“The Hudson Valley Writers Center presides over a great river of language, heart, and imagination.”

What a terrific gem, where art and poetry are encouraged and revitalized. A vintage feel, overlooking the Hudson with just the nicest people.

A chrysalis for writers in an old train stop

I love this environment; I’m geeky that way…  You discover writers you really fuse with here. You get inspired. For me, this is like the life of a mayfly or a dragonfly or—better still—a butterfly. I was cocooned here in the audience for years, and then I crawled out with my sticky wings spreading. And now here I am.

I think places like the Writers Center are very rare. There’s a place I go in downtown Manhattan for writers, and they have workshops and things. Compared to Westchester, it looks like graduate-student housing. It’s very bare-bones. The Writers Center is such a serene space, like a sanctuary. And the audience is very well-read. I’m really envious, frankly.

Teaching there is a dream for a poet. Interesting, talented people find their way to the Writers Center.

As sources of inspiration go, the Hudson Valley Writers Center is right up there. Housed in the former Philipse Manor train station with a great view of the Hudson River, the center offers no lack of things to write about. Want to put your characters on a train? One will be through regularly. A boat? The river’s right there. So, too, is the bridge. There’s also strength in numbers, writers gathering to collaborate and raise their games.

I found reading at the Hudson Valley Writers Center to be a pleasure on so many levels: the attentive and responsive audience, the beautiful arts & crafts restored Philipse Manor train station, facing the river out the windows as I read. Even the occasional train blast going by. A wonderful venue in which to read and to listen to poetry!

Beautiful venue for a reading, with a warm and receptive audience

To read at the Hudson Valley Writers Center or attend an event there is to be welcomed into a community that includes emerging writers as well as writers who are the definitive voices of their generation. That sense of inclusivity and support resonates in the conversations that are part of every event at the Center. I have been inspired by the readings I’ve attended there, and when I’ve had the honor to read at the Center myself, I have felt grateful for the deeply committed staff and thoughtful audience response that is characteristic of Center events—not to mention the evocative Hudson River views that remind us we are part of something very old, and very new.

I very much enjoyed the experience of reading in the beautifully restored train station, as I’ve always been a fan of historic buildings which offer such a dramatic window on the past, a stimulation to the imagination.

The Hudson Valley Writers Center is an inspiring place to read poetry and to listen to it.  I’ve enjoyed giving readings there, among caring people and attentive audiences. The restored train station is a beautiful retreat, set in a landscape that has generated paintings and poems. May the center continue to thrive and prosper.

The Hudson Valley series at the Philipse Manor train station is the essence of what a public reading can offer: a meaningful pause from one’s individual travels, a chance to form part of something larger for just an hour and allow one’s mind to connect in real time with other minds taking in the same words and ideas.

I loved being at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. It looks and feels like a haven. Conversation and reading flow into each other. What a pleasure.

The Hudson Valley Writers Center is the gem of Westchester County, and reading in the beautifully and lovingly restored Philipse Manor train station with the hard-working and generous staff in attendance along with an attentive audience of readers and writers felt like a homecoming. A truly unforgettable experience.

With its array of readings, courses, workshops, and other programs, the Hudson Valley Writers Center presides over a great river of language, imagination, and heart. It makes an absolutely necessary contribution to the entire region’s life and letters.

The Hudson Valley Writers Center’s reading series is a book lover’s dream: a night of conversation and laughter between writers and readers, in the intimate and magical restored Philipse Manor Station. This series feels like a gathering of open-armed friends, new and old.

Reading and teaching in the Philipse Manor space is like being part of a site-specific literary art installation. Inside the restored railway station, there’s a kind of emotional locomotion that takes place as poets share work, steps away from passing passenger cars we watch as they gently hum by. 

A beautiful spring day, an attentive audience, a gracious introduction, a memorable venue—what a pleasure to read for HVWC! I look forward to going back one day.

This class has become a central part of my life.

Everything I know is here/ where everything I’ve thought/ or drunk winds up/ The essence of my ancestors is here/ and in such rivers

Reading and teaching in the Philipse Manor space is like being part of a site-specific literary art installation. Inside the restored railway station, there’s a kind of emotional locomotion that takes place as poets share work, steps away from passing passenger cars we watch as they gently hum by. The Hudson Valley Writers Center supports poets and cultivates an educated audience of poetry lovers, both engaged and engaging!

Teaching and reading at HVWC is not only a joy, but a light—the enthusiasm of others is contagious. 

A glorious space with a glorious view! A community of serious readers and writers.

There’s a sense of instant comfort and community in the old train station that houses the Hudson Valley Writers Center. The Center is an oasis for the beauty and power of language—a place where people come together in an intimate space to share the transformative power of words.

My poetry and prose reading was memorable since the audience was attentive, intense listeners and lovers of language. It made my connection with them clear and instantaneous.