Betty Bird with Ellie

Susan Robinson writes about her then partner Betty Bird, and tells the story of how she and others began a system for recording feminist journals like *Sinister Wisdom* and distributing those recordings through services for the blind.

Maria Cristina Moroles, known now by her ceremonial name Águila, is an Indigenous curandera, shaman, and landyke who has lived at Santuario Arco Iris, rugged women’s land in the Ozark Mountains near Ponca, Arkansas, since 1974. The land offers over a hundred acres of sanctuary for women and children, especially women and children of color. In 2000, she founded the Arco Iris Earth Care Project, a nonprofit that preserves 400 acres of neighboring wilderness land.

Maria Cristina Moroles, Águila (eagle), has lived at Santuario Arco Iris in the Ozark mountains since 1976. It is one of the few women’s land communities in the United States founded by women of color. An Indigenous Mexican American curandera (healer), Águila turned this very, very rugged mountain land into a sanctuary for women and girls.

Shay Youngblood at Charis Books and More in 2020

By E.R. Anderson, on behalf of Charis Books and More, and Charis Circle Shay Youngblood, novelist, playwright, artist, and poet, died on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, after an extended illness. She was surrounded by loved ones sending her to meet the ancestors. In the days since Shay has gone from this Earth, our Charis community has been longing for her to come back, and has sought sustenance in her words and in the words of all those whose lives she touched. Shay Youngblood was an epicurean of the heart, a writer’s writer, a generous gift-giver, a marvelous cook, and a cheerleader for everyone’s wildest dreams. Shay got her start at Charis Books and More in Atlanta, Georgia (now located in Decatur, Georgia), at the Charis Circle Young Women Writers Group. “The first evening Mama doesn’t come back, I make a sandwich with leaves from her goodbye letter.I want to eat her words.” We are fortunate that we got to witness and celebrate the entire trajectory of her writing career that went from her first, pre-publication poetry reading at Charis Books and More in 1980 all the way to her picture book release …

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