Pearl Cleage

Join us for a very special conversation between two Charis favorites: Jim Grimsley and Pearl Cleage to celebrate the release of Jim's newest book: How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Racist Lessons of a Southern Childhood. In August of 1966, Jim Grimsley entered the sixth grade in his small eastern North Carolina hometown. But this year marked a significant shift in the way the people there — especially the white people — lived their lives. It was the year federally mandated integration of the schools went into effect, at first allowing students to change schools through “freedom of choice,” replaced two years later by forced integration. For Jim, going to one of the private schools that almost immediately sprang up was not an option: his family was too poor to consider paying tuition, and while they shared the community’s dismay over the mixing of the races, they had bigger, more immediate problems to face. Now, more than forty years later, Grimsley, a critically acclaimed novelist, revisits that school and those times, remembering his personal reaction to his first real exposure to black children and to their culture, and his growing awareness of his own mostly unrecognized racist attitudes. How I Shed My Skin is honest, unflinching, and deeply moving, an important work that takes readers inside those classrooms and onto the playing fields as, ever so tentatively, alliances were forged and friendships established, while all around them the adults found it impossible to accept the changes being wrought. And as we mark the fiftieth anniversary of this turbulent time, Grimsley asks, how far have we really come? Jim Grimsley is the author of four previous novels, among them Winter Birds, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; Dream Boy, winner of the GLBTF Book Award for literature; My Drowning, a Lila-Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award winner; and Comfort and Joy. Pearl Cleage is the author of numerous works of fiction, plays, and non-fiction. Based in Atlanta, her most recent book is a work of non-fiction, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs. 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)

Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs
Decatur Library

In addition to being one of the most popular living playwrights in America, Pearl Cleage is a bestselling author with an Oprah Book Club pick and multiple awards to her credit, but there was a time when such stellar success seemed like a dream. In Things I Should Have Told My Daughter, a revelatory and deeply personal work, Cleage takes readers back to the 1970s and ’80s, retracing her struggles to hone her craft amid personal and professional tumult. Books will be provided by Charis Books & More. (jasbro)… (more)

Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs
Stonecrest Library

In addition to being one of the most popular living playwrights in America, Pearl Cleage is a bestselling author with an Oprah Book Club pick and multiple awards to her credit, but there was a time when such stellar success seemed like a dream. In Things I Should Have Told My Daughter, a revelatory and deeply personal work, Cleage takes readers back to the 1970s and ’80s, retracing her struggles to hone her craft amid personal and professional tumult. Books will be provided by Charis Books & More. This event will be at the Stonecrest Library, 3123 Klondike Road, Lithonia, 30038. A map to the location can be found at https://www.google.com/maps/place/Stonecrest+Library/@33.693666,-84.111078,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x77b3a1cdf48ebbf6 . (jasbro)… (more)

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter by Pearl Cleage

Writing Group, Author Event African-American Writers' Workshop is hosting special guest author, Pearl Cleage. She will be speaking at this meeting and featuring her new book, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs. This meeting is open to anyone. (added from Barnes & Noble)… (more)

Join Atlanta-based writer Pearl Cleage for a reading and discussion of her new book "Things I Never Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons and Love Affairs." A compilation of journal entries, the nonfiction piece addresses the author's years as a civil rights activist, feminist and author. Cleage's body of work includes 13 award-winning plays and numerous bestselling novels, columns, articles and essays for publications including Essence, Ebony, Vibe and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Her first novel, "What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day," was an Oprah Book Club pick and on The New York Times Best-seller List for nine weeks. Cleage is a playwright in residence at the Tony Award-winning Alliance Theatre, and her plays have been produced in playhouses nationwide. A book signing and sale with Charis Books will immediately follow this reading.

Venue Information

SCAD Main Campus

1600 Peachtree St NW, Atlanta, GA 30309

Location: Street: 1600 Peachtree St NW City: Atlanta, Province: Georgia Postal Code: 30309 Country: United States (added from IndieBound)… (more)