A Celebration of New Chapbooks by Vincent Bell, Alice Campbell-Romano, Owen Lewis, & Vera Salter (IN PERSON)

Join Jennifer Franklin, Program Director of HVWC, in person at HVWC as she welcomes four poets reading from their new chapbooks.

Vincent Bell grew up in New York City and has a BS and MA from New York University and an MBA from Fordham University. In late 2021 Vincent’s full-length poetry book Gut Renovations was published by Kelsay Books. His poetry also has appeared in New Croton Review, upstreet 16, PANK, The Ravens Perch, Mudfish 21, offcourse, J Journal, and The Westchester Review. He lives with his wife in Ardsley, New York. They have two adult children with families of their own.

Alice Campbell-Romano, child of the Hudson Highlands and New York City, lived 13 years in Rome, where she adapted Italian movie scripts into English and married a dashing Italian movie-maker. He took his new family to Los Angeles, an act of courage. Alice became president of The Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC) and worked with independent film and TV producers as well as for Universal Studios. She won an Atlantic Monthly poetry prize as a teenager but avoided the art—until she needed poetry for the unique saving power of words. It took her a while to say, “I am a poet,” but thanks to the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center, Alice takes on the mantle. Her poems are published online and in print, most recently in Persimmon Tree, Prometheus Dreaming, Orchards Poetry, Willows Wept, New Croton Review, The Raven Review. They are included in anthologies, David St. John’s Beyond the Lyric Moment among these. She was a Poetry International finalist in the Atlanta Review. Her first collection, THE CONSOLATION OF GEOMETRY will be published by C&R Press in 2024.

Owen Lewis, author of three collections of poetry, Field Light (Distinguished Favorite, 2020 NYCBigBookAward; 2021 “Must Read”, Mass Book Awards), Marriage Map (short list Rubery Book Awards) and Sometimes Full of Daylight, all from Dos Madres Press, and two chapbooks. best man was the recipient of the 2016 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize of the New England Poetry Club. Prizes include: 2023 Guernsey International Poetry Competition, 2023 Arts & Letters/ Rumi Prize, 2016 International Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. His poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Poetry Wales, The Mississippi Review, Southward, The Four Way Review, Arts & Letters, and Cider Press Review. His literary essays have appeared in Intima, Ink Sweat & Tears, Presence, Wordpeace, and the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. At Columbia University, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, he is Professor of Psychiatry in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics.

Vera Kewes Salter was, until very recently, a care partner for her late husband of fifty years. He lived with Lewy Body Dementia. They live in New Rochelle, New York. Her work has appeared in Red Eft Review, Nixes Mate Review, Prometheus Dreaming, Medical Literary Messenger, Judaica Mismor Anthology, Right Hand Pointing, Persimmon Tree, Writing in a Woman’s Voice and other publications.