The Real Rainbow Row with Harlan Greene
2023-01-24 18:00 - 19:00 (America/New_York) | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Come join us for an evening with Harlan Greene – where he’ll take us on a chronological tour through of The Real Rainbow Row, with a lens toward illuminating that gay, transgender, and nonbinary people, as well as gender fluidity, that has been as ever-present and formative as the oyster beds that shape this land by the first settlers. Greene will be in conversation with History Professor, Dr. Stephanie Yuhl.
Tickets for this event are $10 for CLS members and $15 for guests. To purchase tickets, call 843-723-9912 or click here.
About the Book:
Though Charleston has a reputation for holding onto the past longer than most other places, it could not avoid the shock of change. Much has been written of the city’s history of civil rights, and its rich African American, women’s, ethnic, and religious past. One of the minority groups long left out of the club has been Charleston’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and other sexual minorities community. It’s not that they haven’t been here all along, making history, contributing greatly to the creation of one of America’s most distinctive cities. But, even now, with so many people out and acknowledged, marching in the streets, being elected to public office, and marrying, there are still discrepancies. There are no statues to LGBTQ people (while some discriminatory statutes linger), and very few official mentions anywhere. While other pasts blaze brightly, there is just a flickering of knowledge about local LGBTQ history.
About Harlan Greene:
An award winning author of fiction and nonfiction, and historian, Harlan Greene created a body of work that thematically centers on Charleston, homosexuality, and Jewish identity. Dripping in historic details and intricacies, Greene’s fiction and nonfiction benefit from the skills and expertise honed in his professional life as an archivist, researcher, and historian.
Greene has served as assistant director of the South Carolina Historical Society, director of the North Carolina Preservation Consortium and the Charleston Public Library. He is the author of Mr. Skylark and the novels Why We Never Danced the Charleston and What the Dead Remember – that won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction in 1991. He was nominated for the same award for his 2005 novel The German Officer’s Boy.
In addition to his writing, Greene has worked as an archivist for the College of Charleston, including collection materials relating to Jewish history in Charleston region. His most recent work, The Real Rainbow Row, digs deep and uncovers a wealth of knowledge about Charleston’s LGBTQ past and present in this fascinating and informative book.
About Dr. Stephanie Yuhl:
Stephanie E. Yuhl (BA Georgetown, PhD, Duke) is the W. Arthur Garrity, Sr. Professor in Human Nature, Ethics and Society and Professor of History at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and former Associate Faculty in the Critical Conservation program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. She specializes in the social and cultural history of the twentieth-century United States, with emphases in Southern history, public history, memory, gender/sexuality, and social movements. Yuhl is the author of the award-winning book A Golden Haze of Memory: The Making of Historic Charleston, and “Hidden in Plain Sight: Center the Domestic Slave Trade in American Public History” (2013) on Charleston’s Old Slave Mart Museum,” among other publications. She is a practicing public historian who has most recently served as the project lead and co-curator for the major exhibition and archive-building initiative, LGBTQ+ Worcester For The Record (funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) at Worcester Historical Museum. Yuhl also served lead scholar and organizer with the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative (College of Charleston)and the Gibbes Museum of Art (Charleston, SC) of Revisiting Prop Master: A Digital Exhibition and Catalog at the College of Charleston (2019), the digital recreation of a provocative 2009 anti-racist art exhibit at the Gibbes for which no physical catalog had been created. She currently directs the ongoing LGBTQ+ Worcester Oral History Project.

