DeShara is a queer, Black poet and visual artist. She co-founded Daughter’s Tongue (an all-women writing collective), worked as the Creative Director of Workshops at Winter Tangerine, and is a former member of the Youth Speaks Collective. She received her MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts and fellowships from Callaloo, the Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door. In 2021, she was nominated for “Best of the Net.” She has published poems in Apogee Lit, Voicemail Poems, Tinderbox Journal, The Texas Review, and elsewhere. She has also been featured on Button Poetry’s YouTube platform and has performed at the likes of Spotify, Yahoo, and Pinterest
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- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Forged By Blood with Ehigbor Okosun-August 11 at 7:30 PM CST
![IRL AUTHOR TALK: Forged By Blood with Ehigbor Okosun-August 11 at 7:30 PM CST]()
IRL AUTHOR TALK: Forged By Blood with Ehigbor Okosun-August 11 at 7:30 PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Forged by Blood, a Nigerian inspired fantasy novel with debut author, Ehigbor Okosun!
ABOUT THE EVENT
When: Friday, August 11th at 7:30 PM
Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In the midst of an authoritarian regime and political invasion, Dèmi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ifé; to escape King Sorenson’s brutal genocide of her people, the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright.
But when Dèmi’s misplaced trust costs her mother’s life, survival gives way to vengeance. She bides her time until the devious Lord Ekwensi grants her the perfect opportunity—kidnap the Aje prince, Jonas, and bargain with his life to save the remaining Oluso. With the help of her reckless childhood friend Colin, Dèmi succeeds, but discovers that she and Jonas share more than deadly secrets; every moment tangles them further in a forbidden, unmistakable attraction, much to Colin’s—and Dèmi’s—distress
The kidnapping is now a joint mission: to return to the King, help get Lord Ekwensi on the council, and bolster the voice of the Oluso in a system designed to silence them. But the way is dangerous, Dèmi’s magic is growing yet uncertain, and she’s not sure if she can trust the two men at her side.
A tale of rebellion and redemption, race and class, love and trust and betrayal, Forged by Blood is epic fantasy at its finest, from an enthusiastic, emerging voice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ehigbor Okosun is an Austin-based author who writes speculative fiction for adult and young adult audiences. A British private school survivor turned Nigerian American immigrant, she hopes to do justice to the myths and traditions she was steeped in, and to honor her large, multiracial, and multiethnic family. She is a graduate of the University of Texas with degrees in Plan II Honors, neurolinguistics, and English, as well as chemistry and premedical studies, and was recently named a Cynthia Leitich Smith Writing Mentor Award finalist. When she’s not reading, you can catch her bullet journaling and baking.ABOUT THE MODERATORJ. Elle is the New York Times bestselling author of young adult and middle-grade fantasy fiction and a 2022 NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth and Teens. Her work is being translated and distributed in over fifteen countries. The former educator credits her nomadic lifestyle and humble inner-city beginnings as inspiration for her novels. When she’s not writing, Elle can be found on the hunt for desserts without chocolate, looking for any excuse to get dressed up, and road-tripping her way across the country with her family of six plus four pets in tow.
- IRL Author Talk: Gabrielle Union discusses You Got Anything Stronger? - September 17at 7:00 PM CST (TICKETS VIA EVENTBRITE)
![IRL Author Talk: Gabrielle Union discusses You Got Anything Stronger? - September 17at 7:00 PM CST (TICKETS VIA EVENTBRITE)]()
IRL Author Talk: Gabrielle Union discusses You Got Anything Stronger? - September 17at 7:00 PM CST (TICKETS VIA EVENTBRITE)
Sold outJoin us for a girl's night out with Gabrielle Union as she discusses her newest book, You Got Anything Stronger?
Please use the Eventbrite link above to secure your ticket for this event!
Event Details:
When: Friday, September 17 at 7:00 PM CST
Where: The Fountain of Praise, 13950 Hillcroft Ave, Houston, TX 77085
How: Ticket required for entry. Every ticket includes a copy of Gabrielle Union’s book, You Got Anything Stronger?, which will be available for pick-up when checking in at the venue.
Cost: $35 via Eventbrite (includes book)
We hope to see you there!
About the Book:
Over the years Gabrielle Union has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized and the victimized, and fans around the world have watched her both on and off-screen stand up to and speak out against injustice, in its myriad forms.
With her newest book, You Got Anything Stronger?, Gabrielle is at her most vulnerable. Life happens with all its plot twists, and Gabrielle is opening up about everything from her surrogacy journey to navigating married life to aging and leveling up in your career. This will be a memorable evening of conversation that will leave guests feeling empowered and inspired.
