The Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute: Celebrating Jane Austen at 250
Booking and details
Sold OutDates Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 7:30pm
Venue Folger Theatre
Tickets $20
Duration 60 minutes
This year, our annual birthday tribute to American poet Emily Dickinson will also honor English novelist Jane Austen for her 250th birthday.
Noted scholars Martha Nell Smith and Aia Yousef, and contemporary romance author Nikki Payne will discuss the life, work, and legacy of Dickinson and Austen and how they continue to shape writers of today, highlighting well-known passages.
The reading, which is co-sponsored by the Emily Dickinson Museum, will be followed by a book signing in the Great Hall. Emily Dickinson’s famous black cake, based on her own recipe, will also be served.
Please note: Children under the age of 4 are not permitted to attend this event.
Virtual access
Can’t join us in person? Purchase virtual access to a live streaming of the reading.
On our blog
Make Emily Dickinson’s Black Cake with The SugaChef
Padua Player, The SugaChef, shares his recipe for a black fruit cake inspired by own of Emily Dickinson’s own recipes.
About the speakers
Nikki Payne
Nikki Payne is a contemporary romance author and cultural anthropologist, known for her modern retellings of classic literature like Jane Austen. Her novels often blend sharp social commentary with “Black girl joy” and are celebrated for their sharp, sexy, and subversive style. By day, she works in the tech industry, and by night, she writes her popular novels, which include Pride and Protest (2022), Sex, Lies and Sensibility (2024), and her most recent book, The Princess and the P.I. (2025).
Martha Nell Smith
Martha Nell Smith is Distinguished Scholar-Teacher, Professor of English, and Founding Director of the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities (MITH http://www.mith.umd.edu) at the University of Maryland.
Aia Yousef
Aia H. Yousef is an advising dean in the College of Arts & Sciences and adjunct lecturer for the Department of English at Georgetown University, where she teaches a course all about Austen. She received a PhD in Comparative Literature from Princeton University, and her book manuscript in progress examines the relation between eighteenth-century theories of translation and fiction, and their relevance to the preoccupation with representing the world in fiction. Writing from this project is forthcoming in The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation.
Featured in the Washington City Paper 2025 Fall Arts Guide
Performers
Amber Patrice Coleman
Amber Patrice Coleman obtained her MFA in Acting from the University of Florida in May 2024. She also received her BA in Theatre from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 2020. In January, she will appear in Nextstop Theatre Company’s production of Drowner. Recent stage credits include: Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe: Purlie; Theatre Prometheus: Galatea in Galatea; Folger Theatre: Ophelia u/s in A Room in the Castle; Hippodrome Theatre (Florida): Audrey in As You Like It; University of Florida: Courtney in Pliant Girls, Yemaya in Yemaya’s Belly, Marta in I AM THE DEAD MAN (World Premiere). University of North Carolina at Charlotte: Death in Everybody, Fabian in Twelfth Night. Film: Kiss and Tell, Sweet Nothing. You can follow their acting journey at www.amberpatrice-coleman.com and @amber.coleman_official.
Yesenia Iglesias
Yesenia Iglesias is a local DC actor and teaching artist from Bayamon, Puerto Rico. Her previous credits for Folger Theatre include Metamorphoses and Love’s Labor’s Lost. She has performed on various stages across the DMV such as Arena Stage, Studio Theatre, Signature Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Kennedy Center, Ford’s Theatre, Theater Alliance, Constellation Theatre Company, and many others. Yesenia earned her MFA from the University of Washington.