Author Archives: beth

Saturday, Feb 13, 2pm at Clay Pit Ponds State Park Preserve, 2351 Veterans Road West, SINY 10309.  Take 440 South to Exit 3, Woodrow Ave.  Follow the signs to Clay Pit Park State Preserve Visitors Center:  https://www.google.com/maps/place/2351+Veterans+Rd+W,+Staten+Island,+NY+10309/@40.5381985,-74.2273061,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x89c3b5316b7bcf0d:0x7309a9de1afef293

In the beautiful wintry woodland of Clay Pit Ponds Park, we’ll gather inside the Interpretive Center to read Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s novel, Snow.  It is a stunning story, set in modern Turkey.  A rash of suicides has been reported among young women in rural villages, and a journalist sets out from Germany to return to his home and learn what caused those young women to take their lives.  As he arrives, a blinding snow storm settles upon the village to cut it off from the outside world.  He meets revolutionaries, fundamentalists, witnesses a murder, is taken into police custody, and reunites with a woman he has loved from afar for years.

What is the mystery that he uncovers?  What finally happens to him?

After our reading concludes, weather permitting, the friendly park rangers will lead us on a walk through the woods.

Saturday, Feb 6, 2pm at the Stapleton Library, 132 Canal St, SINY 10304

Staten Island OutLOUD kicks off our Black History Month events, featuring a new biography, Richmond Unchained, about the first Black sports superstar, the boxer Bill Richmond, born in slavery on Staten Island in 1763.  He won his freedom as a boy, and moved to England to learn the cabinet-making trade.  A favorite of some powerful British aristocrats, Richmond became one of the most celebrated bare-knuckle boxers of his time.

Though Bill Richmond is generally unknown now, he was prominent in British society; indeed, he played an important role in the coronation celebrations of King George IV in 1821.  Richmond Unchained, by Luke G. Williams, explores this remarkable man, a pugilist who knew William Hazlett, Lord Byron, Earl Percy, and the Prince Regent who later was crowned George IV.

This event is good for all ages, and is of special interest to sports fans, as well as to all who care about Black History Month.

Sunday afternoon, January 31, 2016, at 3pm.  Wagner College, in the Manzulli  Board Room,located in Foundation Hall – One Campus Road at Howard Avenue, Staten Island NY 10301.  Ample free parking in the college lots; enter on Howard Avenue.   Co-hosted by Prof. Lori Weintrob and her students.

Staten Island OutLOUD presents a special afternoon of readings and conversation in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Staten Island OutLOUD considers the stories of American GIs who helped liberate the camps.. Prof Lori Weintrob & her students present readings on Dr Janucz Korczak, who cared for Jewish orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto, and then perished with his little ones in Treblinka.  Free

Saturday, January 16, 2016, 2pm. Fort Wadsworth, Enter through the guard station on Bay Street near School Road, SINY 10305.  We’ll gather to read in the Visitors’ Center (ample free parking in the adjacent lot).

By popular demand, Staten Island OutLOUD has added another F. Scott Fitzgerald event: A reading of Fitzgerald’s haunting story “The Ice Palace”.  We’ll gather indoors, in the warm & comfy setting of the Visitors’ Center.  Then, weather permitting, we’ll head outside for a wintry walk around the old fort buildings, which may remind us of the mysterious structure of the Ice Palace.  Free.

“The Ice Palace”, one of Fitzgerald’s short stories published in Flappers and Philosophers in 1922, has been described as a modernist work.  It involves a young woman trapped between two worlds: her home in a sleepy town in Georgia, and the bustling Northern city where her fiance resides. In the dead of winter, she takes the northbound train to visit her fiance and his family.  They welcome her with warm hospitality and show her every courtesy.  Her young man is eager to introduce her to his home town’s festive winter carnival, which features a massive, magical ice palace, fashioned from the clearest ice.  She enjoys the spectacle, but when she enters the ice palace, something happens that nobody expected.  Their lives are forever changed.

Sunday, Nov 29 at 2pm.  St John’s University Black Box Theatre, 300 Howard Ave, SINY 10301.  The Black Box Theatre is in Spellman Hall (next to Security Office), to your right as you enter the front gates of the campus.

