RMAC's 2008 Literary Arts Festival at and with the cooperation of Fort Tilden, Gateway National
 Recreation Area will take palce on Saturday & Sunday, June 7 & 8, 2008. The event will behosted by
 Rockaway Artists Alliance and The Rockaway Theatre Company

Author panel discussions will cover a variety of topics including mystery writing, historical fiction, the challenges of local journalism, staying young, the Holocaust experience, shoosing wines and spirits and much more. Films will include documentaries and features by locally based artists.

Irish novelist Tom Phelan who will talk about his latest work and describe the plight of Ireland's WWI soldiers.
Authors from the newly published Queens-based anthology, Queens Noir (Akashic), will discuss the challenges of writing dark fiction.
Jill Eisenstadt, a novelist who grew up on the Rockaway peninsula and whose first book, From Rockaway, captured the eighties beach scene,
will join a panel led by editor Robert Knightly that includes authors Jillian Abbot, Maggie Estep (Flamethrower), Alan Gordon (The Fools Guild Mystery series), Patricia King, Liz Martinez, Kim Sykes and K. J. A. Wishnia (23 Shades of Black).
Rockaway resident and popular thriller writer Thomas O'Callaghan (Bone Thief, The Screaming Room) will lead a second panel of mystery
and thriller novelists including Alison Gaylin (Trashed), former Rockaway resident Aileen Barron (The Gold of Thrace, The Torch of
Tangier), and returning author Jay Lillie (Pacific Rebound, Havana Passage).

Other participating authors will discuss how their fiction intersects their lives and the importance of developing fully realized characters
Darcy Steinke (Easter Everywhere: A Memoir, Milk: A Novel) will join returning author Ellen Meister (Secret Confessions of the
Applewood PTA), along with Helen Schulman (A Day at the Beach), William Frederick Cooper (There's Always a Reason), Anne Landsman
 (The Rowing Lesson), David Evanier (The Great Kisser) and Anya Ulinich (Petropolis) in two panels which will be moderated, respectively, by
Carol Hoenig (Without Grace) and Pamela Popeson, a Rockaway playwright whose most recent full length play, What Comes Next, is
currently in performance at the Access Theater, Off-Off Broadway, with Rebellion Dogs Productions.

Historical novelist Stephanie Cowell (Marrying Mozart) will join Mina Samuels (The Queen of Cups -- a novel about the wife of famous American
philosopher C.S. Peirce) to discuss the historical experiences of women married to well known, but often difficult, men, in a discussion
moderated by Pennsylvania based author and former Rockawayite Dr. Steven Porter (America's Dying Democracy, Hannes Klar).
    The Holocaust experience will be discussed by survivors and others who have written about it. Former Rockaway resident and Brooklyn College professor Tibbi Duboys (Teaching the Holocaust) will join current Rockaway resident Miriam Sorger (A Raft on the River) and past Rockawayite Rena Bernstein (Bitter Freedom), along with novelist Cheryl Pearl Sucher (The Rescue of Memory), to discuss the impact of the Holocaust on their own lives and on those around them.
    The Broad Channel based writing team of Dan and Liz Guarino will be on hand to talk about their own new book, Broad Channel: Images of America, and discuss the special factors involved in joining words with pictures. Fellow panelists will include Breezy Point-based Kenneth Hogan (America's Ballparks, The Old Firehouse), Brooklyn-based Ben Gibberd (New York Waters) and New Jersey-based Brian Yarvin (Farms and Foods of the Garden State).
    A panel on the challenges of aging well will include Heather Hummel (Gracefully: Looking and Being Your Best at any Age), Rockaway writer Renee Lee Rosenberg (Achieving the Good Life After Fifty), and former Rockaway resident Alan Geller (Scary Diagnosis). It will be moderated by Rockaway-based health writer Nancy Gahles.The challenge of writing for locally based newspapers will be discussed by local newspaper staff, including Rockaway Wave editor Howard Schwach and Rockaway Point News editor, Noreen Schram in a panel led by Queens Ledger reporter Arlene McKanic. A workshop on breaking into print for new and aspiring writers will be presented by returning author Carol Hoenig (Without Grace) and Beverage and Media Group Editor Perry Luntz, author of Whiskey & Spirits for Dummies, will speak to attendees on the finer points of selecting liquor and liquers. 

