This weekend and for the first time in staff memory, the Huntington Public Library on Main Street in Huntington held a local authors' showcase featuring works by fiction and non-fiction writers who call this region home.
The event, sponsored by the Friends of the Huntington Public Library, took place Saturday.
The showcase included authors Marc H. Abrams, Madeline Arroyo, Sandi Bloomberg, Linda Reid Bryce, Roberto Lee Davis, Anthony DiFranco, Brian Donovan, Melinda Ehrlich, Linda Maria Frank, Bonnie Grubman, Cynthia Hey, Alan Hoenig, Deborah Ann Hurley, Vincent Kelly, Jackie Kramer, Patricia Ruth Kresner, Jim Lauter, Karen Rae Levine, Gene Ligotti, Yona Zeldis McDonough, Craig Quinn, Sharon Pape, Darrell W Pone, Md, Sevi Regis, Donald Schaeffer, Dr Alfred Sforza, Patricia Shih and Paul Marshall Wortman.
According to library representative Teresa Schwind, nearly all the authors are from the Huntington area, although one or two are from a little farther away -- and there was even an author from Brooklyn.
The rationale for the showcase, she said, was simple -- the Adult Services Department gets many requests from local authors throughout the year, but cannot entertain all those requests by providing them with individual appearances.
“So we thought we would have an "event" for everyone," she said.
A local author showcase, she continued, provides local authors the ablility to network with other authors, showcase their books in an environment that is a natural fit for authors -- their local library -- at no charge, and the library can also support the authors by offering free publicity. "It embraces local talent, perhaps can shed a spotlight on their work, and share with our community, their stories," noted Schwind.
Among authors on hand who are likely to be familiar names to local residents was Huntington Station historian Anthony Sforza; and Patricia Shih, a musician, entertainer and author of Gigging and Truly Rotten Gigs From Hell (2010), was also on hand.
Huntington resident Anthony DiFranco, who appeared just two days previously to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) with a documentary he created exploring the topic, was back at the library to show off some of his works.
Marc H. Abrams had an ambitious book, “Sioux War Dispatches: Reports from the Field, 1876-1877,” to show off. The book relates how an escalation of events led to a series of battles and skirmishes between the U.S. Army and the Sioux tribes and their allies -- culminating in the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
Gene Ligotti’s Ultimate Betrayal is a suspense novel that follows the life of Ryce Traden, a charismatic, tall, good-looking and affable man with a trusting nature who works in Montauk aboard a charter fishing boat.
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And American Odyssey of NASCAR’s First Black Driver, by Pulitzer Prize–winning Newsday reporter Brian Donovan, now retired and a race-car driver, follows the hard-luck career of a man who challenged NASCAR’s racial barrier in the 1950s.
All books sales benefitted the Friends of Huntington Library.
