2008 Charis Photo Gallery
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Photos courtesy of Linda Bryant
Alice Lovelace & Louise Runyon, April 2008
Dorothy, Linda, & Shay,
April 2008
Anne DelBene facilitating part of the Disability Activism Series, March 2008
Mary Anne Adams & Nkky Finney, April 2008
Duncan Teague & friend, April 2008
Mayowa Obasaju with the love basket, March 2008
Max, Kelley, & Miriam, April 2008
Nell Rodgers & Charli Vogt, May 2008
Board & Staff reunion, June 2008
Angela & Myesha, July 2008
Fiona Zedde with Hungry For It, July 2008
Fiona's friends & fans, July 2008
Sheena Sood, July 2008
Miriam Carroll at the Charis Volunteer Appreciation Party, July 2008
Scott Turner Schofield, Caitlin Childs & Anne DelBene talking about Disability, Intersex, & Transgender Issues, July 2008
Alexis Gumbs, August 2008
Lydia Libertine performing burlesque at the Charis Review Launch Party, August 2008
Amanda Gable, August 2008
Debra Taylor reading at the Charis Review Launch Party, August 2008
KenJ and Yolo, August 2008
Liana Repass performing on the silks at the Charis Review Launch Party, August 2008
Vagina Jenkins performing burlesque at the Launch Party, August 2008
Sonya Tinsley, August 2008
SARK & a group of young writers, August 2008
Debby & grandson Mitchell, November 2008
Jillian Carter Ford, November 2008
Elizabeth Anderson & Sara Look, November 2008
Lynn Johnson, November 2008
Nancy Smith at the Charis Birthday Celebration, November 2008
Bookstore staff, November 2008
More bookstore staff, November 2008 |
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 Dear Charis Friends,
2008 has been an amazing year, so far, and we wanted to capture and share a few of the most magical moments with you. We'd like to start by telling you about some of our major accomplishments for the year:
- As you may have heard, in 2008 we launched the first issue of our new magazine, The Charis Review, and are busy planning for the next issue.
- We began collecting feedback in an online survey, so that we could improve the ways we serve our communities.
- We increased our staff, and implemented an innovative co-directorship.
- We gave the home page of our website a new look, in anticipation of a complete overhaul in 2009.
- We hosted a record number of author events and other programs, and developed several new program series, including the Urban Sustainability Series and the Disability Activism Series, which are growing stronger by the minute and building feminist community all the time.
By the end of 2008, we will have coordinated and hosted close to 200 programs, which is a record for us. We are counting on our community to reach out to us with generous donations so that we can continue to put on all these amazing programs in 2009, while keeping them free and open to the public. As a non-profit organization, Charis Circle is funded 100% by donations, and the majority of those come from individuals, such as you, reading this email. We are proud that our funding comes from our constituents, because it tells us that you want us to keep doing what we're doing, that you need us to be here, that you feel the work of Charis Circle is important and meaningful. We want to maintain this grassroots aspect of our fundraising, which is why we have made it easier than ever for you to support the work of Charis Circle on a regular basis.
We invite you to visit our website, www.chariscircle.org, and sign up to make a recurring donation there, or click on the donate links in this email. Through our online giving options, you can select to make a monthly, quarterly, or yearly donation that will be automatically deducted from your credit or debit card. No paper, no hassle, no reminders necessary. You can give in small or large amounts, whatever works for you and your budget. The important thing is that you do give, so that we can continue to be the resource to the community that we are.
If online giving is not your style, then you are absolutely welcome to continue making donations in other ways, we just wanted to offer as many options as possible. We are very happy to send reminders to folks who would like to receive them, and your checks, cash, stock, and in-kind donations are very much appreciated. Please remember that every little bit counts! If 10 of you pledge to give us $25 per month for a year, that comes to $3,000. If 50 of you pledge to give us $10 per month for a year, that's $6,000 (and the same is true if 10 of you can give us $50 per month for a year).
If we all come together and give what we can on a regular basis, then as a community, we can absolutely support the programming of Charis Circle and continue to make it free for those who need it. Thank you in advance for your donations, and for believing in the work of Charis Circle. Together, we are building something amazing, and we couldn't do it without all of you!
Please contact us if you have any questions, or if you would like to share your ideas or learn about volunteer opportunities. As always, there are multiple ways to contribute to the work of Charis Circle, and we hope you will do so. 
Thank you for reading!
