Flashback: How Trappist monks built Conyers’s Monastery of the Holy Spirit
Between chants and prayer, the monks mixed and wheeled concrete to build their immense Abbey Church in Rockdale County. Today, the monastery is a must-see attraction and generates revenue by making stained glass, selling bonsai trees, and offering silent retreats for laypeople. Plus, they bake a mean biscotti.
How Mundo Hispánico, Georgia’s largest Spanish-language newspaper, survived a near-death experience
Saved from shuttering by new owners after Cox Media Group sold the publication, Georgia's largest Spanish-language newspaper, Mundo Hispánico, covers stories on detainee rights, crime in Hispanic communities, and ICE raids that most other local publications don’t.
Pearl Cleage’s new play is a comical ode to female artists—and activists—young or old
Giving women the opportunity to tell their own stories is what connects two generations of artists in Pearl Cleage’s new play, Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous, running March 20 to April 14 at Alliance Theatre.
No child will be denied school lunch again if a crusading Gwinnett mom has her way
Alessandra Ferrara-Miller, a Suwanee resident and mother of two, founded her one-woman nonprofit, All For Lunch, in 2017 with the intent to abolish all of the outstanding school lunch debt in metro Atlanta. Long-term, she hopes All For Lunch can act as an emergency fund for all school lunch debt in the metro area.
Real Queer America author Samantha Allen on why Atlanta is the best city in the country for the LGBTQ community
Samantha Allen, a transgender senior reporter for the Daily Beast covering LGBT issues, has a new book, Real Queer America, where she takes a six-week road trip through multiple red states, showing that red states are full of people who care about equality and LGBT rights. Here, an excerpt from her book and a Q&A about the state of LGBTQ culture in Atlanta and America.
We billed this city: $1,825 for pizza and other curious findings from Atlanta’s new spending transparency database
In light of the FBI's investigation of City of Atlanta officials after concerns of bribery schemes, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms created Open Checkbook, which allows the public to monitor the city's spending. We looked through the resource and here's what we discovered:
Don’t Miss List: Our top 5 event picks for March
After performing at halftime during the Super Bowl, Travis Scott is performing at State Farm Arena; motorbikes jump, loop, and delight adrenaline junkies at Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Monster Energy Supercross; the High Museum of Art showcases self-taught artists, sculptors, and photographers for Way Out There: The Art of Southern Backroads.
How John Carroll discovered blackout poetry and accidentally built a community of hope
Years ago, when John Carroll felt hopeless and alone, he discovered blackout poetry—turning newspapers and book pages into poetry by blacking out words with a marker. Now, with tens of thousands of people following his Instagram, Carroll is demystifying what it means to be an artist, a poet, and a person who struggles with mental health issues.
Meet Jonas Ho, Atlanta’s LED-lit evangelist of electric skateboards.
About five years ago, Jonas Ho was watching YouTube videos when he discovered a novel way to spend the $500 burning a hole in his pocket: a battery-powered MotoTec skateboard. Since then, Ho, the owner of Noble House Tattoo in Stockbridge, has become a mad scientist of electric skateboards, turning his board into a 51-pound street cruiser lined with lights and capable of traveling up to 32 miles per hour on city streets.
Fighting to kneel: A Kennesaw State University cheerleader sues for the right to protest on the playing field
Similar to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, five cheerleaders for Kennesaw State University decided to kneel during the national anthem at a football game to protest unjustified killings by police officers. When the school decided to move them off the field if they were going to kneel, Tommia Dean, one of the cheerleaders, filed a lawsuit against the school's higher ups for restricting her freedom of speech.
