]]. During the 2023 festival, the Hemingway Look-Alike Society amassed close to $125,000 for scholarships for Keys students. In 2024, eighteen of its society members visited Havana to honor Hemingway amidst tense relations between Cuba and the United States.
Other events.
Hemingway Days' Running of the Bulls contest is a parody of the running of the bulls run held in Pamplona, Spain, in which the Hemingway look-alikes parade through downtown Key West with a "herd" of life-size fake bulls on wheels. A Hemingway Days Writers' Workshop and Conference was introduced in 1989, being conducted by Dr. James Plath. As of 2015, an annual short story competition at the event was run by Lorian Hemingway, Hemingway's granddaughter. A street fair and the Key West Marlin Tournament, which is a fishing competition are also held.