HVWC
About Slapering Hol Press
Named from the Old Dutch for Sleepy Hollow, Slapering Hol Press (SHP) was founded in 1990 by Margo Taft Stever to advance the national and international conversation of poetry and poetics, principally by publishing and supporting the work of emerging poets. For close to three decades, SHP has published over forty finely crafted poetry anthologies and chapbooks by promising new poets whose work has not yet appeared in book form and has fostered collaborations between new and established authors.
Through publications, readings, and workshops, Slapering Hol Press, the small press imprint of the Hudson Valley Writers Center, has featured poets whose diverse themes of survival and hope cross cultures. On a strong foundation of aesthetic quality, Slapering Hol Press has sustained an enduring tradition of discovering new and significant voices in contemporary poetry.
In 1990, Slapering Hol Press launched its first publication, the anthology, Voices from the River. With its simple and elegant design, this anthology, which featured established poets and soon-to-become luminaries such as Hayden Carruth, Jean Valentine, Dana Gioia, Stephen Dunn, and Billy Collins, set a high aesthetic and literary standard.
After its inaugural publication, the original SHP co-editors, Margo Taft Stever and Stephanie Strickland, focused the mission of the press on publishing emerging poets. Since 1991, SHP has conducted an annual anonymously judged national competition for the publication of a chapbook by a poet who has not previously published a poetry collection. In 2008, Slapering Hol Press Co-editors initiated the “Conversation” series in which a well-known woman poet chooses an emerging poet to appear in the same chapbook with an interview at the end.
Meet The Team
Margo Taft Stever
Editor
Margo Taft Stever's three full-length poetry collections are The End of Horses (Broadstone Books, 2022), winner of a 2023 NYC Big Book Award Distinguished Favorite and a 2022 Pinnacle Achievement Award; Cracked Piano (CavanKerry Press, 2019), Honorable Mention for Eric Hoffer Grand Prize; and Frozen Spring (2002 Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry). Bareback Rider (Broadstone Books, 2025) is her latest of five chapbook. She is founder of Hudson Valley Writers Center and served as chairperson from 1983-2000 and founder of Slapering Hol Press from 1990 and current editor. She teaches poetry at Children's Village, a school for at risk children and adolescents. Website: margotaftstever.com
Susana H. Case
Editor
Susana H. Case is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently, If This Isn't Love, Broadstone Books (2023), and co-editor with Margo Taft Stever of I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe, Milk & Cake Press (2022), Honorable Mention for the Eric Hoffer Book Award as well as Finalist for several awards. She won the Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Competition in 2002 for The Scottish Café, which was re-released in English/Polish as Kawiarnia Szkocka (Opole University Press, 2010) and in English/Ukrainian as Шотландська Кав'ярня (Slapering Hol Press, 2024). Case is co-host of West-East Poets. See more at: susanahcase.com.
Mervyn Taylor
Editor
Mervyn Taylor, a Trinidad-born poet, is the author of nine collections of poetry, including Country of Warm Snow (2020), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and The Last Train (2023). His latest collection is Getting Through: New & Selected Poems (2024), from Beltway Editions, which has been shortlisted for the Bocas Prize. Taylor has taught at Bronx Community College, The New School University, and in the NYC public school system. Besides poetry, he works in Carnival costume design and assemblage arts. He has also produced an audio collection of poems, “Road Clear,” accompanied by bassist David Williams. Taylor lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Belmont, Trinidad. Website: mervyntaylor.com
Julie Danho
Copyeditor
Julie Danho’s first full-length poetry collection, Those Who Keep Arriving, won the 2018 Gerald Cable Book Award from Silverfish Review Press. Her chapbook, Six Portraits, received the 2013 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Award, and her poems have appeared in journals such as Pleiades, Alaska Quarterly Review, and New Ohio Review as well as featured on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily. She has been awarded fellowships from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the MacColl Johnson Fund. You can find her work at juliedanho.com.
SHP Advisory Committee
Cindy Beer-Fouhy
Sally Bliumis-Dunn
Peggy Ellsberg
Suzanne Cleary
Nick Makoha
Ann Lauinger
Meredith Trede
Michael Quattrone
Iain Haley Pollock
Estha Weiner
Lily Greenberg
Lynn McGee