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How to Host an Event

The basics of booking either an author or community event at Charis:
Together with Charis Books and More, Charis Circle, our non-profit, hosts over 270 public events a year organized around the mission of fostering sustainable feminist communities, working for social justice, and encouraging the expression of diverse and marginalized voices.  

In service of our mission we host a mix of literary, social justice, and popular education events designed to educate, inspire, and connect people of all ages and experiences. We encourage you to explore the kinds of events we host by checking out our events on Facebook.com/CharisBooks and on our websites (www.charisbooksandmore.com and www.chariscircle.org). We prioritize events organized by people whose stories and experiences are not traditionally valued or prioritized in mainstream literary and cultural spaces.  

  • If you are an author who would like to book an author reading/signing/book-talk, the first step is to make sure that we are carrying your book in the store by following the steps above and filling out the online form telling us about your book. Indicate on the form that you are interested in a reading/signing and answer the questions within the form about your desired event and we will follow up if it is a good fit for Charis Circle.

  • You don't have to be a published author or have a degree to share your knowledge at Charis. If you are not an author, please send us a short proposal via email (info@chariscircle.org) with an idea of what you would like to do. Keep in mind that all of our events tend to run no more than 2 hours so your idea needs to be manageable for that time frame or work as a multi-part series. We are especially excited to work with activists, organizers, teachers, and artists who want to bring their skills to a larger audience. We prioritize events organized by people whose stories and experiences are not traditionally valued or prioritized in mainstream literary and cultural spaces.  Don't hesitate to pitch the seed of an idea and we will help you shape it if it fits our mission and calendar. Because we are a 501c3 organization we cannot host fundraisers or informational parties for candidates running for political office. 

  • Please include in your correspondence the answers to the following questions: Who is the primary audience for the event? Why are you the one to present the information you would like to share? What will you do to ensure the event is a success? What methods will you use to promote the event? Please be specific. At what other stores, libraries, or institutions in our region are you planning to have similar events? How would a Charis event be different? Do you need A/V? 

  • Please note that we usually book events at least three months out, though we are on occasion able to make exceptions for travelling writers and artists. Please do not call the store for program requests.


All of the above are guidelines so that we can more easily make decisions about programming for our communities but if any of these requirements is confusing or represents a serious impediment to your sharing your brilliance with our community, reach out directly to our Executive Director, E.R. Anderson at eranderson@chariscircle.org and we will work with you to make the process as accessible as possible.

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