West Florida Literary Federation

West Florida Literary Federation (WFLF) was founded 1986 in Pensacola as an all-volunteer organization with a nonprofit (501c-3) status. WFLF is focused on the literary arts, and partners with and assists other community organizations to promote literary efforts through frequent programs, workshops, awards and other related activities. The community organization has an office and library on the second floor of the Pensacola Cultural Center.

For nearly three decades, WFLF has sponsored literary programs for Northwest Florida. Early on, in 1989, Ron Cannon and Leonard Temme, who was later named poet laureate, conceived of and carried out a 24-hour poetry reading marathon in Seville Square. Poets and poetry lovers from across the region read their favorite work or their own poems through the night and into late afternoon the following day. The event, held over the Fourth of July Weekend, was covered by CNN.

With a goal of encouraging young writers, in 1987 WFLF launched Student Writers Network under the direction of Ora Wills. The program included free writing workshops for high school students, with visits from real world writers as newspaper columnists, professors and poets of national stature. On-the-spot writing contests were enthusiastically participated in with prizes, including publication in Penwise Poets. The program continued until the late 1990s. Currently, WFLF sponsors the annual Escambia County Student Poetry Contest open to all public, private and home school students in the county. Young poets win cash prizes, an opportunity to read their work at a local bookstore, and publication. WFLF annually sponsors the BJ Miller Scholarship at Pensacola State.

An early program, Backdoor Poets, offered adult and student poets the opportunity to present work at weekly events. The program has evolved into a once-a-month open mic at the Pensacola Cultural Center for members and the public to read both prose and poetry. Annual poetry seminars with renowned poets continued for several years, and in 1999 WFLF sponsored a day-long writing seminar. For the past four years, WFLF has sponsored several two-hour weekly writing and critique groups led by members dealing with topics as memoir, fiction, non-fiction, poetry.

To celebrate its 25th anniversary, WFLF hosted popular “Wild Woman” poet Judyth Hill for a four-day series of events, including open mic readings, two workshops and a keynote address at the closing banquet. In 2013, WFLF partnered with the African-American Heritage Society and Florida Humanities Council to bring poet-performer Kwame Dawes to Pensacola.

In 1986, the same year the U.S. Library of Congress named the first poet laureate, WFLF named its first poet laureate. The honor has been held by Adelia Rosasco-Soule, Leonard Temme, Mary Hood, Laurie O’Brien, Henry Langhorne and Juliet DeMarko. Jamey Jones is the current poet laureate.

WFLF publications, along with a special collection of works of local and regional authors and writing reference works, are housed in the Dr. Francis Patrick Cassidy Literary Resource Center. Located in the Pensacola Cultural Center, the library also serves as the office of WFLF and provides space for writing workshops. WFLF has publishes Emerald Coast Review, a biannual collection of work submitted by local writers, artists and poets. ECR provides a record of the area’s literary thought over the years. The Federation newsletter, The Legend, first compiled and edited by Ora Wills and Ellen Pepler, has continued for 25 years as an outlet for promoting and expressing literature. The current editor is Andrea Walker.

In 2008, WFLF participated in Milton’s Riverwalk Fine Arts Festival with live poetry readings by members; WFLF also partnered with Pensacola Chamber of Commerce to publish winners of the Chamber’s Military Appreciation Month student Essay Contest in Escambia County, with prize winners featured in ECR XIV. That year also marked an NEA grant to WFLF to implement The Big Read, in conjunction with Friends of the Library and Pensacola Little Theatre.

In 2010, when the Deep Water Horizon oil spill threatened life as Floridians knew it, WFLF introduced its first online publication, The Spill. The literary site features prose, poetry and photographs submitted by artists seeking a venue for expressing concern of the ecological disaster. https://sites.google.com/site/wflfonline/online-publications

WFLF provided financial assistance in the inaugural year of the international event, 100,000 Poets for Change, assists other groups with like interests, hosts books-signings and occasionally participates in the Downtown Development Board’s Gallery Night in Pensacola.

Sources: Archives, West Florida Literary Federation. Interview Ora Wills.