Lite Lunch with Marie Benedict: The Mitford Affair
2023-01-25 12:00 - 13:30 | SC
“In her latest book The Mitford Affair, Benedict plunges readers into a world of glamorous, charismatic young British debutantes and then turns that shiny world on its head. I was blown away–learning this true story of the Mitford sisters and the roles they played for and against the Nazis was nothing short of astonishing. Benedict delivers with all that readers have come to love and expect from her: nuance, elan, and the most delicious storytelling.” ― Allison Pataki, New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post
Author Marie Benedict’s mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues. The CLS, in collaboration with Buxton Books, welcomes Benedict for a Lite Lunch on January 25th to launch her newest novel, The Mitford Affair. This novel, based on a true story, explores the role that history’s most notorious sisters — the beautiful, brilliant, eccentric Mitfords — played in the rise of World War II, both for and against the Nazis.​
Tickets are $25 for CLS members and $35 for guests. Free for students by calling the number listed below and showing a valid ID at check in (please note: boxed lunch not included with free admittance).
To purchase tickets, click here or call 843-723-9912.
Marie Benedict will be pre-signing books from 11:15am, before her program, at CLS. To pre order your book with Buxton Books, click here.
About the Book:
Between the World Wars, the six Mitford sisters — each more beautiful, brilliant, and eccentric than the next — dominate the English political, literary, and social scenes. Though they’ve weathered scandals before, the family falls into disarray when Diana divorces her wealthy husband to marry a fascist leader and Unity follows her sister’s lead all the way to Munich, inciting rumors that she’s become Hitler’s mistress.
As the Nazis rise in power, novelist Nancy Mitford grows suspicious of her sisters’ constant visits to Germany and the high-ranking fascist company they keep. When she overhears alarming conversations and uncovers disquieting documents, Nancy must make excruciating choices as Great Britain goes to war with Germany.
​Probing the torrid political climate in the lead-up to World War II and the ways that seemingly sensible people can be sucked into radical action, The Mitford Affair follows Nancy’s valiant efforts to stop the Nazis from taking over Great Britain, and the complicated choices she must make between the personal and the political.

About Marie Benedict:
​Marie Benedict is a lawyer with more than ten years of experience as a litigator at two of the country’s premier law firms, who found her calling unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. Her mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues.
She embarked on a new, thematically connected series of historical novels with The Other Einstein, which tells the tale of Albert Einstein’s first wife, a physicist herself, and the role she might have played in his theories. The next novel in this series is the USA Today bestselling Carnegie’s Maid, next is The Only Woman in the Room – the story of the brilliant inventor Hedy Lamarr, which was the New York Times bestseller and Barnes & Noble Book Club Pick. Lady Clementine, the story of the incredible Clementine Churchill became an international bestseller, along with The Mystery of Mrs. Christie, The Personal Librarian, and Her Hidden Genius – about the brilliant British scientist Rosalind Franklin who discovered the structure of DNA but whose research was used without her permission by Crick and Watson to win the Nobel Prize. And finally, her newest release The Mitford Affair.
Writing as Heather Terrell, Marie also published the historical novels The Chrysalis, The Map Thief, and Brigid of Kildare. ​Marie’s novels have been translated into twenty-nine languages.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Winter Wonderland
2023-01-25 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Joyce, our Children’s Librarian, in the Rabbit Hole for a reading of the book of the week, and then have the option to make an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Joyce will read Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell and the craft will be a snowman.
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Below the Belt: Women's Health Documentary Screening
2023-01-26 18:00 - 20:00 | SC
“We deserve to be believed. We deserve to be understood. We deserve to be empowered to understand ourselves, our bodies and any medical treatments presented to us. We deserve better across the entire healthcare system. Below the Belt aims to revolutionize the status quo so that people with endometriosis get what we deserve – the right to live healthy, informed, fulfilling lives.” – Executive Producer, Rosario Dawson

