Saturday May 21, 4pm – Prose
Nicole Steinberg (editor), Ron Hogan & Buzz Poole (contributors) to Forgotten Borough: Queens ($21.95 SUNY) – Twenty-four contemporary writers reflect on life in New York City’s biggest underdog, the “forgotten borough” of Queens.-The stories, poems, and essays in Forgotten Borough offer twenty-four takes on New York City’s biggest underdog: Queens. From the immigrant communities of Forest Hills to the unsung heroes of Maspeth and the bustling crowds of Flushing, Queens is the most diverse county in the United States, but unlike the iconic boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx, it’s neither as well known in other parts of the country nor as well traveled by New Yorkers (at least those who don’t need to take the 7 train to get home).
 Ron Hogan helped create the literary Internet by launching Beatrice.com in 1995. He is the author of The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane, a visual tribute to ’70s Hollywood, and Getting Right With Tao, a modern version of the Tao Te Ching. He was also a contributor to the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning and the critical anthology Secrets of the Lost Symbol. |
 Buzz Poole has written about books, music, art and culture for numerous publications, including the Village Voice, The Believer, Print, and San Francisco Chronicle. He is the author of Madonna of the Toast, an examination of surprising iconography, which the New Statesman named one of 2007’s Best Underground Books. He is also the author of the short story collection I Like to Keep My Troubles on the Windy Side of Things. He lives in Jackson Heights, Queens. |
 Nicole Steinberg is the editor of the anthology Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens, an editor at large of LIT, and the author of the forthcoming chapbook Birds of Tokyo. Her poetry has appeared in publications such as No Tell Motel, BOMB, H_NGM_N, Gulf Coast, Barrow Street, and Barrelhouse. She is the founder and curator of Earshot, a New York reading series dedicated to emerging writers. She hails from all over Queens, New York, and currently lives in Philadelphia. |
Featuring writers who hail from the borough as well as those who have moved there and have come to call it home, Forgotten Borough uncovers the New York stories that most of us don’t get to hear, tales that reflect not only upon contemporary life in Queens but also its humble history and its evolution to the multicultural community—the community of communities—it is today. Taken together, they offer a vivid, layered portrait of Queens as a microcosm of America, where race, ethnicity, class, and industrial growth all influence our collective past, as well as our present and future.
“Unlike many theme-centered anthologies, which may grow repetitive or feel forced, Steinberg’s selections are entertaining and varied enough so that there truly is something for everyone—even for the Queens novice.” — Queens Chronicle
“…more than two dozen stories, poems and even Queens-themed haikus take a reader on a cultural tour of the borough, stopping in neighborhoods from Astoria to the Rockaway Peninsula, giving readers a thorough taste of the densely populated piece of land they might only know for being what’s outside their vehicle’s windows when they’re stuck in traffic.” — Queens Tribune
“Though Queens has been home to many great writers—including the father of American poetry Walt Whitman, Beat pioneer Jack Kerouac, Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Alan Dugan, two-fisted journalist Jimmy Breslin, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, rap legend LL Cool J, and renowned novelist Mary Gordon—it rarely comes to mind as a breeding ground for major literary talent. Nicole Steinberg’s first-rate book should go a long way toward rectifying that situation. A terrific read, it makes a powerful case for this long-overlooked borough as a place of remarkable artistic richness and vitality.”— Kimiko Hahn, author of Toxic Flora: Poems
For more information on the book, visit sunypress.edu or forgottenboroughbook.blogspot.com.