Photos from August 2, 2010

Clive Young, Jack Anderson, George Wallace & Alix Strauss

Photos from July 26, 2010

Saralee Rosenberg, Reed Farrel Coleman, Brenda Janowitz and Ellen Meister

Photos from July 19, 2010

Bruce Grossberg, Tammy Nuzzo-Morgan...and the duck

Photos from July 12, 2010

Herb Siegel, Florence Gatto & Chris Knopf

Photos from Patriotic Celebration!

Coming Up July 12, 2010

A wonderful time was had by all at the Patriotic Readings and BBQ on Monday the 7th. We heard the Declaration of Independence, and from the works of Sojourner Truth, Mark Twain, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Martin Luther King, Jr. Despite the heat the rest of the day, by the time the food was served there was shade and a pleasant breeze on Schoolhouse Green!

Coming up this Monday, July 7th, we feature:

Christina M. Rau



Christina M. Rau is the founder and director of Poets In Nassau, a reading circuit on Long Island. Her poetry has most recently been published in Potomac Review, Examination Anthology, River Poets Journal, and Blue Earth Review. To justify her penchant for watching really bad reality television, she writes an infrequent column for RealityShack.com. Christina teaches English at Nassau Community College. She loves moonbeams and puppies. And sarcasm.


Herb Siegel



Herb Siegel is a great friend of the Gazebo- he is almost always present in our crowd, supporting and enjoying our programs. Herb was a CEO of major public companies, and the recipient of many professional certifications, awards, and articles. He holds a Ph.D. in International Law from Columbia. In between, he assembled a collection of poems titled, "Life Through My Glasses," an eclectic collection of some personal experiences and many universal observations that educate, challenge, and entertain and usually end with a touch of sardonic humor.

Chris Knopf



Chris Knopf writes the Sam Acquillo Hamptons Mystery series (The Last Refuge, Two Time, Head Wounds, Hard Stop) and a spin-off series starring Sam's sidekick, Jackie Swaitkowski, beginning with Short Squeeze: "More engaging hard-boiled crime fiction from a rising star." - Booklist.
His novel Elysiana (May, 2010), is a literary thriller set in New Jersey during the summer of 1969. Chris is also chairman of Mintz & Hoke, a marketing communications agency in Avon, CT.

Florence Gatto

Florence Gatto combines her passion for Italy and writing to document an era of transition for her immigrant family in The Scent of Jasmine, Vignettes from a Sicilian Heritage. Her essays are written with, wit, insight, and pride.
Florence's stories have appeared in Newsday, LIWriters Guild anthologies, Sweet Lemons , and Cucina Classica cookbook. She received the LlWritersGuild Lifetime, Diamond Leadership awards and L'Esperienza Magazine honors.
Florence studied in Perugia Italy in a Fulbright program and in Siena with a NY State teacher grant. She calls herself an Italophile and requires frequent trips to Italy to feed her psyche.
It is with great pleasure that Florence returns to the Gazebo

Upcoming June 28, 2010

Perfect weather. Beautiful poetry and prose. Simply a great night last Monday on Schoolhouse Green--and an amazing lineup in store for all this Monday!

Doreen Spungin, delicate and thoughtful; Robert Savino, strong and colorful--with a touching tribute to the late Robert Dunn; Louisa Calio's prose, heartwarming and vivid; and George Held, powerful and precise-- a little something for everyone. And brownies, too!

This Monday we feature three accomplished and entertaining poets--and last year's runaway Gazebo favorite. It promises to be an unforgettable evening!

Monday, June 28, 2010 we feature:

Tom Schaudel

Born in Queens, NY and raised on Long Island, Tom Schaudel began his career as a dishwasher at the age of fifteen, and continued to cook in various restaurants throughout high school. That fall, he enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, graduating in 1973, and after six years of working insane hours, in numerous restaurants, under various chefs, Tom landed his first head position in 1979.