CLS is honored to screen Below the Belt as one of our Documentary Series on January 26th at 6pm – Marking its southern debut. This film came to us by way of one of our dear CLS members, a regarded author who most recently published Know Your Endo, and a true champion for women’s health, Jessica Murnane.
The film is supported by a number of women’s health advocates and celebrities. To name a few: Hilary Clinton, Rosario Dawson, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Mitt Romney, and our very own local celebrity, Jessica Murnane. The undercurrent mission of all who are involved in this film is to provide tools for ways to ask the tough health questions and to be taken serious to a wide female audience who are in search for real solutions. At this screening, Murnane will be welcoming and in conversation with Director and Producer, Shannon Cohn. There will be a Q&A at the end of the film and a Know Your Endo book signing with Jessica Murnane.
Tickets are $10 for CLS members and $15 for guests. Free for students by calling the number listed below and showing a valid ID at check in.
To purchase tickets, please click here or call 843-723-9912.
About the Film:
In the personal & inspiring stories of four patients urgently searching for answers to mysterious symptoms, Below the Belt exposes widespread problems in our healthcare systems.
Through the lens of endometriosis, a disease that affects 1 in 9 women, the film shows how women are often dismissed, discounted & disbelieved. From societal taboos and gender bias to misinformed doctors and profit-driven healthcare, the film reveals how millions are effectively silenced and how, by fighting back, they can improve healthcare for all women. To learn more about the film, please click here.
About Shannon Cohn:
Cohn is an attorney and filmmaker whose work has appeared on Discovery Channel, National Geographic, among others. Her previous film Endo What? was hailed by Gabrielle Jackson of The Guardian as “film of the year” and by Newsweek as “the first step in a plan for change.”
About the Book:
In this empowering and heartfelt guide, Jessica Murnane breaks through the misinformation with essential knowledge, encouragement, and practical lifestyle tools to help those living with endo feel safer in their bodies and become their own best advocates.
With interviews from doctors and experts as well as first-person accounts from people with endo, Know Your Endo is a resource for those suffering in silence from this chronic condition. Providing a path to having more good days than bad, and offering them what they need most: hope.
About Jessica Murnane:
KYE founder Jessica Murnane (who has stage IV endometriosis) transformed her life by empowering herself with the facts and managing her symptoms through diet and lifestyle tools. She’s dedicated to helping others do the same. More about her story can be found here.
Along with being a voice for endometriosis, Murnane is also the One Part Plant (Harper Collins) cookbook author and podcast host of One Part Plant turn Should I Be? podcasts.

Saturday Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Princes and Princesses
2023-01-28 10:00 - 11:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Kitty Princess and The Newspaper Dress by Emma Carlow and Trevor Dickinson and the craft will be paper castles!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Special Story Time & Sing Along with the Charleston Gaillard Center
2023-01-31 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
The Charleston Gaillard Center’s Education and Community Program is thrilled to present a special storytime on Tuesday, January 31st at 3:30pm in the Main Reading Room of CLS for a reading of Acoustic Rooster.
There will be a led sing along, arts & crafts, and more. At the end of the reading, children may enter their name for a chance to win two tickets to the performance of Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie: Starring Indigo Blume at the Gaillard Center on Sunday, February 12th.
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.
About the Show:
Charleston Gaillard Center Presents
The Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences on Tour
Acoustic Rooster’s Barnyard Boogie: Starring Indigo Blume
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Pre-Show Barnyard Yoga: 12:00pm
Curtain Speech by Author Kwame Alexander: 1:00pm
Performance: 1:00pm
Find your voice in this feathery adventure.
Adapted from the books by Kwame Alexander
By Kwame Alexander and Mary Rand Hess
Music by Randy Preston
Directed by Lili-Anne Brown
Music Supervision, Arrangements & Orchestrations by Mark G. Meadows New York Times best-selling author Kwame Alexander brings two of his beloved children’s books—Acoustic Rooster and Indigo Blume—to the stage in a world premiere Kennedy Center commission. Alexander teams up with his writing partner Mary Rand Hess and long-time musical collaborator Randy Preston to tell a story about being scared, being brave, and believing in yourself. With special guests like Duck Ellington and Ms. Dairy Parton—this musical adaptation will have children (and families) dancing in their seats.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Hats, Coats, Mittens and Scarves
2023-02-01 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Joyce, our Children’s Librarian, in the Rabbit Hole for a reading of the book of the week, and then have the option to make an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Joyce will read The Mitten by Jan Brett and the craft will be a winter hat.
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Us: A Journalist's Look at the Culture, Conflict and Creativity of the South with Adam Parker
2023-02-02 18:00 - 19:00 | SC
Come join us on Thursday, February 2nd at 6pm, when we invite veteran journalist for The Charleston Post and Courier, Adam Parker in to discuss Us – his newest published work. Adam will be joined in conversation with the inimitable John Simpkins–president of MDC, former Obama Administration official, constitutional law professor, fellow traveler, writer, and thinker.
Tickets are $10 for members and $15 for guests. Free for students by calling the number listed below and showing a valid ID at check in.
To purchase tickets, click here or call 843-723-9912.
About the Book:
Parker has covered just about everything for The Post and Courier, though he has spent most of his time writing about race, religion and the arts. His reported articles are not of the standard kind. The stories delve deep, investigating much of what informs life in the American Southeast. They are issue-focused and convey the experiences and perceptions of all kinds of people, from civil rights leaders to Cistercian monks. Us: A Journalist’s Look at the Culture, Conflict and Creativity of the South is a collection of in-depth articles published by The Post and Courier over the course of nearly 20 years, and it reveals the breadth and scope of Parker’s uncanny ability to pull back the scrim and take a hard look at ourselves and our community.
About Adam Parker:
Adam Parker earned two degrees in music, then spent a decade in the business world before going back to school for a graduate degree in journalism from Columbia University. At The Post and Courier, he has worked on several beats over the years, including religion, the arts and, most recently, race and history. A long-time student of the civil rights movement and race in America, he has written extensively about the African-American experience. He is the author of the biography Outside Agitator: The Civil Rights Struggle of Cleveland Sellers Jr., published by Hub City Press in 2018, and Us: A Journalist’s Look at the Culture, Conflict, and Creativity of the South, published by Evening Post Books.
About John L.S. Simpkins:
John Simpkins is a constitutional law scholar, former Obama Administration counsel and Aspen Institute leader committed to equity and inclusion in the American South and beyond. A South Carolina native, Simpkins has practiced law in Greenville, taught law in Charleston, and traveled the world as chief counsel for USAID during the Obama presidency.

