Hudson Valley Writers Center Holds Annual Gala

Honorees include Arthur Sze & Lauren Acampora

The Hudson Valley Writers Center (HVWC) hosted its annual gala on Thursday, September 22, celebrating its 34th year. The lively evening supported the many valued community outreach programs, classes, and readings that the Center offers to the Lower Hudson Valley region. 

“We have just accomplished a goal that we set out about 12 years ago, and that was to buy this building and to make this beautiful landmark building our permanent home,” said Mary Linder, Chair of the HVWC Board. “We are the only literary arts center in Westchester, which has four specific programs that are connected and help us achieve our mission and reach our community.” These programs include: local and national reading series, all-genre-inclusive writing workshops, national press and community-centered outreach initiatives.

The benefit took place at The Hudson Valley Writers Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY, where attendees were welcomed by jazz musicians from Sleepy Hollow Middle School and High School. The night featured a catered dinner by Susan Lawrence, a poetry reading from students of Children’s Village, and a silent auction for many desirable items and memberships donated from area businesses and organizations. All of the profits support the HVWC’s mission of bringing literary enrichment to the region. Remaining auction items are still available for purchase here: https://bit.ly/3rQ5QXX 

This year, we also celebrated our recent purchase of our historic landmark building, the Philipse Manor Train Station, and we honored two outstanding writers: award winning poet Arthur Sze and novelist Lauren Acompara. The event included a final honor to longtime chairman and co-founder of the Hudson Valley Writers Center, Donald Stever. Please see extended bios below.

Please contact ask@writerscenter.org have any questions about the content or media in this release.

Honoree Bios:

Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including Sight Lines (2019), which won the National Book Award, and The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021). His other books include Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist; The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Book Award; Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998, selected for the Balcones Poetry Prize and the Asian American Literary Award; and Archipelago (1995), selected for an American Book Award. He has also published one book of Chinese poetry translations, The Silk Dragon (2001), selected for the Western States Book Award, and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). Sze is the recipient of numerous prizes, grants and honors. His poems have been translated into a dozen languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Korean, and Spanish. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he lives.

Lauren Acampora is the author of The Hundred Waters (2022), named one of Vogue‘s best books of the year. Her first novel, The Paper Wasp (2019) was longliste

d for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize and was placed on numerous best lists. The Wonder Garden(2015), a debut collection of linked stories, was chosen as one of the best books of 2015 by Amazon and NPR and received additional acclaim. She is a 2021 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Fiction from The New York Foundation for the Arts. Her short fiction and other writing has appeared in publications such as The Paris Review, Guernica, New England Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, Antioch Review, The New York Times Book Review, and LitHub. She graduated from Brown University, earned an MFA at Brooklyn College, and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the Ucross Foundation, Writers OMI International Residency, and the Ragdale Foundation. Lauren lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband, artist Thomas Doyle, and their daughter.

Donald Stever spent his fifty-year career as a prominent environmental lawyer. He is a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers and a past-president of the Environmental Law Institute based in Washington, D.C. He was New Hampshire’s first environmental lawyer and was later head of the environmental defense section of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington D.C. Don was a partner or of counsel in several major law firms. He is a widely published author, and his works include the multi-volume treatise, Law of Chemical Regulation and Hazardous Waste and the award-winning Seabrook and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, an analysis of nuclear power plant licensing. He spent several years as a Sleepy Hollow Village Trustee and wrote the local law that required General Motors to clean up their industrial site to standards stricter than either state or federal regulations. He also co-authored the first Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan which required builders to adhere to strict environmental and aesthetic standards. He is a founding board member of the Friends of the Rockefeller State Park Preserve. As a founding board member of the HVWC, with his wife Margo, Don spearheaded the campaign to preserve the historic Philipse Manor Train Station. During his long service on the board, Don led the lengthy negotiations with the MTA for the Writers Center to buy the landmark train station building. The purchase was completed this summer, making the Philipse Manor Train Station the Writers Center’s permanent home. Don retired from the board of the Writers Center in December 2021.

Photos by Emily Waters

 

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About Hudson Valley Writers Center

The Hudson Valley Writers Center provides a supportive and constructive environment for a diverse community of readers and writers. We bring language to life through workshops, readings, publications, and outreach.

The Hudson Valley Writers Center provides a supportive and constructive environment for a diverse community of readers and writers. We bring language to life through workshops, readings, publications, and outreach.