Alice James Books 50th Anniversary / by Sharon Israel

LISTEN to my February 13th, 2024 WIOX broadcast (also a podcast!) featuring award-winning poets Carey Salerno and Stacy L. Spencer, who are on the show to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alice James Books, an important Press solely dedicated to poetry. Visit Alice James Books

Carey Salerno is the executive director and publisher of Alice James Books. She is the author of Shelter (2009) and Tributary (2021), and her poems, essays, and articles about her work as a publisher can be found in places like American Poetry Review, NPR, The New York Times. She has poems forthcoming in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Los Angeles Review, and ONLY POEMS. Salerno serves as the co-chair for LitNet: The Literary Network and occasionally teaches poetry and publishing arts at the University of Maine at Farmington. In 2021, she received the Golden Colophon Award for Independent Paradigm Publishing from CLMP for the leadership and contributions of Alice James Books in indie literature.

 Stacy L. Spencer is a poet, fiction writer, and nonprofit consultant. After attending the Interlochen Arts Academy where she studied with Jack Driscoll, she graduated from Amherst College and received her doctorate from the University of Michigan in American Studies. At Amherst she won the Collin Armstrong Poetry Prize. Her positions in New York City nonprofits, where she focused on fundraising, include Barnard College, The Public Theater, the Apollo Theater, and the Museum of the City of New York. She has also taught arts management at the Lubin School of Business at Pace University. Since 2016 Stacy has served on the board of Alice James Books. Her poems have appeared in Thimble Literary Magazine, Topical Poetry, and Detroit Lit Mag. Stacy is currently writing a novel.