This event takes place in person at Charis and on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required for virtual attendance.

Charis welcomes Nina LaCour in celebration of Meet Me in the Garden, a gorgeous family story about self-discovery and love in all forms.

New Orleans, 1944. Odette has always been one of the Honore sisters, glamorous and admired in their Creole community. But while Odette’s older sisters are content to be wives and mothers, Odette has always wanted something else. It is only with her beloved cousin, Delphine, that Odette can tell her secret: she is in love with a woman, and she longs to be an artist. Delphine has a secret lover, too, a white man. In the hidden garden they’ve discovered, Odette and Delphine can dream of futures full of passion and freedom.

But five years later, Odette's life is nothing like what she'd planned. She's a widowed mother, living in Los Angeles, and she and Delphine, who is passing as white, have spiraled away from each other. When Delphine reaches a breaking point, Odette must make a shattering choice to try to hold her family together.

Profound and expansive, a story of love and longing, art and motherhood, friendship and desire, Meet Me in the Garden is a decades-spanning tour de force, inspired by the author’s family and tracing the history of the Great Migration.

NINA LACOUR is the award-winning and bestselling author of Yerba Buena, as well as many works for children and young adults. A former indie bookseller and educator, she lives with her family in San Francisco.

Susana M. Morris is a queer daughter of Caribbean immigrants and a scholar of Black feminism and a cultural critic who has dedicated her career to studying the interior lives of Black women. She is an associate professor of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. A former Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University and Norman Freeling Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan, she is the author of Close Kin and Distant Relatives: The Paradox of Respectability in Black Women's Literature and co-founder of The Crunk Feminist Collective. Her other works include the co-edited collection The Crunk Feminist Collection and the co-authored young adult handbook Feminist AF: The Guide to Crushing Girlhood. Her writing has appeared in Gawker, Long Reads, Cosmopolitan.com, and Ebony.com, and she has been featured on NPR, the BBC, and in Essence magazine. Her most recent book is Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler.  Susana was honored to serve as the board chair of Charis Circle, the non-profit programming arm of Charis Books & More, for eight years.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.

Charis Books is a fully wheelchair accessible space with on site van accessible parking, two ramps, and additional overflow accessible parking nearby. Additional accessibility information can be found on the Accessibility page of our website.

Please read the in-person event guidelines at the bottom of this page to be sure you can participate in the event. 

In-person event guidelines:

All attendees must wear a face mask during the event.

We will begin seating people at 6:00 PM ET.

This event will be live-streamed via Crowdcast. 

As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.

If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact info@charisbooksandmore.com or call the store at 404-524-0304.

Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org.

By attending our event, whether in person or virtually, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.

Meet Me In The Garden: Nina LaCour in conversation with Susana M. Morris