About the Author:
Gabrielle Union is an actress, executive producer, activist, best-selling author and most recently, a Time100 cover honoree. Union formed her production shingle “I’ll Have Another” in 2018 with the goal of telling stories that center marginalized communities with their specific point of views in an authentic manner. In August of 2020, she relaunched her haircare brand “Flawless by Gabrielle Union” for women with textured hair. The new and improved collection includes an array of options, affordably priced between $4 - $10, that empowers consumers to customize a regimen specific to their texture and style preferences. Prior to relaunching Flawless, Union learned of the disparities in the food space and joined Bitsy's as a cofounder with the goal of making healthy, allergen-friendly, school-safe snacks that are accessible and affordable for all families regardless of their socioeconomic or geographical status. Her first book, We’re Going To Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated and True, was released in 2017 and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. Union serves as a leader and advocate for inclusion in the entertainment industry. She is also a champion of breast health and combating sexual violence.
Event guidelines subject to change.
- IRL Author Talk: Gather Me with Glory Edim - November 3 @ 4PM CST
![IRL Author Talk: Gather Me with Glory Edim - November 3 @ 4PM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: Gather Me with Glory Edim - November 3 @ 4PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Gather Me: A Memoir In Praise of the Books That Saved Me with Glory Edim!
EVENT DEETS
When: Sunday, November 3 @ 4PM
Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: Get your ticket here (all tickets include a copy of Gather Me)!
ABOUT THE BOOK
An inspiring memoir of family, community, and resilience, and an ode to the power of books to help us understand ourselves, from the renowned founder of Well-Read Black Girl
“She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order.”—Toni Morrison
For Glory Edim, that "friend of my mind" is books. Edim, who grew up in Virginia to Nigerian immigrant parents, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age thirty eventually reaching a community of half a million other readers. But her love of books stretches far back.
When Edim's father moved back to Nigeria while she was still a child, she and her brothers were left with a single mother and little money, often finding a safe space at their local library. Books were where Edim found community, and as she grew older, she discovered authors and ideas she wasn't being taught in class. In dorm rooms and airplanes and on subway rides, she found the Black writers whose words would forever change her life: Nikki Giovanni through children's poetry cassettes; Maya Angelou through a critical high school English teacher; Toni Morrison while attending Morrison's alma mater, Howard University; Audre Lorde on a flight to Nigeria. In prose full of both joy and heartbreak, Edim recounts how these writers and so many others helped her to value herself: to find her own voice when her mother lost hers, to trust her feelings when her father remarried, to create bonds with other Black women and uplift their stories.
Gather Me is a glowing testament to the power of representation and the lasting impact of literature to gather our disparate parts and put them back together.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Glory Edim is a literary tastemaker, entrepreneur, and advocate for diverse voices in literature. In 2015, she founded Well-Read Black Girl (WRBG), an online platform and book club dedicated to celebrating the works of Black women authors and creating a supportive online community for readers. Under Glory's leadership, WRBG has grown into a non-profit organization, hosting events, book festivals, and author conversations that highlight the richness and diversity of Black literature. Her efforts have earned her accolades such as the 2017 Innovator’s Award from the Los Angeles Times and the Madam C.J. Walker Award from the Hurston/Wright Foundation. As an author herself, Glory has contributed to the literary landscape with her best-selling anthologies Well-Read Black Girl: Finding Our Stories, Discovering Ourselves, and On Girlhood: 15 Stories from the Well-Read Black Girl Library.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Wale is a licensed mental health therapist and a passionate reader who uses her platform (@theehottgirlbooks) to dive deep into powerfully emotional stories written by BIPOC authors. Her love for reading and mental health fosters a passionate approach to her work both online and in the therapy room. When she is not immersed in the literary world, you can find her watching the real housewives or building an elaborate Lego set.
- IRL Author Talk: God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer with Joseph Earl Thomas - June 25 @ 7:30 PM
![IRL Author Talk: God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer with Joseph Earl Thomas - June 25 @ 7:30 PM]()
IRL Author Talk: God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer with Joseph Earl Thomas - June 25 @ 7:30 PM
Sold outCelebrate the release of God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer with Joseph Earl Thomas!
EVENT DEETS
When: Tuesday, June 25 @ 7:30 PM
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat and RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store.
ABOUT THE BOOK
After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporaries of his estranged father, a man he knows little about, serving time at Holmesburg prison for the statutory rape of his then-teenage mother. Meanwhile, he and his best friend Ray, a fellow vet, are alternatingly bonding over and struggling with their shared experience and return to civilian life, locked in their own rhythms of lust, heartbreak, and responsibility.
