The Chestnut Hill Local is an award-winning, independent weekly newspaper that serves the neighborhood of Chestnut Hill and surrounding communities in the northwest Philadelphia region. They ran the following two part story by Amy Brisson.

Second of two parts

On a visit to Pennsylvania's death row, you might not expect to meet an award-winning poet, welterweight boxing champion and former resident of Mt. Airy. But that is just what Reginald Sinclair Lewis is.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, Lewis grew up in Philadelphia during the 1960s and 1970s, living with his family in Lower Kensington and with his grandmother in Mount Airy. Although Lewis always loved language, for many years he put his dreams of writing on hold while he became increasingly involved with the dangerous 12th and Oxford Street gang.

A shoot-out put Lewis in Rahway prison for several years, and when he was paroled he tried pursuing both writing and boxing, but began drifting without direction. His discovery of himself as a writer did not come until a few years later, when he found himself again in prison, and this time facing a death sentence.

Read the rest at The Chestnut Hill Local

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