Saturday Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Robots
2023-02-04 10:00 - 11:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Robobaby by David Wiesner and the craft will be a book paper robot!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Piggies
2023-02-07 15:30 - 16:30, 2023-02-08 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Squeaky Clean by Simon Puttock and the craft will be rocking paper plate pigs!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

February New Members Mingle
2023-02-13 17:00 - 18:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Please join us for our New Members Mingle! Every second Monday of the month, we look forward to hosting our newest members of the CLS family. Starting our night off with a complimentary glass of wine, the evening will include an orientation of the Library and informational tour with Q & A about your membership benefits.
Please RSVP with the form below. We look forward to seeing you!

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Valentine's Day
2023-02-14 15:30 - 16:30, 2023-02-15 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Ways to Say I Love You by Marilyn Singer and the craft will be beaded heart ornaments!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Music at the Library: Choose Your Own Opera Adventure - Lovers' Edition
2023-02-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
An interactive operatic experience that will delight, excite, and satisfy any lovers looking for a unique Valentine’s Day adventure…
Join the Charleston Library Society and the Holy City Arts & Lyric Opera (HALO) as they present an evening of opera where the story is chosen by the audience.
Will the stars of the evening be lovers OR enemies? Will there be betrayal OR devotion? Will the innocent dare to be different? Will the forlorn antiheroes claim their desires no matter the costs? All these decisions will be up to the fates (and the audience) during this special Valentine’s Day concert.
The story of the evening’s performance is in YOUR hands…
Tickets for this concert are $25 for members and $35 for guests.
To purchase tickets, click here or call 843-723-9912.
About HALO:
Opera is the largest collaborative art form and at HALO, we welcome you to join our family.
Think opera isn’t for you? We hope you’ll give us a try. You might be delightfully surprised! HALO provides a comprehensive approach to exploring the world of opera. Through our school programs, historical walking tour, Opera 101 course, house concerts and large-scale productions, our goal is to invite everyone to experience opera in the way that is most comfortable for them.
Whether you’re an artist or an audience member, an ambassador or an angel donor, an opera novice or aficionado, a tour guide or a technician, a comeyah or a beenyah, there is a place for you at HALO. We’re not just an opera company. We are a multi-faceted nonprofit arts organization that exists to serve our community. We are fueled by engagement, creativity, and civic pride.
We are here for you. It’s Opera. For y’all.

