Person Unlimited: An Ode To My Black Queer Body -- Dean Atta In Conversation With Breanna J. Mcdaniel

From the venue:

Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body — Dean Atta in conversation with Breanna J. McDaniel

This event takes place on Crowdcast, Charis' virtual event platform. This event is free, but registration is required. Register here.
Charis welcomes Dean Atta in conversation with Breanna J. McDaniel for a celebration of Person Unlimited: An Ode to My Black Queer Body.
From choirboy to drag act, grandson to mentor, poet to lover, Dean Atta has played many roles in his life. In this formally inventive, candid and courageous book, he explores what he has carried in his body: wins and losses, shame and pride, pain and joy. Dean also investigates how radical self-acceptance and a willingness to abide with discomfort open up the possibility of a life lived beyond definition: a person unlimited.
About the Author 
Dean Atta is a BAFTA award-winning screenwriter and Stonewall Book Award-winning author from London. Best known for his young adult novel in verse, The Black Flamingo, and the stop-motion animation, Two Black Boys in Paradise, his heartfelt storytelling draws on his Greek Cypriot and Jamaican heritage as well as his queer identity.
Dean is a patron of LGBT+ History Month and Chair of the Poetry and Spoken Word Group of the Society of Authors.
Dean has published three young adult novels in verse, two poetry collections, two picture books, and a memoir. His debut adult novel, Big Man, will be published by Cipher Press in September 2026.
About the Conversation Partner
Breanna J. McDaniel is an emerging creative and recovering scholar. She’s published in myriad academic journals, an academic anthology and her debut picture book Hands Up! was published with Dial Books in 2019.
Since its publication, Hands Up! was selected as a children’s book that “Books All Young Georgians Should Read” by the Georgia Center for the Book, recognized by the Chicago Public Library as, “one of the very best picture books published for kids from birth to 3rd grade in 2019,” and awarded the “2021 First Novelist Honor Book” by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, Inc. and School Library Journal.
Her book Go Forth and Tell: The Life of Augusta Baker, Librarian and Master Storyteller, was published February 6, 2024 and received five starred reviews, a 2025 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor, and the 2025 Ezra Jack Keats Writer Award. Her  book Cute Toot was released in April of 2024, and Auntie’s Baby was released in April of 2026, both with Macmillan. She has another book forthcoming with Macmillan and Simon & Schuster.
Breanna completed her PhD at a university in the UK and looked at surveillance in representations of Black children as food. As an activist she is engaged in thinking through access to different types of literacy for families from the Global Majority and she’s adamant about promoting the work and connections of children’s book creators from those communities too. 
The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate on Crowdcast or via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.
Please contact us at info@chariscircle.org or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to info@chariscircle.org. 
By attending our event, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email info@chariscircle.org.

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