Around this time of year, being of somewhat limited literary talent, I start running out of adjectives to describe how wonderful our Monday evenings are. Let me just say that the weather was exquisite, and the Readers were wonderful.

Joan Dupre, a late fill-in (life happens, even to our Readers!) was fantastic! She was warm, and funny and set a great tone for the evening.

Christine Timm was equally delightful-- she had the audience totally in her sway--one moment laughing, the next emotional. Her "tattoo" slam poem at the end of her set was masterful.

J R (Judy) Turek, our good friend, pitched in with a beautiful, and educational, poem centering on Long Island, and its heritage, as it applies to her garden;

and Clive Young alternatingly brought the crowd to chuckles and grimaces, as he read a very powerful, perfectly crafted short story.

(See more photos here)

This Monday, we feature some more great talent--two old friends and three new-to-us Readers:

Paula Camacho

Paula Camacho moderates the Farmingdale Poetry Group, which meets at 7 PM on alternate Weds. from September to June at the Farmingdale Public Library. Her poems have won awards and have been published in several magazines and anthologies, including Writers' Journal, Lucidity, Farmingdale Observer, Newsday, North Shore Woman's Newsletter and the anthologies of Performance Poet's Association Literary Review, Long Island Quarterly, Long Island Expressions, Dream, For Loving Precious Beasts, Long Island Sounds: 2007, Friends of the Hempstead Plains, Songs of Seasoned Women and the Farmingdale Poetry Chapbook. She was chairperson on the Committee to Establish the Nassau County Poet Laureate law and was a panelist on the Nassau County Poet Laureate Panel. Currently she is working as the coordinator of Maxwell Wheat's Nassau County Poet Laureate Committee. She is a panelist for Nassau Grants for the Arts. She has published Hidden Between Branches, and two chapbooks, The Short Lives Of Giants, and November's Diary.

Teri Coyne

Teri holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from New York University. Before turning to fiction, Teri wrote and performed stand-up comedy in clubs around New York City for many years. She has written several short films which were produced through NYU.

Teri has studied novel writing at the Iowa Summer Writers Workshop, memoir with Frank McCourt at the Southampton Summer Writer's Program, fiction with Masha Hamilton at the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City and poetry with Philip Shultz at NYU.

Teri's debut novel Skin and Bones will be published by Ballantine in July of next year. Teri has also written a memoir entitled Wish You Were Here about her family trips she took as a young girl. She is currently at work on her second novel Grace and Heart.

Teri leads a technical writing and training team at a large global law firm. She divides her time between New York City and the North Fork of Long Island.

For more information on Teri visit her website at www.tericoyne.com.

Bruce Grossberg

Bruce Grossberg is happy to be returning to the Gazebo. He is the author of two plays on Ulysses Grant, and is currently working on a third. Bruce has also written a number of shorter works, including Shakespeare In The Park, which has been seen at the Samuel French One-Act Festival, and other plays which have been performed in New York, Los Angeles, and Texas. He blogs occasionally at www.bafterthefact.blogspot.com. Sometimes television actor, sometimes lawyer, Bruce lives in Forest Hills with his wife, the artist Laura Rovinsky, and their daughter, Sofia.

Sonia Russell

Sonia Russell is an author, publisher, poet, and orator from Long Island, NY. Her first novel, "The Cost of Love," debuted in September 2007 under the pseudonym of LeRoia. This novel, which is the first of a series, as well as the first publishing effort of her company SoniSpeaksVolumes Publishing, LLC, has sparked book clubs, book signings, and table talk book signings in several cities. Sonia (LeRoia) was the featured author at Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc.'s Women's Month "Meet the Author" in Jamaica, New York in March of this year. She was also featured at Hue-man Bookstore in Harlem, on a panel of five authors called "First Voices," where she discussed "The Cost of Love," in April. Sonia recently obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in English, and endeavors to teach creative writing. Sonia's readings at the Gazebo this year will focus on Love, the theme surrounding her book and recently inspired poetry.

Susan Deacon


Upcoming Readers:

August 11 Long Island Writer's Guild
August 18 Yolanda Coulaz- The Reverend Mofo Doris Bush Florence Gatto
August 25 Barbara Hoffman Barbara Reiher-Meyers Barbara Southard Karen Swenson

Readings start at 7pm at Schoolhouse Green, located on Foxhurst Road, just east of Long Beach Road, Oceanside NY. For more information, www.schoolhousegreen.org. or our new blog site http://summergazeboreadings.blogspot.com/

The Readings start at 7pm at Schoolhouse Green, located on Foxhurst Road, just east of Long Beach Road.

The Summer Gazebo Readings are sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Oceanside, in support of the Oceanside Education Foundation. The Gazebo Readings will be held each Monday evening in June, July and August, and will feature 4 readers each evening. Scheduled readers include some of Long Island's most prestigious poets, published authors, comedians, fiction and non-fiction writers, and local community members sharing some of their favorite literature. The Summer Gazebo Readings will be held outdoors; seating is limited, so bring a lawn chair, a blanket, a picnic table. The grounds are open, and the public is encouraged to come early and have a quiet summer's picnic on the grounds. Admission is free.

Sponsors include:
Home & Hearth Realty
Tower's Funeral Home
Oceanville Mason Supply
Westron's Light Bulb Warehouse
NY Municipal Credit Union
Childs Murphy Kuehn & Cesiro, Inc. Insurance
Dr. Aaron Rappaport, DDS & Dr. David Rappaport, DMD
Marsh Hawk Press
LI Pulse Magazine
Councilman Anthony J. Santino
M. Schamroth & Sons
E. Fine
C. Scarlata & Family
Kaufman Family
Doc's Mechanical Piping & Heating Corp.
Bondi & Iovino, Attorneys at Law

For more information:

Tony Iovino
68 Yorktown Street
Rockville Centre, NY 11570
H 516 763-1667
C 516 459-3262
W 516 741-8585
www.schoolhousegreen.org
http://summergazeboreadings.blogspot.com/