Speaker Series: Alex Kershaw
2023-02-16 18:00 - 19:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Join the Charleston Library Society as we host best-selling author and journalist, Alex Kershaw, as he speaks on his most recent book, Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II.
This event has been made possible through the generosity of Friends of the National World War II Memorial.
Tickets for this event are $10 for CLS members and $15 for guests. To purchase tickets, call 843-723-9912 or click here.
About the Book:
The untold story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II—all Medal of Honor recipients—from the beaches of French Morocco to Hitler’s own mountaintop fortress, by the national bestselling author of The First Wave
“Pitch-perfect.”—The Wall Street Journal • “Riveting.”—World War II magazine • “Alex Kershaw is the master of putting the reader in the heat of the action.”—Martin Dugard
As the Allies raced to defeat Hitler, four men, all in the same unit, earned medal after medal for battlefield heroism. Maurice “Footsie” Britt, a former professional football player, became the very first American to receive every award for valor in a single war. Michael Daly was a West Point dropout who risked his neck over and over to keep his men alive. Keith Ware would one day become the first and only draftee in history to attain the rank of general before serving in Vietnam. In WWII, Ware owed his life to the finest soldier he ever commanded, a baby-faced Texan named Audie Murphy. In the campaign to liberate Europe, each would gain the ultimate accolade, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Tapping into personal interviews and a wealth of primary source material, Alex Kershaw has delivered his most gripping account yet of American courage, spanning more than six hundred days of increasingly merciless combat, from the deserts of North Africa to the dark heart of Nazi Germany. Once the guns fell silent, these four exceptional warriors would discover just how heavy the Medal of Honor could be—and how great the expectations associated with it. Having survived against all odds, who among them would finally find peace?
About the Author:
Alex Kershaw is the widely-acclaimed, prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author of eleven books, including The Longest Winter, The Bedford Boys, The First Wave and The Liberator. He has been a journalist for over thirty years, is a popular public speaker, and designs/leads history tours around the world. He is also a board director of the Friends of The National WWII Memorial and chairs the Colby Award selection committee. His book, Blood and Champagne, is currently being adapted into a tv series. His 2012 book, The Liberator, is now a four part series on Netflix. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages.

Saturday Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Presidents' Day
2023-02-18 10:00 - 11:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Grace for President by Kelly DiPucchio and the craft will be President’s Day face masks!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Moon
2023-02-21 15:30 - 16:30, 2023-02-22 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Moon by Britta Teckentrup and the craft will be a paper plate moon and star mobile!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Lite Lunch: The XX Edge with Patience Marime-Ball, Ruth Shaber, and Kate Nevin
2023-02-22 12:00 - 13:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Charleston Library Society returns on its investments with a Lite Lunch with Patience Marime-Ball, Ruth Shaber, M.D., and Kate Nevin as they discuss Marime-Ball and Shaber’s book, The XX Edge: Unlocking Higher Returns and Lower Risk.
There’s a simple but often overlooked investment strategy to earning higher returns—include women as financial decision-makers within your organization or team. These three influential women will sit down and discuss the importance of the female presence when it comes to the investment world and market.
Tickets for this lunch time lecture are $25 for members and $35 for guests. All tickets include a boxed-lunch.
About the Book:
In The XX Edge, Patience Marime-Ball and Ruth Shaber envision a new paradigm of gender-focused investing where more women are placed in decision-making roles and able to optimize their skills across all capital markets—leading to higher returns for individual investors and greater economic growth.
There’s a simple but often overlooked investment strategy to earning higher returns—include women as financial decision-makers within your organization or team. That’s The XX Edge.
Seasoned executives and investors Patience Marime-Ball and Ruth Shaber demonstrate the new paradigm where women are at the center of investing as agents and actors—not just as beneficiaries.
If you manage investments—either your own or others’—you’ll want to understand the data and discover the financial power of The XX Edge:

Gender-inclusive teams are 21% more likely to see outperformance in profitability relative to peers