Balancing the joys and frustrations of single fatherhood, his studies, and ceaseless shifts at the hospital as he becomes closer than he ever imagined to his father, Joseph tries to articulate vernacular understandings of the sociopolitical struggles he recounts as participant-observer at home, against the assumptions of his friends and colleagues. GOD BLESS YOU, OTIS SPUNKMEYER is a powerful examination of every day black life—of health and sex, race and punishment, and the gaps between our desires and our politics.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and The Kenyon Review. He has an MFA in prose from The University of Notre Dame and is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. An excerpt of his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and he has received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House, and Bread Loaf. He’s writing the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, and a collection of stories, Leviathan Beach, among other oddities.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Joshua Burton is a poet and educator from Houston, TX and received his MFA in poetry at Syracuse University. He is a 2019 Tin House Winter Workshop Scholar, 2019 Juniper Summer Writing Institute scholarship winner, 2019 Center for African American Poetry and Poetics fellowship finalist, received the Honorable Mention for the 2018 Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize, 2020 Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing finalist, and a 2023 Elizabeth George Foundation grant recipient. His work can be found in Mississippi Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Conduit, TriQuarterly, Black Warrior Review, Grist, and Indiana Review. His chapbook Fracture Anthology is currently out with Ethel and his debut poetry collection Grace Engine is out with the University of Wisconsin Press.
- IRL Author Talk: Guide Me Home with Attica Locke - September 11 @ 7 PM
![IRL Author Talk: Guide Me Home with Attica Locke - September 11 @ 7 PM]()
IRL Author Talk: Guide Me Home with Attica Locke - September 11 @ 7 PM
Sold outCelebrate the final installment of Attica Locke's Highway 59 Series, Guide Me Home!
EVENT DEETS
When: Wednesday, September 11, 2024 @ 7 PM
Where: Holy Family HTX (3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support Attica Locke and the bookstore!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Texas Ranger Darren Mathews isn’t sure he’s been a good cop, but believes he’s got a shot at being a good man—if he manages to dodge the potential indictment hanging over his head and if he, from here on out, pledges allegiance to the truth. It’s a virtue the country appears to have wholly lost its grip on, but one Darren sees as his salvation. He is in the midst of remaking his life with the woman he loves, hoping for the peace of country living at his beloved farmhouse, when he is visited by someone who couldn’t hold the truth on her tongue if it was dipped in sugar, a woman who’s always been bent of tearing his life apart. His mother. Armed with a tall tale about a missing Black college student, Sera (whose white sorority sisters insist she isn’t missing at all). Darren must decide if his can trust his mother is telling the truth—and what her ulterior motive may be, and what if that motive has to do with a grand jury deciding his fate.
Darren gets his hooks into the investigation, along the way discovering things about Sera’s family and her hometown that are odd at best, vaguely sinister at worst. Hamstrung by local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers who likewise doubt the account of a missing girl, if Darren wants answers, he’ll need help from the person whom he swore to never trust again—his mother.
In this emotionally stirring conclusion to the singular Highway 59 series, set three years after the events of Heaven, My Home, Darren reckons with his life’s purpose as he’s forced to choose between his own peace and the higher call to do good.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Attica Locke is a NY Times best-selling author of six novels, including Guide Me Home. She is also a winner of an Edgar Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and she has been short listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and nominated for an LA Times Book Prize and an NAACP Image award for her work as a novelist. Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for Netflix. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
ReShonda Tate is the national bestselling author of more than 50 books, including her latest The Queen of Sugar Hill, based on the life of Hattie McDaniel. Her novel, Let the Church Say Amen, was made into a film directed by actress Regina King, and produced by TD Jakes and Queen Latifah. Her book, The Secret She Kept, was also made into a TV One movie starring Kyla Pratt. ReShonda made appearances in both movies. She wrote a movie, Christmas with my Ex, which will run on TV One this winter. A well-respected journalist and former TV News Anchor, ReShonda is currently Managing Editor for the Defender Newspaper and also works as a professional editor, ghostwriter, and literary consultant. A highly sought-after motivational speaker and award-winning poet, ReShonda is the recipient of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature.
- IRL Author Talk: Harlem Rhapsody with Victoria Christopher Murray - February 5 @ 7PM
![IRL Author Talk: Harlem Rhapsody with Victoria Christopher Murray - February 5 @ 7PM]()
IRL Author Talk: Harlem Rhapsody with Victoria Christopher Murray - February 5 @ 7PM
$34.00Celebrate the release of Harlem Rhapsody with Victoria Christopher Murray!
