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 Traci Saulsberry in conversation with Janeé Bolden for a discussion of This Is How You Love Her, a fiercely candid, funny, and sometimes heartbreaking blend of memoir and self-help on vulnerability, identity, and reclaiming your life.

What if you didn't need Bali to find yourself? For 14 years, Traci Saulsberry led communications at NBC, becoming one of the youngest Black executives at the company. She had everything a modern woman is told to want—the house, her son, the high-powered job. But when her carefully constructed life collapsed, Saulsberry was confronted with a question she'd been avoiding for years: Who was she, really?

Here I was, caught on my heels, with no backup lover to pick up the slack. Naturally, because I am a product of an adolescence spent binging rom-coms filled with sweeping tales, I wanted to run away and leave it all behind. I romanticized that there must be a flight to the farthest island on the edge of the world where I could just start over again. My archnemesis, reality, quickly snapped me out of that daydream. I wasn't going anywhere. I felt trapped.

This Is How You Love Her is a vulnerable narrative guide to uncovering your identity in life's small moments, right where you are. With wit and insight, heart and cinematic prose, Saulsberry weaves together pages from her journal, conversational guides, poetry, and reflection prompts in this memoir-meets-guide that gives readers permission to get to know themselves at their own pace.

For anyone who's ever lost themselves in work, relationships, or the image they built to survive—this is your roadmap home.

And this is how you love her.

Perfect for fans of memoirs, self-help, and journaling, this book explores:

Perfection: Unlearning the belief that you’re not allowed to get it wrong

Body Autonomy: Reclaiming your body  and learning to be present in your own skin

Boundaries: Setting limits with the people you love most, even when it means risking the relationship

Control: Releasing the need to manage everyone's perception and trusting yourself to just be

Traci Saulsberry is a senior communications executive, leadership coach, and writer. At twenty-seven, she became one of the youngest Black executives at NBC, where she spent fourteen years shaping narratives at the highest levels of entertainment. She later built and led the communications team at Peacock, managing a team of more than thirty people during the platform’s launch and growth.

She is currently a host and narrator for Calm, the world’s leading meditation and sleep app, where she guides original series including Workplace Wellbeing, Professional Growth, and Processing World Events, designed to help audiences navigate life with clarity and care.

As a leadership coach, keynote speaker, and learning facilitator, Saulsberry works with early-career professionals, executives, and business owners, with a focus on helping individuals find and own their voice—particularly while navigating spaces where they are underrepresented. She also serves as an adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Newhouse School, where she teaches entertainment publicity. She is the author of This Is How You Love Her: A Journey to Radical Self-Love.

Janeé Bolden is an award-winning journalist, podcast host, and media strategist known for insightful conversations at the intersection of entertainment, culture, and creativity. Her work has appeared in Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, ESSENCE, Black Enterprise, theGrio, and Okayplayer. A longtime editorial leader at BOSSIP, she helped shape the voice of one of digital media’s most influential Black entertainment platforms. Her weekly podcast Hey Janeé, blends pop culture, mindfulness, affirmation, and real-life conversation for creatives navigating an ever-changing world.

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 7:00 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.

This Is How You Love Her: A Journey to Radical Self-Love -- Traci Saulsberry in Conversation with Janeé Bolden