Join us for a night of poetry and photography with local roots! Sue Landers, a Germantown native, and Tieshka Smith, a Philadelphia-based visual storyteller, will read from their newly published books of poetry and photography. The reading will run for approximately one hour, with a Q&A session at the end. This program is aimed at adults, but all are welcome. 

Sue Landers' new book, What to Carry Into the Future (Roof Books, 2025) came out of a quest to ride every NYC subway line from end to end. Set within New York City’s subways, streets, and waterways, Landers' poems explore the form resilience takes in the face of ongoing crises. Her previous collection of poems explores Germantown as a neighborhood wrestling with the legacies of structural disinvestment. You can find out more about Landers' work at susanlanders.com.

Tieshka Smith's Compositions of Black Joy:  A Visual Chronicle of the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival (2015-2022) is the companion book to the 2023 photography exhibit entitled Documenting the Philadelphia Juneteenth Festival in Germantown: A Visual Chronicle of Community, Resilience and Freedom. Co-organized by the Johnson House Historic Site and Historic Germantown, the exhibit featured nearly 80 color photographs by Smith and ephemera from the Johnson House that chronicles the growth and evolution of the Festival from 2015 to 2022; celebrates Black families, culture, commerce and history; and amplifies the efforts of everyday people, activists and politicians working on behalf of Black lives. Her images capture the joy, resilience, historical significance, pride and the enduring vitality of Germantown and its connection to a powerful legacy of freedom, liberation and self-sufficiency. Learn more about her work at tieshkasmith.com.