Female CFOs deliver a 6% increase in profits and an 8% stock performance bump compared to overall performance under male predecessors

New companies with a female founder performed 63% better than those with all-male teams over an observed ten-year period

Women-run hedge funds outperformed the average of larger hedge funds by a margin of 6% over a six-and-a-half-year period

You’ll discover the inherent gender differences between women and men and why these differences make women excellent financial decision makers and investment collaborators. Patience and Ruth unpack the evidence that proves this point across all asset classes.
The XX Edge shows that when women make financial decisions and apply their skills across all capital markets, it leads to higher returns for individual investors and greater economic growth—a true win-win for all.
About the Authors:
Patience Marime-Ball has more than two decades of investment experience across capital markets, including debt and equity financing, large scale infrastructure, distressed assets, as well as venture stage opportunities. Previously, Patience was Principal Investment Officer and Global Head of Banking on Women at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) where she developed the Banking on Women business; Patience co-developed the first-ever gender bond issued on the Uridashi market. She is the founder and CEO of Women of the World Endowment, an investment nonprofit focused on centralizing women as economic, environmental, and social changemakers while delivering market-rate, risk adjusted returns and impact at scale.
Patience holds a JD from the Pritzker School of Law and an MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University.
Ruth Shaber, MD is the founder and president of the Tara Health Foundation, which promotes health, well-being, and opportunity for women and girls through innovative evidence-informed programs. She is also the co-founder and board chair of Rhia Ventures, a group of foundations and investors that collaborate to bring new types of capital and enterprise to the field of reproductive health in the United States. Ruth had a robust career as an Obstetrician and Gynecologist at Kaiser Permanente from 1990 to 2012.
Ruth was featured in Forbes 2020 Impact 50: Investors Seeking Profit—and Pushing for Change for her contributions to the field of impact investing. Ruth holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Yale University.

About Kate Nevin:
Kate is a seasoned Portfolio Manager, engaged community advocate and optimistic mother of three. At the intersection of those titles is a deep sense of awareness, purpose and the recognition that when we are living in alignment with our values, our actions have the potential for exponential impact. Kate is focused on innovating her slice of the financial industry with access to diverse talent and advocacy for gender parity. Similarly, Kate uses data and collaboration when advocating for environmental and societal issues. But at the end of the day, the family dinner table is the most important advocacy tool she has.

Nature's Poet
2023-02-23 18:00 - 19:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Author. Conservationist. Naturalist. Ornithologist. Poet. Wandering soul. These are just a few of the definitions, degrees, and distinctions associated with J. Drew Lanham. We are fortunate to have this 2022 MacArthur Foundation fellow with us on February 23rd for an evening discussion and poetry reading. As his reputation suggests, Drew is a man of many talents, whose many talents keep him commensurately busy, so this is a rare and exciting opportunity, and we so look forward to sharing it. If you are someone who appreciates the magic of a wild heart merged with a brilliant mind and an explorer’s sense of adventure and curiosity, this is a program you should not miss.
Tickets are 10 for Members, $15 for Guests.
Purchase tickets here.