The finale of Staten Island OutLOUD’s Big Read series on “The Great Gatsby” features a spoken-word performance inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams”.  This story, considered one of Fitzgerald’s “Gatsby Quartet” of short stories, features elements of the themes that he developed more fully in “The Great Gatsby”.  

Who was that woman?  The woman of a young man’s “winter dreams”.  What happened to her?

Hosted by Prof. Edward Fiorelli.  We’ll enjoy a dessert buffet, courtesy of St John’s University administration, and we’ll share lively conversation about “Gatsby” and mkllFitzgerald’s life and work. 

Our readers include Amanda DeLalla, Robert Heffernan, Ted Lochwyn and musical guest Gary Moore, performing his original musical compositions.

• Tuesday, Nov 24, 6:00pm.  Stapleton Branch Library, 132 Canal St, SINY 10304

Staten Island OutLOUD joins our awesome friend, Stapleton Librarian Rosa Haire for a lively community conversation on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”. Free & open to the public. Rosa’s book discussions ROCK!

Staten Island OutLOUD Board member Victoria Hallerman will be on hand; she’ll participate in the Gatsby discussion and she’ll be available to share information on all OutLOUD’s programs.

Sunday, Nov 22, 3pm at the Alice Austen House Museum, 2 Hylan Blvd, SINY 10305.

Staten Island OutLOUD invites you to consider the lives of Scott’s wife, his mistress, and some writers from his era and his hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald had a tempestuous relationship with Scott, from their courtship when she was a debutante in Montgomery, Alabama, through her long hospitalizations in psychiatric institutions, til his sudden death in Hollywood.  Zelda was one of the models for Daisy Buchanan in Gatsby, and arguably for Nicole Diver in Tender Is the Night.  We’ll explore Zelda’s novel, Save Me the Waltz, and biographical excerpts.  Sheila Graham was a celebrated entertainment reporter. Her relationship with Scott during his late Hollywood years may have buttressed his failing health and forestalled his final heart attack.  In return for her care, Scott tutored Sheila, who was ashamed of her humble beginnings and lack of education.  Her book, College of One, details that aspect of their relationship.

Kay Boyle, a poet, novelist & short story writer whose work is almost unknown today, was considered a major writer in the 1930s and 1940s. Born in St Paul, she lived much of her life abroad.  We’ll talk about her work, which has been described as “bright as an icicle and light as the bones of a bird”.    Upper Left: Zelda Fitzgerald; Upper Right, Sheila Graham.  Lower: Kay Boyle

Saturday, Nov 21 at 4pm. At the historic Conference House, 7455 Hylan Blvd (@Satterlee St), SINY 10307

We’ll gather in the charming stone kitchen of the Conference House to enjoy a chat about the world of Gatsby, and of F. Scott Fitzerald, who was a descendant of Francis Scott Key, the composer of our national anthem.

What do Gatsby & F. Scott Fitzgerald have in common with Benjamin Franklin?  Each was a diarist in childhood.  They both created lists of resolutions, similar to those written by the young Ben Franklin.  Staten Island OutLOUD will also examine another of the “Gatsby Quartet” of short stories, “The Sensible Thing”.  This is a story of young love, maturing love, a chance for happiness, a road not taken.  Is there a “road not taken” in your life’s story?

Sunday, Nov 15, 2pm in the Tavern at Historic Richmond Town, 441 Clarke Ave, SINY 10306.

We’ll gather in the tavern at Historic Richmond Town, as the HRT staff and local historian Patricia Salmon take us back to the Gatsby era, as it played out on Staten Island. Friendly HRT staff will model a few Roaring Twenties costumes & they’ll have some 1920s-inspired accessories for guests to try on. (We’ll snap your photo, if you like!)

Historian Pat Salmon will share some wild tales of crimes and misdemeanors during the Jazz Age on Staten Island. Free & open to the public.

Free parking in the main lot, enter at 441 Clarke Ave, SINY 10306. Follow directions to the sloping sidewalk to the historic tavern, a short walk downhill from the courthouse, opposite the Print Shop.