Philly’s own poet & artist Amy Beth Sisson has received the 2025 Lambda Literary J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50! We’re delighted to welcome Amy Beth and a coterie of their Philly lit scene friends to H&H Books on Thursday, February 19 at 6:00 PM.
Amy Beth, Darla Himeles, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, and Emma Wu will each present a short reading. Darla’s poetry collection, Cleave, and Moriel’s latest novel, Before All the World, will be available for purchase & signing.
This event is free, but registration is highly encouraged! It helps us organize our space. Register on Eventbrite!
About the Authors:
Amy Beth Sisson’s poetry has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Plant-Human Quarterly, and others, and will appear in the upcoming anthology Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga, edited by Frances Cannon, 2026. She is a 2025 winner of the Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia’s Joyful Abundance: Emerging Artist Commissioning Award, the Lambda Literary J. Michael Samuel Prize for Emerging Writers Over 50 and a finalist for The Cleaver Magazine Visual Poetics Contest. Currently, Amy Beth is Fence Magazine's Steaming (online) visual poetry editor and serves on the board of Blue Stoop, where she helps with educational programming. IG: @amy_beth_sisson
Darla Himeles (they/them) is a Philadelphia-based poet and an assistant teaching professor at Widener University. They are the author of the chapbook Flesh Enough and the full-length poetry collection Cleave, both published by Get Fresh Books. Their poems and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and can be read in recent issues of Beloit Poetry Journal, The Gay & Lesbian Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ran Off with the Star Bassoon, Honey Literary, and American Poetry Review. They hold an AB in English from Bryn Mawr College, an MFA in poetry and poetry in translation from Drew University, and a PhD in American literature from Temple University. Find Darla on Instagram and YouTube @darlahimelespoetry, and read more at darlahimelespoetry.com.
Emma Wu (she/they) is a writer and activist originally from Houston, Texas. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from Rutgers University-Camden. Their work has been published in Gulf Coast, New Delta Review, Blue Mesa Review, and elsewhere. They have attended Wildacres Artist Residency, Art Farm Nebraska, and Soaring Gardens Artists Retreat, and were shortlisted for the DISQUIET 2024 Literary Prize in Fiction and the Philadelphia Stories 2025 Short Fiction Contest. Currently residing in Philadelphia, Emma is a Visiting Writer at George Washington University, where they teach at the intersection of digital storytelling and carceral justice.
Moriel Rothman-Zecher is a National Book Foundation ‘5 Under 35’ Honoree, and the author of two novels, Before All the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022), which was named an NPR Best Book of 2022, and which Moriel is currently in the process of adapting for the stage, and Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books / Simon and Schuster, 2018), which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and longlisted for the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize, among other honors. Moriel is also the author of the poetry collection, I Still Won’t Have Known (forthcoming in 2028 from BOA Editions). Moriel’s work has been published in The American Poetry Review, Barrelhouse, Colorado Review, The Common, Jewish Currents, Lit Hub, Nashville Review, The New York Times, Poetry Daily, The Paris Review’s Daily, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere. Moriel is the recipient of two MacDowell Fellowships for Literature, and a Donald Hall Scholarship for Poets from the Bennington Writing Seminars, where Moriel received an MFA in Poetry. Moriel teaches at Swarthmore College, as a Visiting Assistant Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing, and is also a member of the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars’ MFA Program.