Location: Atlanta, GA 30314, United States

This forum to explore gender for teens & young adults under 30 is facilitated by social justice minded feminists Buttonz & SJ, who hold the space for open dialogue and activism around social issues and encourage beloved community in a transient world! If you can't make this group or would like additional resources, check this list:http://www.atlantagender.org/othergroups.html

This event is co-sponsored by Charis Circle's Strong Families, Whole Children Program. There is no suggested donation for youth participants of this program but adults and allies may make a donation in support of this program by clicking here.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

We begin a series of three programs tonight celebrating our role in the annual Decatur Arts Festival. The prize-winning Atlanta author Jeffrey Small joins us to talk about his exciting new novel, The Jericho Deception, a thriller that bestselling author Steve Berry calls ”captivating with plausibility and imagination.” It centers on a scientist’s invention of the Logos machine, a device that can produce religious ecstasy but also madness. When there’s a murder, two graduate students are thrust into a dangerous CIA plot with Logos that could launch a modern Holy War. It’s a nail-biter written with a cool intelligence and authority. Small won the Nautilus Award Gold Medal for Fiction for his first novel, The Breath of God. (jasbro)… (more)

Enjoy a taste of spring on the patio of Raging Burrito in Decatur AND help your favorite feminist non-profit. From 5-10pm on Tuesday, May 21st, Raging Burrito will donate 10% of their profits to Charis Circle. Enjoy feminist fellowship in a family friendly atmosphere and be sure to tell your server you are there because of Charis.
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Location: Street: 141 Sycamore St‎ City: Decatur, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30030 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

The second of three programs part of the Decatur Arts Festival brings an author with special interest to those who care about the outdoors and our environment. Joe Cook is the executive director of the Coosa River Basin Initiative and coordinator of Georgia River Network’s Paddle Georgia Event. His new book, Etowah River User’s Guide, is an appealing and handy look at the biologically diverse and beautiful Etowah River in North Georgia. Printed on waterproof paper by the University of Georgia Press, the book offers a fascinating history of the area and information valulable for novice or experienced paddlers as well as fishermen. It also will help explorers understand the threats facing the river and what steps can be taken to protect it for future generations. We’ll have copies of the book available for sale and signing (with a waterproof pen, of course!). (jasbro)… (more)

For two decades, Susan Puckett was the food editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and now she has crafted a new book that focuses on her native Mississippi Delta: Eat Drink Delta: A Hungry Traveler’s Journey Through the Soul of the South. It is part travelogue, part memoir and part photo gallery and captures all the contradictions in a region that is known for its poverty and racial divide and yet lures people who want to experience its music, art and food. There are lots of fascinating recipes here, but you don’t have to be a cook to enjoy all the book has to offer. We’ll have copies for sale and signing. This event is part of our observance of the annual Decatur Arts Festival week. (jasbro)… (more)

Continuing the trilogy that began with A Blaze of Glory, the New York Times-bestselling author Jeff Shaara returns to chronicle another decisive chapter in America’s Civil War. In A Chain of Thunder, the action shifts to the fortress city of Vicksburg. There, in the vaunted “Gibraltar of the Confederacy,” a siege for the ages cemented the reputation of one Union general and all but seal the fate of the rebel cause.

Drawing on comprehensive research and his intimate knowledge of the Vicksburg Campaign, Jeff Shaara weaves fiction out of the cloth of historical fact. By giving voice to their experiences at Vicksburg, A Chain of Thunder vividly evokes a battle whose outcome still reverberates more than 150 years after the cannons fell silent.

Shaara is the author among others of The Rising Tide, To the Last Man, The Glorious Cause, and Gone for Soldiers, as well as Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure, two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with the Pulitzer Prize--winning classic The Killer Angels, written by his father, Michael Shaara.

Support: The Elson Lectures feature scholarly addresses by our nation’s prominent historians and are made possible with generous funding from Ambassador and Mrs. Edward Elson. (jasbro)… (more)

Why do writers, artists, crafters, massage therapists, yoga teachers, and other creative entrepreneurs often fly by the seat of their pants, without a business plan in place? They’re often too busy doing what they love to take the time to write out a boring document in business-ese language that is only going to sit on a shelf and gather dust. What if your business plan was a living document that grew alongside your livelihood? What if your business plan actually helped you expand the scope and size of your budding enterprise? And what if this process was actually fun? Join Stacey Beth Shulman, licensed Right Brain Business Plan ® facilitator for an evening of light-hearted chat about the joys and challenges of being a solo-preneur. Network with other creative business owners. Learn about the Right Brain Business Plan Workshop, what makes it different than any other business plan program, and how it can work for you. Bring your journal or notebook, a pen, and business cards to share.

This is an Urban Sustainabiliy and Wellness Program and the Suggested Donation is $5.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Charis is pleased to announce “Yoga At Charis:” a new, weekly, all levels, donation based, yoga class facilitated by a rotation of yoga instructors.

“Yoga At Charis“ is a practice for the people by the people. It welcomes the community to a yoga practice that ensures comfortability to even the newest practitioner.

Practitioners are guided through a series of yoga poses that inspires wellness via the body, mind, and spirit. “Yoga At Charis” reconnects the body to the spirit and clears the mind from accumulated life stressors. Practitioners will leave feeling recharged and ready for the week ahead.