Saturday Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Wild West
2023-02-25 10:00 - 11:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read Rodeo Red by Maripat Perkins and the craft will be paper plate cowboy hats and bedazzled sheriff badges!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Dr. Seuss
2023-02-28 15:30 - 16:30, 2023-03-01 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer, and Zora, our Childrens’ Library Coordinator. They will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna and Zora will read The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss and the craft will be a cat mask!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Spring Symposium: The Future of Publishing with John Ingram
2023-03-02 18:00 - 2023-03-03 13:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
CLS, in partnership with Buxton Books, is thrilled to announce an exclusive two-day Publishing Symposium featuring John Ingram. This lifelong learning program will dive deep into the past, present, and future of book publishing, and offer a rare opportunity to engage with and learn from an industry icon whose family legacy is rivaled only by his own impressive vision for the future.
Ingram understands the past, present, and future of publishing as few people can. A media pioneer who not only anticipated the advent of on-demand printing, but also created a set of innovative software and digital infrastructure solutions to support independent authors, audiences, and booksellers… (read more below)
There are two ticket options for this program:
EVENING PROGRAM ONLY (Thursday, March 2) $30 // Admission to the discussion panel with John Ingram and Julian Buxton at 6pm.
TWO-DAY SYMPOSIUM (Thursday, March 2 & Friday, March 3) – $130 // Admission to the discussion panel on Thursday March 2.
Plus, Admission to the extended session on Friday, March 3, from 10:00 am – 1:00 pm, which will include group discussion, analysis of the lecture topic, and insights from additional publishing industry insiders — plus a boxed lunch.
About the Event:
The Symposium begins Thursday evening with an up-close-and-personal discussion led by Julian Buxton. The co-founder of Buxton Books is not only a fellow publishing insider; he’s also a longtime friend of Ingram’s (they met as undergrads at Princeton), with a unique perspective on the mechanics and motivations driving the industry today. (There’s also that Charleston connection, courtesy of Ingram’s mother, Martha Rivers Ingram, who grew up here.) With such strong ties, theirs is sure to be a candid and insightful exploration of Ingram’s career choices, how those decisions fit into the shifting balance of new and old media, and the lessons learned along the way.
On Friday, we’ll tighten the circle a bit to continue the conversation with a more intimate group of attendees. Over the course of the morning, we’ll examine the current state of publishing, the supporting forces that comprise the publishing ecosystem today, and the factors that will shape the next wave of innovation.
We’ll bust myths, expose hidden truths, and share on the ground insights from all corners of the publishing world—from editorial perspectives on the power of reviews and bestseller-list placements, to the way that same data affects author tours and event destinations, to the importance of independent bookstores and the experiential and distribution data they provide.
About John Ingram:
Ingram understands the past, present, and future of publishing as few people can. A media pioneer who not only anticipated the advent of on-demand printing, but also created a set of innovative software and digital infrastructure solutions to support independent authors, audiences, and booksellers, Ingram built his family’s wholesale book distribution company into a revolutionary force that would ultimately transform the book publishing landscape. Labeled an “intrapreneur” for his ability to forge a unique identity through his family’s established empire—which, in its impressive diversification, offered many professional avenues beyond publishing—Ingram found his calling from within even as he brazenly blazed his own trail.

Saturday Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Books and Libraries
2023-03-04 10:00 - 11:00 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, click here.
Please join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Kenna, who led our CAMPS in the STACKS this summer. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Kenna will read How to Read a Book by Kwame Alexander and the craft will be homemade bookmarks!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

Lite Lunch: Janice Nimura - The Doctors Blackwell
2023-03-07 12:00 - 13:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
The Charleston Library Society welcomes New York Times Bestseller and Pulitzer Prize Finalist to discuss her recent powerhouse biography, The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women – And Women to Medicine.
Tickets for this Lite Lunch are $25 for members and $35 guest. All tickets include a boxed lunch.
To purchase tickets, click here or call 843-723-9912.
“Deftly, with a keen eye, Janice P. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor.”―Stacy Schiff
The world recoiled at the notion of a woman doctor, yet Elizabeth Blackwell persisted―in 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an MD. Her achievement made her an icon―“I am convinced that a new & nobler era is dawning, for Medicine,” she wrote―but her sister Emily, eternally eclipsed, was the more brilliant physician. Together they founded the first hospital staffed entirely by women, in New York City.
Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights―or with each other. “Doubt is disease,” Elizabeth insisted. They prevailed against fierce resistance from the male establishment, moving among Britain, France, and America during a tumultuous time of scientific discovery and civil war. This major new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility. As Elizabeth predicted, “a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now.”