Four years later, with the help of two friends, he opened his first restaurant, Panama Hatties. Tom has been the driving force behind numerous restaurants on Long Island, such as 107 Forest Ave, Lemongrass, Downtown Grille and Wine Bar, Tease, Starfish, PassionFish, Spring Close House, Thom Thom, and Maxwell's. His current lineup includes CoolFish, The Jedediah Hawkins Inn, Gabrielle's, and A Mano.

Tom's book, Playing With Fire: Whining & Dining on the Gold Coast is a voyeur's peek into the crazy world of the restaurant culture. Filled with vignettes of difficult customers, stressed-out cooks, harried wait staff, and the truly disturbed, this book takes an affectionate romp through Tom Schaudel's restaurants to introduce you to the most memorable cast of characters he's experienced in his forty years in the business. You'll meet a ninety-year old-woman who happens to be a serial "bird-flipper," a woman trying to drag a twenty-foot Christmas tree out the front door undetected, an elderly gentleman walking out with an 8.5" x 15" metal clipboard menu holder stuffed down his pants, and a woman who got drunk, passed out, got revived, and aced an intervention, all in under twenty minutes. An absolute must read for "foodies," these stories and the many others will provide pure entertainment and lots of laughs for a long, long time to come.

Deborah Hauser



Deborah Hauser holds an MA in English Literature from Stony Brook University and has taught at Stony Brook University and Suffolk County Community College. Deborah's work has appeared in numerous publications including The Wallace Stevens Journal and is forthcoming in Crab Creek Review. She was a finalist in the 2009 Crab Creek Review poetry contest.

She is an active member of the Long Island/New York City poetry community and a featured reader at venues across the Island and the City, including NYU and The Bowery Poetry Club. She is currently working on a collection of modern fairy tales for "grrrls" of all ages.

Vicki Iorio

Vicki Iorio is a native Long Islander-- currently an Oceansider--who has been writing poems since the time she could pick up a crayon. She is a graduate of Hofstra University and a proud member of the Farmingdale Writing Group. Vicki's poetry has appeared in Poetyr Magazine, Mobius, Performance Poet's Association Vol 13, Troubadour 21. Her poem "Old Country Road" was the first place winner of the 7th Annual Princess Ronkonkoma poetry contest, category, our troubled economy.

Look for Vicki's poems in the upcoming North Sea Poetry Scene Long Island Sounds Anthology, the fall edition of Uphook magazine, the North Sea Poetry Scene's Living Outside the Lines, and Gayle Teller's Poetry of Forgiveness collection.

Paula Curci

Paula Curci is a spoken word artist, radio talk show host and school counselor. Currently, as a radio talk show host, Paula has been hosting and producing "CALLIOPES CORNER - The Place Where Poets and Songwriters Meet" on WRHU.ORG and WRHU 88.7fm Radio Hofstra University. She also produces the information minute called "What's The Buzz (R).

Paula is the co-founding member of the Acoustic Poets Network (R), a group of poets who coordinated open mic events in Nassau County and formed a poetry band with the same name. Paula has produced two spoken word CD's with the Acoustic Poets Network (R) and has published one chapbook "One Woman's Cathartic Release in Poetry." APN's two CD's called "Emissary" and "Bittersweet" are available through Amazon.com and CDbaby.com. Both CD's also showcase the work of Zoe Jade Austin, Tullio Vacchio, Kiki Calafell and Vinne Del Basso.

Currently she is working on a third spoken word CD, which should be available soon. Paula has several of her titles available on I tunes and through various download stores. Her work can also be found on the Vault's Fear No Art, The POE Project's, The Shakespeare's Project's and LIOMA's music and poetry compilation CD's.

Paula has been published in several anthologies including, LunaSeas' "Hysteria" and the National Association of Poetry Therapists' "Poets Process". Paula has also won several Vault Fear No Art awards for her poetry and the Vault's Guardian Angel award for her contributions to the artist community she serves, where she has facilitated student poetry groups, writers workshops and open mic programs. Moreover, she was also honored by the March of Dimes; they awarded Paula with their Golden Apple Award for her 20+ years of service as a school counselor.

See you at the Gazebo!!
Many thanks!

