It Was a Dark and Stormy Night....

It was a dark and stormy night....

We hoped it wouldn't turn out that way--indeed a hardy band of Gazeboans made their way to Schoolhouse Green in the hopes that the weatherman would be wrong.

Good news? We got to hear simply wonderful, funny, intelligent poetry from Harriet Slaughter.

And we got to hear an intriguing introduction by Paula Uruburu, the author of AMERICAN EVE: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the "It" Girl, and the Crime of the Century, and a rushed, though captivating, passage from that interesting book, when the black clouds rolled in, followed by vicious lightening, heavy, blowing rain, and...hail!

(photos courtesy of Betsy Transom)

We hope for a bit nicer weather next Monday, though those of us who packed into the Gazebo (it does hold a lot!) will likely never forget the experience!

That said, we hope to have the Readers we missed (and maybe Paula, too?) come back later in the summer.

This week we have a powerful, eclectic group of Readers.

The 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/

Monday June 23rd, we will feature:

David Axelrod

Dr. David B. Axelrod, Suffolk County, Long Island’s Poet Laureate, maintains a website at www.writersunlimited.org/laureate where he offers his services to the public. Dr. Axelrod has published in hundreds of magazines and anthologies. He is the recipient of three Fulbright Awards including his being the first official Fulbright Poet-in-Residence in the People’s Republic of China. This July he will perform in Vienna and teach young poets at the Gerard Manley Hopkins Festival and Summer Institute in Ireland. For more information about Dr. Axelrod and his eighteenth and newest book, Deciduous: Poems, due out in early 2008 from Ahadada Books (Toronto and Tokyo) visit their website at www.ahadadabook.com.

Clive Young

Clive Young is an author and lecturer covering the crossroads between high tech and popular culture. He is the author of Homemade Hollywood: Fans Behind The Camera [Continuum, 2008], the first in-depth look at the "Fan Film" movement, where amateurs create their own unauthorized movies starring world-famous characters, from Indiana Jones to Captain Kirk to Harry Potter. The book follows their stories and more as it traces Fan Films from the 1920s--when con men made fake Little Rascals movies--to the YouTube videos of today.

While senior editor of Pro Sound News since 1994, he has also written for MTV, VH1.com, American Songwriter, Music Business International, Wine Enthusiast and other outlets, and his book, Crank It Up [Backbeat Books, 2004], profiling the world's top roadies, received strong reviews from Billboard and Hit Parader, among others. As an in-demand speaker, Young has lectured extensively on film, fan films and music at universities, libraries and conventions around the U.S. He lives in Rockville Centre, NY with his wife and daughter. Visit his website, www.cliveyoung.com.

Austin Alexis

Austin Alexis attended the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. He has published poetry and fiction in Barrow Street, The Journal, The Pedestal Magazine, Red River Review, Tryst, Clara Venus, Poets.com, the anthology Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and about the Police and elsewhere. One of his plays has been performed in the Samuel French Short
Plays Festival. He has a chapbook forthcoming in October from Poets Wear Prada Press. He received a Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Scholarship and a Millay Colony residency. He has taught at Nassau Community College and Hunter College and currently teaches at New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

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.

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/