In the spirit of community,
The Charis Circle Board & Staff
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The Charis Review, In Review |
 In August 2008, we launched our new magazine, The Charis Review, and we couldn't be more excited about it. The brainchild of co-editors (and Charis Circle employees) Elizabeth Anderson and Kerrie Lynn, the Charis Review is a multi-media, multi-generational, collaborative and interactive community publication.
We began collecting submissions by invitation in the spring of 2008. We started by reaching out to both community members and published authors who we knew had stories or ideas or artwork to share. We were astonished by the results. We knew our community was full of talent, but we were still pleasantly surprised to hold the results of that talent in our hands at the end of the editing process. We knew we held a special place in the hearts of several feminist authors, but we didn't know so many of them would say yes, here, please take my writing and print it in your magazine because I believe in what you are doing. We are so grateful to all of our contributors, who without knowing it inspired this magazine into fruition: Dorothy Allison, Yolo Akili, the Athens Boys Choir, Linda Bryant, Miriam Carroll, Joseph Cullen, Theresa Davis, Elena Feinstein, Susanne Fincher, Jillian Carter Ford, Annie Frazer, Malika Hadley Freydberg, Karen G., Amanda Gable, Chelsea Gregory, Alexis Gumbs, Patrick Holt, Vagina Jenkins, Sandor Ellix Katz, Lydia Libertine, Debra Mazer, Mia Mingus, David Millian s, Charlie Morgan, Shannon Palumbo, Liana Repass, Mary Richardson, Debra Taylor, Shay Youngblood, & Fiona Zedde.
Next came the time-consuming and detailed work of laying out the magazine. It took about 4 weeks to get all the information formatted the way we wanted it to look, with everything fitting together just so, and in what felt like the "right" order. We were so relieved to finally hand the project off the TH Design, who handled the printing for us, and wait for our magazine to come back to us in physical form.
When Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Charis Review was finally ready in August, we presented it to the community with a fabulous launch party at Bellissima in midtown. Many of the contributors performed at the party, and they gave us a beautiful show. We are so thankful to everyone who came out to support the magazine's launch, either by performing or by paying the cover charge and being in the audience. And last but not least, thank you to all of you who are continuing to purchase the magazine! The Charis Review is available for $10 at Charis Books & More, where it is flying off the shelf, and it can also be ordered online at charisbooksandmore.com.
If you haven't had a chance to look at The Charis Review yet, please do so! More than a magazine, it is part literary journal, part urban farmer's almanac, and part d.i.y. 'zine. With stencils, mandalas for coloring, recipes, poetry, activities, instructions, drawings, photographs, fiction, essays, and more, it absolutely has something for everyone and makes a great gift. All proceeds from The Charis Review go to support Charis Circle and future printings of the magazine.
Please be on the lookout for Issue 2 of the Charis Review in Spring 2009. Submissions are due by January 15, 2009, to elizabeth@chariscircle.org.
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Living Literary Ancestors (title from Sharan Strange)-- by Linda Bryant |
 On April 6, 2008, I had the honor of introducing Dorothy Allison and Elizabeth Anderson at their reading at the Jimmy Carter Library. It was a beautiful Charis evening - the room was filled, hearts were open, the writings were magnificent, the readings were flawless. And this event followed others that we'd had at Charis Books over the last couple of weeks that were also amazing. Here's part of what I said in introducing our night with Dorothy and Elizabeth:
Although I have been living this story, along with many of you, for many years, on Wednesday night, April 2, 2008, poet Sharan Strange gave me a new way of telling it. Here's what she told the crowd that filled our beloved bookstore that night as she read with sister poet Nikky Finney. In 1987, Sharan attended James Baldwin's funeral with a group of friends and fellow writers who grieved the loss of his voice in the world. Many of them had never actually heard him read or speak and they determined that they would gather regularly and share their writings with one another, that they would honor their literary ancestors, including themselves, while they were living. When Sharan used that term, "living literary ancestors," I looked around the room on that Wednesday night and with Sharan's insight saw so many of our own living literary ancestors. We were there for a magical night with Nikky Finney and Sharan Strange and I was sitting between Dorothy Allison and Shay Youngblood. At the cash register was Elizabeth Anderson and in the back of the room was poe t Theresa Davis. Midway back sat Duncan Teague of Adodi Muse. And last week we gathered at Charis to hear Pearl Cleage on Thursday, while on Monday two writing groups met. Just behind Nikky and Sharan that night were photos of so many others: Gloria Steinem, bell hooks, Byllye Avery, Alice Walker, Anne Lamott - there is a long list of these still living literary "ancestors," who have been to Charis. And there, in the photos, are some who are no longer with us, like Octavia Butler, yet we had a magic moment with her years ago at Charis.