REVIEWS
“Enthralling…Nimura, by digging into [the Blackwells’] deeds and their lives, finds those discrepancies and idiosyncrasies that yield a memorable portrait. The Doctors Blackwell also opens up a sense of possibility — you don’t always have to mean well on all fronts in order to do a lot of good.” –Jennifer Szalai, New York Times
“[A] richly detailed and propulsive biography….Nimura doesn’t strain to fit the sisters into the narrow shape allowed to feminist pioneers, as either virtuous role models or “badass” rebels against society. Instead, they emerge as spiky, complicated human beings, who strove and stumbled toward an extraordinary achievement, and then had to learn what to do with it.” –Joanna Scutts, New York Times Book Review
“The Doctors Blackwell is best on the fascinating and harrowing history of modern medicine….[Nimura] is a close and delightful observer of [the Blackwells’] world.” –The New Yorker
“The Doctors Blackwell not only testifies to Elizabeth and Emily’s iron determination but also chronicles evolving medical practices. Nimura places the sisters within the broad intellectual context of their time, creating an important and engaging history lesson.” –NPR
ABOUT JANICE:
Janice P. Nimura received a Public Scholar Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities in support of her work on The Doctors Blackwell, a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in biography. Her previous book, Daughters of the Samurai: A Journey from East to West and Back, was a New York Times Notable book in 2015. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian, The Rumpus, and LitHub, among other publications.
“The one thing I know I’ll never be is a historian,” she told her college guidance counselor in 1988. She thought she wanted to be a doctor, but life intervened: she majored in English at Yale, worked in publishing, moved to Japan with her Tokyo-born husband, and completed an M.A. in East Asian studies at Columbia upon their return to her native New York. She grew into an understanding that history is made of stories and fell in love with archival treasure-hunting, especially when it led to the forgotten lives of border-crossing nineteenth-century women. Her first book grew out of her personal interest in the earliest encounters between Japan and the United States. In her latest project she circles back to her first interest in medicine, in the context of her work in women’s history.

Story Time In The Rabbit Hole - Poetry
2023-03-07 15:30 - 16:30, 2023-03-08 15:30 - 16:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
Due to the high enthusiasm surrounding Story Time, we will be offering this to members only. To join the Library Society, please click here.
Join us for our beloved Story Time in the Rabbit Hole! During this hour long, kid-friendly program, children and their parents/caregivers can join Zora, our incredible Childrens’ Library Coordinator. She will be reading in the Rabbit Hole and making an on-theme craft to bring home.
For this Story Time, Zora will read Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein and the craft will be rhyming word soup!
Story Time will repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday at 3:30 pm and Saturday at 10:00 am – we hope to see you there!
To RSVP to this free event, please fill out the form below.

CLS x Ibu Foundation Honor Global Artisan Leaders
2023-03-08 10:30 - 11:30 | Charleston Library Society, 164 King Street, Charleston, SC, 29401, United States
In partnership with the Ibu Foundation, CLS welcomes artisan leaders from Colombia, Haiti, Morocco, Nigeria, and Pakistan for an in depth discussion on the challenges of creating beauty in situations which could hardly be called beautiful. Gang warfare, displacement, the silencing and repression of women, colossal flooding, poverty—these are some of the obstacles women around the world too often confront as they seek economic self-sufficiency through handmade arts.
Join us as this panel of six visionary artisans and advocates—Samina Mahmud, Hassana Yusuf, Wafae Safar, Dayanne Danier, Juan Sebastian Rivera, and Juan Pablo Gomez—share the stories behind their own heritage clothing and crafts, as well as insights into the power of cooperatives and collective action. To lead the conversation, Pat Mitchell, the editorial director of TEDWomen and an Ibu Ambassador (who has also served as President of both PBS and Sundance in the past), will team up with Ibu founder, Susan Hull Walker.
Don’t miss this rare opportunity to learn from, be inspired by, and support the often-unseen women of the world who not only struggle through and rise above the calamities that surround them, but also find the will to transform trauma into treasures.
Tickets are $10 for CLS Members, $15 for Guests. Students are admitted free with RSVP, pending availability.
Want to know more about how to craft a new world in adversity? The Ibu Movement—whose mission is to expand markets for women artisans across the globe and build capacity for success through tangible economic and structural change—will honor these six visionaries during its International Women’s Day and global runway showcase at Festival Hall, also scheduled for March 8. For details on programming and tickets for The Fringe Revolution Event, click here.