Why Yoga At Charis?: To build relationship among community members To encourage community to be active and whole To connect to the physical self with the spiritual self To encourage reconnection with the body To ease oneself from the world’s stressors

This month's yogi is Zahra: Zahra is a recent graduate of Kashi-Atlanta's 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training. She is excited to bring her learnings to the communities she loves and lives among. As a yoga instructor Zahra is committed to making yoga more accessible to folks, especially those who are marginalized, other(ed), and generally oppressed. She is interested in using yoga to bring communities together in an active and healing manner. She believes that practicing yoga can increase a community’s overall wellness (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) and hopes to ignite community and individual yoga practices among the people.

zahra alabanza is not only a yoga instructor but also a mother, doula, activist, artist, adventurer and co-founder of Red, Bike and Green-Atlanta. This event is co-sponsored by Charis Circle's Urban Sustainability Series. Suggested donation is $5.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

What's better than eating great food in a beautiful environment? Eating great food knowing that 10% off all the profits from the evening will go to support one of your favorite non-profits, Charis Circle.

Enjoy dining on their spacious patio or inside their lush dining room and be sure to mention that you are dining out for Charis to make sure we get our 10%!

1042 W College Ave Decatur, GA 30030

(404) 373-3331

Don't miss our other Dine Out this month at Raging Burrito on May 21st!

Location: Street: 1042 W College Ave City: Decatur, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30030 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Annalee Newitz (Scatter, Adapt, and Remember)

Annalee Newitz is the founding editor of the science Web site io9.com and a journalist with a decade’s experience in writing about science, culture, and the future for such publications as Wired, Popular Science, and The Washington Post. She is the editor of the anthology She’s Such a Geek: Women Write About Science, Technology, and Other Geeky Stuff and was a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT. She lives in San Francisco. (added from Random House)… (more)

Written by former Atlantan, Yolo Akili, Dear Universe, is a lighthearted and insightful collection of inspirational letters that invites each of us to transform our social and spiritual lives. Written by Akili over the span of many years working as a counselor and educator, each letter glimmers with both the joy of self-realization and a universal wisdom that echoes across the page. Help us toast one of our favorite writers and activists as he returns to Georgia for a book launch party!

Dear Universe is available now at Charis Books and More for $9.99. Please email orders@charisbooksandmore.com or call us at 404-524-0304 and we will gladly ship anywhere in the country.

Yolo Akili has worked as an anti-violence and emotional wellness counselor for marginalized youth and men for almost a decade.

Akili’s writings have appeared in many publications including the Huffington Post, The Good Men Project and Voice Male. He has appeared on Huffington Post Live! and The Derek & Romaine Show (Sirius 1080 XM). Akili has also delivered keynotes and presentations at Vanderbilt University, Columbia University, Fordham University and much more.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

The name Doc Holliday conjures images of the Wild West and the shootout at the O.K. Corral, but before he was a Western legend he was a Southern son, born in the last days of the Old South with family links to Gone With the Wind. Now his story is told for the first time in a trilogy of novels, Southern Son: The Saga of Doc Holliday.

The story begins with Inheritance, set during the turbulent times of the American Civil War, as young John Henry Holliday welcomes home his heroic father and learns a terrible secret about his beloved mother. His only confidant is his cousin Mattie Holliday, the childhood sweetheart who shares his memories of plantation life and better days before the war. But Mattie is not around to comfort him when tragedy strikes and John Henry’s young hero-worship turns to bitter anger.

Victoria Wilcox is founding director of the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House Museum, the antebellum house of the family of John Henry "Doc" Holliday. Her work with the house uncovered a link between Doc Holliday and the real people behind Gone With the Wind. Wilcox’s eighteen years of research then led to the writing of Southern Son. A member of the Western Writers of America, her writing on the Old South and the Wild West has been featured in publications such as True West and North Georgia Journal. (jasbro)… (more)

Join us in welcoming back Charis favorite, Fiona Zedde with a sexy new story: Broken in Soft Places.

About the book: Some mornings, Sara Chambers wakes in bed next to her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s lover wondering how she ended up there. Beautiful, successful, and a force to be reckoned with at her Atlanta law firm, Sara is still powerless in her attraction to the rebellious and reckless, Rille Thompson.

As college girlfriends, Sara and Rille’s relationship had been incendiary, burning away Sara’s innocence and self-respect even as it widened her world beyond her wildest imagination. Now, almost twenty years later, Rille still pushes Sara beyond her limits, bringing a third lover into their bed and domestic lives when their monogamy gets stale. The hold Rille has over Sara—and their new lover—becomes as powerful as it is dangerous. Can Sara pull herself free in time, or will her life turn to cinders in the wake of Rille’s powerful flame?

This is a Charis Circle From Margin to Center Literary Event; the suggested donation is $5.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)

Join us for the Reading Rainbow Book Club for lesbians and their friends as they discuss Maya Angelou's new book: Mom & Me & Mom. The story of Maya Angelou’s extraordinary life has been chronicled in her multiple bestselling autobiographies. But now, at last, the legendary author shares the deepest personal story of her life: her relationship with her mother.If you've never attended the book club this is a great month to start. Join us for laid back fun, conversation, and refreshments. All are welcome to discuss this month's book and you don't have to have read the entire book to attend. All books are chosen by Reading Rainbow club members and members receive 10% off the book club pick from Charis Books and More. Stop in to the store to get your copy today! This event is co-sponsored by Charis Circle's From Margin to Center Literary Program. The suggested donation is $5.

Location: Street: 1189 Euclid Ave NE City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30307-1509 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)