Atlanta Magazine

Little Sparrow will officially open in the former JCT space on October 2. Inspired by Parisian bistros and old Brooklyn neighborhood taverns, it will be an American brasserie serving simple fare using premium ingredients and classic techniques.

When interior designer Amber Guyton first visited Shanelle Walker’s Grove Park home, she noticed lots of art propped up against the walls—but that didn’t surprise her. “My client, Shanelle, is a woman of many talents,” says Guyton. Walker is a freelancer in Atlanta’s booming TV/movie industry and owner of the local apparel line Freedom Company, a brand “rooted in Black Empowerment and Love.” She’s also a writer, an activist, and a podcaster. Guyton says, “Her home is the core of all this creativity. She wanted it to be a place where ‘Dreams Don’t Sleep.’”

Tayari Jones—author, professor, and griot of the American South—has a lot on her plate. She teaches a creative writing class at Emory University, she has book blurbs due and forewords to file, and she has words in a just-released craft book, How We Do It, where her Emory colleague Jericho Brown gathered Black writers to explain “how they go about making what they make.” “I know I have a novel,” Jones writes, “when I have a question to which I don’t know the moral/ethical answer.” She is also putting the finishing touches on her fifth and forthcoming novel, Old Fourth Ward, which is set squarely in Black Atlanta’s centers of gravity: the historic neighborhood adjacent to downtown Atlanta (and the book’s namesake) and Cascade Heights (her old stomping grounds).

A roundup of independent bookstores, essential books that explain today’s Atlanta, and book events.

How several Atlantans build community through storytelling and literature, including YATL's Kimberly Jones and Vania Stoyanova, A Cappella's Frank Reiss, Charis's E.R. Anderson, and more.

In 1988, a group of writers gathered on the steps of Spelman College’s Rockefeller Fine Arts building to fete Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, who, that weekend, had become the college’s first Black woman president. We had just gotten out of a wonderful program honoring Dr. Cole and Black women in the arts. People were talking, laughing, and greeting each other . . . Everybody was high off the charge of the whole gathering: This was the culmination of a decades-long discussion of who should lead this historically Black institution, and this was a celebration of the leadership of Black women in many different fields, particularly in scholarship, in literature, and in the arts.

At its core, the romance novel satisfies a fundamental human desire to experience love. In a world that often feels less and less safe, the assurance of an “HEA” (happily ever after) or “HFN” (happy for now) that a romance novel provides is comforting.

One of my favorite lines in Jean Toomer’s masterwork Cane is “the pines whisper to Jesus.” I take it to mean what we cannot say out loud, we whisper to the trees, who then pass the message on to God. The truths, desires, and needs that are too painful—or powerful—to say out loud must be whispered to remain intact. Cane is a book of multiple whispers, sighs, and quiets about the early-20th-century South.

Rare and classic books keep finding Rosa Duffy. Some have fragile, first edition spines that creek like arthritic joints. Others have musings jotted in the margins by previous owners. These are Duffy’s favorites—the ones that she hand-selects from online sellers, collectors, or other independent bookstores to live in her Auburn Avenue reading room and store, For Keeps Books.

A 6,000-square-foot theater and speakeasy, Pigalle will bring the sexy, whimsical, bohemian vibes of Paris on Ponce with unique entertainment and decor. “Almost every Atlanta native has a story that begins with Underground Atlanta,” owner Nicolette Valdespino says in a press release. “Our destination has been a staple in Atlanta for more than 25 years. To us, there was no better setting for our next location than Underground Atlanta—a place that fosters unique synergies between creatives and artists.”