Tony Iovino
tonyiovino@gmail.com

Photos from June 21, 2010

Doreen Spungin, Robert Savino, Louisa Calio & George Held

Darren Sardelli, Barbara Reiher-Meyers,
Peter Dugan & Jerry Zezima

Coming Up June 21, 2010

Last Monday Schoolhouse Green was filled with laughter and fine poetry--and the rain stayed away!

Darren Sardelli, started it off with a series of very funny rhyming poems; Barbara Reiher-Meyers and Peter Dugan treated us to powerful poetry (with Barbara making sure the laughter continued); and Jerry Zezima sent us all home laughing and nodding in recognition with readings from his columns. A fun night.

This Monday we feature four fine author/poets:

George Held

A former professor at Queens College, George Held was a Fulbright lecturer in Czechoslovakia for three years and since 1991 has served on the executive board of The South Fork Natural History Museum, in Bridgehampton. His poems, stories, translations, and book reviews have appeared widely, in such places as Commonweal, Confrontation, New York Quarterly, 5AM, and The Notre Dame Review, and Garrison Keillor read one of George's poems on NPR. He has read from his work at the Amagansett Marine Museum, Canio's Books in Sag Harbor, The Bowery Poetry Club, Cornelia Street Café, and Smalls Jazz Club, among other venues. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he has had poems included in two dozen anthologies. His fourteenth collection of poems, After Shakespeare: Selected Sonnets, will be published this fall.

Robert Savino



Robert Savino is a native Long Island poet. His poems have been published widely, in print, from the Long Island Quarterly to the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal.

Robert was a long-standing Board Member of Island Poets; winner of the Lake Ronkonkoma Historical Society's 15th Annual Poetry Competition (2005); and the winner of the 2008 Oberon Poetry Prize.

His books of poetry include the chapbook, fireballs of an illuminated scarecrow (GOOD JAPAN PRESS, 2008) and his first full-length collection Inside a Turtle Shell (Allbook Books, 2009).

Louisa Calio

Louisa Calio is an award winning poet, performer, and photographer. Director of the Poets and Writers Piazza for Hofstra's Italian Experience for the past 9 years, she was Winner of the 1978 Connecticut Commission of the Arts Award to individual Writers, the 1987 Women in Leadership Award, Barbara Jones and Taliesin prizes for Poetry, The New Voices Trinidad and Tobago, and most recently honored at Columbia/ Barnard as a "Feminist who changed America."

Founder of City Spirit Artists, New Haven, Ct., she has spent a life time committed to bringing arts to people of varied economic levels.

Author of In the Eye of Balance, a book of Visionary Poetry that is also a performance, several chapbooks and a novel (in manuscript). Her writings have appeared in anthologies including, Birthed From Scorched Hearts, Women Respond to War, Sisters Singing, I Name Myself Daughter, She is Everywhere, darkmother, Italian Heart/ American Soul, Shades of Black and White, Remembrances, More Sweet Lemons, Northsea Poetry Anthology ,as well as journals and newspapers: VIA, GRADIVA, STUDIA MYSTICA, SALOME, POET'S ON, FEILE -FESTA, JOURNAL OF ITALIAN TRANSLATION, NEW VOICES(TRINIDAD), International Feminist Journal of Politics NEW VERSENEWS and Jamaica's THE GLEANER, OBSERVER, MIRROR.

She has traveled to East and West Africa, lived in the Caribbean and documented her journeys in photographs and the written word, recently completing an epic poem JOURNEY TO THE HEART WATERS which is also an Exhibition of photos with poems that Opened at Round Hill Resort in Montego Bay (Jan.07) AND "A PASSION FOR JAMAICA" also photos and writing that opened at Round Hill in Jan

Doreen Spungin

Doreen Spungin, who writes as Dd. Spungin, taught children with special needs in the New York City Schools. She hosts Poets In Nassau On The Hillside. She has been published in Humanities/Aitia, Asbestos and Brave Hearts, a publication for which she writes a monthly poem. She is involved with the Long Island Poets for Darfur commemorative program anthology.
Her poetry will appear in the forthcoming anthologies: Writing Outside The Lines, Long Island Sounds 2010 and Toward Forgiveness.