About this Event
On Sunday, April 19th at Busboys and Poets Takoma, join us for Author Next Door: Looking Back to Look Ahead, the first installment in our rotating DMV-wide celebration of community storytellers.
This history-focused panel will spotlight authors whose works uncover people, places, and moments that shaped them and their communities. Each of our featured authors will read from and discuss their writing, come together for a conversation about the intersections of their books, and answer questions from the audience.
American Change Agent: A Life & Legacy of Seeking Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion by John F. Leeke and Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke
A memoir written by Dr. John F. Leeke with his daughter Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke, this collection of stories spans 85 years of Dr. Leeke’s life, showcasing his family, career, and dedication to diversity, equality, and inclusion.
Learn how Dr. Leeke leaps of faith in various roles, including his tenure at the National Education Association and his entrepreneurial ventures, solidified his commitments. His reflections on six decades of diversity, equality, and inclusion work reveal the institutional changes he championed and his ongoing influence in retirement through church involvement, civic engagement, and online activism.
Shaw, LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale in Washington, DC by Shilipi Malinowski
Journalist and Shaw resident Shilpi Malinowski explores the complexities of the many stories of belonging in the District's most dynamic neighborhood.
When Gretchen Wharton came to Shaw in 1946, the houses were full of families that looked like hers: lower-income, African American, two parents with kids. The sidewalks were full of children playing. When Leroy Thorpe moved in in the 1980s, the same streets were dense with drug markets. When John Lucier found a deal on a house in Shaw in 2002, he found himself moving into one of four occupied homes on his block. Every morning, he waited by himself on the empty platform of the newly opened metro station. When Preetha Iyengar became pregnant with her first child in 2016, she jumped into a seller's market to buy a rowhouse in the area.
Under The Skin, Above The Pavement by Carlin D. Nelson
What happens when inequality doesn't just shape opportunity, but gets under the skin?
This book examines how urban environments, structural racism, masculinity, and chronic stress converge to shape the health of Black and Brown men at the biological, emotional, and generational level. Moving beyond deficit-based narratives, it explores how forces such as environmental exposure, housing instability, food apartheid, policing, incarceration, and gender norms quietly rewire stress systems, immune function, hormonal regulation, and long-term health outcomes.
The Great Triumph by Jeanne Estelle Saddler
As a young girl, Thelma Osborne Richardson witnessed the hopes and hardships of the Great Migration, when her family left the rural south for Detroit in 1929. In The Great Triumph, her daughter, journalist Jeanne Estelle Saddler, brings to life a moving family story shaped by perseverance, pride, and the pursuit of a better life. In her debut memoir, Saddler draws from her mother's vivid memories, stories rich with humor, heartbreak, and quiet resilience, to paint an unforgettable portrait of a woman who faced the weight of history with grace and grit. From Jim Crow to the civil rights movement to the election of Barack Obama, The Great Triumph traces the arc of a century through one extraordinary life.
Copies of each author’s book will be available for purchase during and after the event, and all authors will be signing following the program.
This event is free and open to all. Doors open at 4:30pm and there will be full dinner service throughout the program. The program begins at 5:00 pm and will be followed by Q&A and book signing. Please note that this event is in-person and will not be livestreamed.
We ask that guests RSVP in order to receive direct updates about the event from Busboys and Poets Books
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dr. John F. Leeke is a respected diversity advocate whose career spans six decades of institutional change work. Dr. Leeke's pioneering efforts in diversity, equality, and inclusion began long before these concepts entered mainstream organizational practice. For more information, visit https://anandaleeke.com/drjohn.
Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke is a multidisciplinary artist, mindfulness coach, and digital communications professional based in Washington, D.C. Leeke is a graduate of Morgan State University, Howard University School of Law, and Georgetown University Law Center, and author of "Love's Troubadours - Karma: Book One" (self-love and yoga-inspired novel), "That Which Awakens Me: A Creative Woman's Memoir of Poetical Discovery," and "Digital Sisterhood: A Memoir of Fierce Living Online." Her debut spoken word album, Thriving Mindfully As Theresa's Daughter was released in 2025. Visit https://anandaleeke.com to learn more about her.
Shilpi Malinowski is an author and oral historian who tells stories about belonging. Her first book, "Shaw, LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale in Washington, D.C.: An Oral History" tells the story of 70 years of life in DC’s most gentrified neighborhood through oral history, reporting,personal narrative, and photography. Her book has been incorporated into curriculums and used as a reference for both DC history and oral history students. Before immersing herself inoral history, Shilpi was a reporter whose articles have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, India Abroad, UrbanTurf, and The Indian American magazine. She focused her journalism work on two areas: DC neighborhoods and the Indian American diaspora. She has always been interested in how identity and community relate to each other, and in how we all make our most important decisions in life. Her current work, which is supported by fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and HumanitiesDC, involves collecting oral histories from the immigrant diaspora and from DC residents and synthesizing the stories into books. In the past, Shilpi was a high school journalism teacher, a yoga teacher, and a photographer.
Carlin Dexter Nelson, PhD, MPH, CPH, CHES®, is an epidemiologist, public health educator and scholar committed to examining how systems of inequality shape health across urban communities.
Dr. Nelson teaches in the Department of Health Sciences at Coppin State University in Baltimore, Maryland, where he leads courses in epidemiology, health statistics and research, health promotion, drug education, and urban health. His previous professional experience includes roles at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Truth Initiative, Johns Hopkins University, the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), College of Charleston, as well as a translational research fellow at Nemours Children's Hospital. His research has been published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities, the International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, the Association of Black Nursing Faculty Foundation Journal (ABNFFJ), and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). Across these outlets, his work examines social determinants of health (SDOH), racial and gender disparities, and community-driven public health strategies.
Dr. Nelson is driven by the belief that our present circumstances do not define our future. Through teaching, research, and writing, he continues to show up for the next generation of public health leaders, reminding them that someone, somewhere, at some point in time is counting on them to rise.
Jeanne Estelle Saddler is a former journalist and communications director based in Washington, DC. Her distinguished career included roles as a correspondent for the Baltimore Sun, Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal, Counselor to the Administrator at the U.S. Small Business Administration, and Communications Director at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. She now focuses on creative and powerful storytelling. The Great Triumph - A Memoir of Courage and Devotion is Saddler's first book.
BOOK DETAILS
American Change Agent
A Life & Legacy of Seeking Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion
By John F. Leeke and Ananda Kiamsha Madelyn Leeke
May 19, 2025 | Paperback, 492 pages, $20
Shaw, LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale in Washington, DC
An Oral History
By Shilpi Malinowski
October 11, 2021 | Paperback, 160 pages, $21.99
Under The Skin, Above The Pavement
Urban Ecology, Embodied Masculinity, and the Science of Risk
By Carlin D. Nelson
January 15, 2026 | Paperback, 198 pages, $29.99
The Great Triumph
A Memoir of Courage and Devotion
By Jeanne Estelle Saddler
January 23, 2026 | Paperback, 156 pages, $14.99
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Busboys and Poets - Takoma, 235 Carroll Ave NW, Washington, United States
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