A Literary Celebration with Amy Beth Sisson & Friends

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. Register to attend for free!

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.

Below, you’ll find a short bio for each writer. You can read a more extensive bio for each writer on H&H’s website. Email [email protected] with any questions.

Amy Beth Sisson’s poetry has appeared in Cleaver Magazine, Plant-Human Quarterly and will appear in the upcoming anthology Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga.. 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. 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. Their work has been published in Gulf Coast, New Delta Review, Blue Mesa Review, 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. IG: @wmmaeu

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) and Sadness Is a White Bird (Atria Books/Simon and Schuster, 2018). Moriel is also the author of the forthcoming poetry collection I Still Won’t Have Known. Moriel teaches at Swarthmore College and is a member of the faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars’ MFA Program.

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