Author Interview: Reading Nook

Tell us a little about yourself and what got you in to writing?

My love of books and reading really is the reason I turned to writing. I wanted to contribute somehow to the world of literature that has inspired me since I was a child. My mother made sure there were always books for me to read, magazine subscriptions, newspapers. I was surrounded by the printed word and fell in love with it. First it was the Golden Books series, books by writers like E.B. White, then the Landmark Books which were titles for young readers, and finally by the time I entered my teens I was reading books from my mother’s bookshelves like Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men which had a tremendous impact on me. I wanted to move people like I was moved and began attempts at novels, poetry, character sketches, and, as a theatre major in college. plays. I used to disappear in the library’s racks while in college reading primarily everything I could get my hands on by favorite novelists, playwrights, poets, and when I finally discovered Kenneth Rexroth’s translations of Chinese poetry in my junior year of college, I was totally hooked.  I knew I couldn’t be anything but a writer.

Diversity a feature in Lynbrook native’s 6th book

An Interview with Author Leonard Durso

Spotlight: Istanbul Days,
Istanbul Nights By Leonard Durso