Music, poetry and dramatic readings will occur throughout the day and will feature popular WFUV disc jockey Pete Fornatale, talking about his new book, Simon and Garfunkel's Bookends. Winners of a peninsula wide school based student writing contest will be recognized in a special ceremony and given the chance to discuss their work while younger children will explore their own creativity under the supervision of arts professionals in a specially designated "kids' area".

On the evenings of June 7th and 8th a series of films by local artists will be presented. Saturday evening's feature is award-winning director/producer and Rockaway resident Brett Morgen's The Kid Stays in the Picture, about the producer of Chinatown and The Godfather Robert Evans' seduction of Hollywood. Morgen's feature will share Saturday's bill with Westchester-based filmmaker David Baugnon, whose special on artists who fought and painted their way through World War II (Art in the Face of War) will kick off the evening. Returning filmmaker Mark Street’s new documentary, Hidden in Plain Sight, capturing the street life of four major cities around the globe, will complete Saturday evening's fare.

    On Sunday evening, following the literary festival, Rockaway auteur Kevin Breslin's The Other Side of the Street, a short homage to Jimmy Breslin, will be shown. This will be followed by award winning Rockaway filmmaker Bob Sarnoff's new entry, Dispatch, viewing the world from the dashboard of a local car service. Sarnoff's earlier films include the well received Irish Ropes which was shown widely last year at film festivals around the country and on TV.

Rockaway-based playwright Pamela Popeson will present a short video from one of her stage plays and, at 8:25, the evening's feature, The Limbo Room, by Rockaway filmmaker Debra Eisenstadt, a comedic, existential look at the life of an off-Broadway understudy, will be shown.
The evening will conclude with an offering by Rockaway based filmmaker Yisrael Lifschutz presenting his new documentary, The Jewish Basketball Hall of Fame.

Admission to all showings and panel discussions is free. Food and refreshments will be available on-site from the newly opened Belle Harbor-based restaurant at B. 129th Street, Rockaway Seafood. Books will be offered for sale throughout Sunday's book festival by Manhattan-based bookseller Mobile Libris with authors available to talk about and sign books for interested readers.

For information please email Stu Mirsky
or call Stu at 718-634-0577
 

FILM DOCUMENTARY TO BE SCREENED IN FORT TILDEN

A 30 minute presentation of "The Bungalows of Rockaway" will be shown in the theater of the Rockaway Theatre Company in Fort Tilden, GNRA on Saturday, March 15, 2008. Admission is free. The film is an independent documentary-in-progress chronicling the life of the Rockaway bungalows and how these cottages contribute to the larger story of architectural and social history in 20th-century New York City. The film traces the bungalows' story from 1906, when the first one went up, through to the 1930s, when about 8000 were spread across the Rockaways, up to the present, when about 300 remain. Archival imagery, current footage, interviews with bungalow-residents and urban historians document the surprisingly complex identity of the bungalows.

For information and reservations, please call RTC at 718-850-2450.

This project is made possible in part with RMAC as its umbrella organization and conduit for  funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, administered by the Queens Council on the Arts; and by the Queens Council on the Arts with public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

Director and co-producer Jennifer Callahan first encountered Rockaways' bungalows in 2003 while she was producing a video archive for the New York Foundation. For the past 10 years, she has worked on indie films in New York City. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times and The Wave; she has produced feature stories for WNYC radio; and she's done research for an NBC documentary and a Kunhardt Productions documentary on 9/11.

ANNUAL FALL TRIP
"A Trip to Yesteryear"
Saturday, May 17, 2008

STEAM TRAIN & RIVERBOAT CRUISE WITH 4COURSE DINNER

At historic Essex Staion, Essex, CT we board one of a number of vintage rail cars pulled by an authentic steam locomotive and  travel through  beautiful countryside to Deep River Landing. Leaving the train we are escorted to the   riverboat, Becky Thatcher. We take a one and one quarter-hour cruise along the Connecticut River viewing breathtaking scenery as well as historic landmarks such as Gillette Castle and Goodspeed Opera House. Returning to Deep River Landing we, again, board our train returning to Essex Station. From Essex Station our bus drives on to Oliver's Tavern for our four-course dinner.

Luxury bus leaves Rockaway 9:00 am, from Rockaway Beach Boulevard & 135th Street.
Limited seating - all-inclusive trip is $90.00/person - $85.00/person RMAC members. Reservations required no later than April 30th. Checks made payable to
Rockaway Music & Arts Council, Inc.
Mail to: RMAC 2008 Fall Trip,  P.O. Box 171, Rockaway Beach, NY 11693
Questions/Information? Please call Sharon Gabriel, 718-474-8353