Queens College Evening Readings

Joseph Cuomo, Director, 1976-2017

Queens College Evening Readings…marked its 31st anniversary this past season. What makes America’s greatest writers return again and again? Some say it is Joe Cuomo…founder and director of the series.

“I’m always honored when he asks me,” said Jamaica Kincaid… She read for the first time in 1986 at an Evening Reading. She fainted. But Joe Cuomo, she said, picked her up and helped her get through it. “He is so caring. He has such good literary judgment. I could never say no to him.”

In fact, you could say your A.B.C.’s with all the literary lions who have not said no to Joe: Albee, Bellow, Cheever, Doctorow, Ellison, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, Heller, Irving, James (P.D.), Kesey, Lessing, and Miller, for starters.

From “In the Main Ring with the Literati”

…the Evening Readings at Queens College…celebrated its 25th anniversary. And Joe Cuomo, founder of the Readings…did not disappoint: his dazzling cast on this evening—Norman Mailer, Susan Sontag, and John Updike—performed for an audience that packed the…concert hall. And this was only part of the year-long silver anniversary festivities.

The season began with a reading in honor of playwright Arthur Miller's 85th birthday in October. On hand to help blow out the candles were Peter Matthiessen, Frank McCourt and Grace Paley. In November poet Derek Walcott was the star of a reading, and later a conversation with playwright Edward Albee was hosted by Cuomo… Novelist W.G. Sebald appeared on March 13, and novelist A.S. Byatt concluded the season on April 3. Several programs have been televised…on Metro Channel…

Susan Sontag…has called Cuomo's long labor of love "the best reading series in New York."

Writers who have appeared at Queens College Evening Readings

Ronald Reagan and the Prophecy of Armageddon

a public radio documentary produced by Joe Cuomo, 1984

From “Religious Leaders Tell of Worry on Armageddon View Ascribed to Reagan” by John Herbers, The New York Times

''Ronald Reagan said it as Governor and as President, in his home in the White House, over lunch, over dinner, in the car and over the phone, to religious leaders and lobbyists, to his staff, a Senator and even to People magazine. On at least 11 occasions Ronald Reagan has suggested that the end of the world is coming, and it may be coming soon.''

So begins a 90-minute documentary entitled ''Ronald Reagan and the Prophecy of Armageddon'' that is being broadcast…on about 175 public radio stations…

The 90-minute radio documentary is based on new research into the relation between Mr. Reagan and conservative religious figures dating to the time he was an actor. Joe Cuomo…made the documentary…

“Never, in the time between the prophecies up until now, has there been a time in which so many of the prophecies are coming together,” Mr. Reagan said. “There have been times in the past when people thought the end of the world was coming…but never anything like this.”

From “Chinese Dissident Advocates Divestment”

by Joe Cuomo

Wall Street Journal, April 26, 1989

…astrophysicist Fang Lizhi has put his life on the line.

Mr. Fang, China’s most respected dissident, believes in democracy…checks and balances, separation of powers, elections, pluralism. “We must make our government realize,” he says, “that it is economically dependent upon its citizens…”

Does he mean that foreign companies should divest their holdings if China makes no human-rights progress? Mr. Fang, for all his outspokenness, has never gone this far. No Chinese living in China has. Until now. “Yes,” says Mr. Fang. “I think so. At least, use human rights as a condition for investment.” …

But the principle should be applied “gradually,” he says, “step by step… And when the economy is more and more strong in its links between the international community and China, then it will be very easy to…” He lets the sentence drift off…

Mr. Fang’s phone almost certainly is tapped. Visitors are photographed. He is followed. He cannot leave the country. For now, Mr. Fang’s prison is the size of a nation.

Despite the pressure, he has continued to speak out. Now it is our turn.