Pearl Cleage is one of our Atlanta luminaries. At her recent reading, I was struck by the respect and appreciation that each person in the room expressed before asking questions. Pearl did her first reading at Charis over 25 years ago and faithfully insists that her publishers send her to Charis with each book - and it takes insisting since many publishers only want to book authors at the big box stores. Pearl was quoted in a Southern Voice interview saying that Charis was where she "came into her feminism." One of the wonderful things about our readings is that our community gets to not only see and hear these living literary ancestors; we are in such an intimate and safe setting at Charis that writers are very open and people have an opportunity to really meet and talk with them.
Dorothy Allison and Elizabeth Anderson read together at one of Charis' 30th anniversary celebration readings in 2004. Fast forward to 2008: same place, same writers, same excitement. Once again, it was a wonderful evening. Elizabeth now has her master's degree in Southern Literature. She works at Charis Books and facilitates the writing groups for Charis Circle. Dorothy is a writer in residence at Emory, finishing up the novel she read from in 2004. Elizabeth set aside her novel and read a short story. Both writers completely inhabited the characters in their work as they read and they were both mesmerizing.
Charis Circle is about stories. It is about voices. It is about working for social justice. It is about building community. When we have the privilege of paying tribute to our living literary ancestors, we are doing all those things at once. As Dorothy writes in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, "Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world."
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Charis Circle Board, Staff, & Volunteers |
The year 2008 has seen many changes in the makeup of our staff and our board of directors. From Febuary to September, we were lucky enough to have the fabulous Sheena Sood on our staff as fundraising and administrative coordinator. Those of you who met her during her time at Charis can testify to her overall fabulousness. Sheena left for D.C. in the fall to take a job in h  er field of study, public health, and we know she is doing fabulous work there, too. We miss you, Sheena!
We are excited to announce yet another addition to our staff in 2008, with Kelley Alexander coming on as co-director. Several years ago, Kelley was on our board of directors and has continue  d to be involved with Charis in other ways. We were thrilled to finally welcome her into her new role on the staff. Kelley is joined in the co-directorship by Kerrie Lynn, who was promoted to director status in January 2008 from her former position as program & publicity coordinator.
Our founder, Linda Bryant, continues in her role as fundraising consultant, and brings end  less amounts of love and light into her work here and in the community. Unofficially, Linda is also our resident photographer and our keeper of Charis history and lore.
Elizabeth Anderson, as writing programs coordinator, is very busy facilitating our writers groups  and reading everything the participants write in between meetings. Elizabeth also coordinates our weekend writing workshops, which we plan to host more of in 2009. In 2008, Elizabeth became co-editor of the Charis Review with Kerrie Lynn, and the two couldn't be prouder of their new project.
Several of our board members reached the end of their term at the same time this year, so we have an extra high number of new board members to welcome into our organizational leadership. We are so grateful to former board members Moya Bailey, Caitlin Childs, Sarah Crymes, Mayowa Obasaju, & Uzoamaka Obiocha for their donations of time and energy, and for their dedication to the mission of Charis Circle. We are pleased to welcome new board members Sarah Bauer, Dream Gomez, and Anna Kurien, as well as Allison White, who is returning to us after a brief sabbatical. Our other board members at this time include Heather Branham, CJ Harden, and Stephanie Lynch.
In July 2008, staff members Sheena & Linda coordinated a beautiful volunteer appreciation party, where we honored all past, present, and future Charis volunteers. It was a wonderful evening, complete with Charis trivia, a vegetarian meal prepared by the staff, and gifts for everyone. We hope to find ways to bring our many volunteers together more often!
If you are interested in getting involved with Charis Circle, please contact us! There are many levels of involvement and we would love to talk to you about finding what works best for you. Email kerrie@chariscircle.org for more info.
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Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading our newsletter email! We would love to hear what you think about what we've been doing, and what you would like to see us work on in 2009. Even better, we'd love for increasing numbers of our constituents to be directly involved in making choices that impact the future of Charis Circle. If you'd like to talk with us about getting more involved, and the different ways to do that, please get in touch with one of our Co-Directors. You can reach Kerrie Lynn at kerrie@chariscircle.org or Kelley Alexander at kelley@chariscircle.org, or you can call our office at 404-522-9912.
Charis Circle and Charis Books & More are located at 1189 Euclid Ave NE, Atlanta GA 30307. Together, the two organizations operate the only public, feminist space in the Atlanta area that is open to the community 7 days a week. Please come visit us soon! |
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