EVENT DEETS
When: Wednesday, February 5 @ 7PM
Where: Holy Family HTX (3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77003)
How: Get your tickets here!
ABOUT THE BOOK
In 1919, a high school teacher from Washington, D.C arrives in Harlem excited to realize her lifelong dream. Jessie Redmon Fauset has been named the literary editor of The Crisis. The first Black woman to hold this position at a preeminent Negro magazine, Jessie is poised to achieve literary greatness. But she holds a secret that jeopardizes it all.
W. E. B. Du Bois, the founder of The Crisis, is not only Jessie’s boss, he’s her lover. And neither his wife, nor their fourteen-year-age difference can keep the two apart. Amidst rumors of their tumultuous affair, Jessie is determined to prove herself. She attacks the challenge of discovering young writers with fervor, finding sixteen-year-old Countee Cullen, seventeen-year-old Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, who becomes one of her best friends. Under Jessie’s leadership, The Crisis thrives…every African American writer in the country wants their work published there.
When her first novel is released to great acclaim, it’s clear that Jessie is at the heart of a renaissance in Black music, theater, and the arts. She has shaped a generation of literary legends, but as she strives to preserve her legacy, she’ll discover the high cost of her unparalleled success.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Christopher Murray is one of the country's top Black contemporary authors. Her novels include the Seven Deadly Sins series and Stand Your Ground, a Library Journal Best Book of the Year. She holds an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
As a national bestselling author and award-winning journalist, ReShonda Tate has the credentials, and the passion, to bring stories to life. A highly sought-after motivational speaker/poet, ReShonda is a three-time nominee and previous winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature. She has received a plethora of distinguished awards and honors for her journalism, fiction, and poetry writing skills, including an induction into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame and the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. Two of her novels have been made into television movies.
- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holler, Child with Latoya Watkins-August 31 at 7:30 PM
![IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holler, Child with Latoya Watkins-August 31 at 7:30 PM]()
IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holler, Child with Latoya Watkins-August 31 at 7:30 PM
from $0.00We're celebrating Latoya Watkins second book, Holler, Child: Stories!
EVENT DEETS
When: Thursday, August 31st at 7:30 PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and programming.
ABOUT BOOK
Set in the same Black community in Texas as PERISH, LaToya's debut novel, each story focuses on unique characters that illuminate life in Texas; they offer briliant, heartbreaking, but ultimately hopeful perspectives from the women and men in the community, and touch on big themes like race, power, inequality, and more.
In one story, the appearance of a horse in a man's suburban backyard places a former horse breeder in trouble with the police, while in another, following the mass suicide of his entire congregation, the mother of a cult leader tries to honor him in a way she couldn't while he was alive.
Fresh and urgently told, HOLLER, CHILD is a wise follow-up to LaToya's debut novel.- This collection features 11 stories--six of which have been previously published and five of which are entirely new for this collectionABOUT AUTHOR
LaToya Watkins’s writing has appeared in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney’s, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology (2015), and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 Emerging Writers Fellows). She holds a PhD from the University of Texas at Dallas. Perish was her debut novel.
ABOUT MODERATOR
Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally known writer, educator, activist, and performer and the first Black poet laureate of Houston, Texas. She was formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (PSI). Her recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, garnered her a Pushcart nomination, was named a finalist for the 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award, and received an honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. Its German translation, under the title Berichtenswert, was released in Summer 2021 by Elif Verlag. The opera Marian’s Song, for which she wrote the libretto, debuted in 2020.
- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holy American Burnout! with Sean Enfield - March 21 @ 6:30 PM CST
![IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holy American Burnout! with Sean Enfield - March 21 @ 6:30 PM CST]()
IRL AUTHOR TALK: Holy American Burnout! with Sean Enfield - March 21 @ 6:30 PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate with debut author, Sean Enfield on his newest book, Holy American Burnout!
EVENT DEETS
When: Thursday, March 21 @ 6:30 PM
Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Gardent (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat and RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Sean Enfield delves into the great American condition: burnout.
Threading his experiences both as a Texan student and later as a first-year teacher of predominately Muslim students at a Texas middle school, Holy American Burnout! weaves personal essay and cultural critique into the historical fabric of Black and bi-racial identity.
Enfield intersects examinations of which voices are granted legitimacy by virtue of school curriculum, the complex relationship between basketball and education for Black and brown students, his students' burgeoning political consciousness during the 2016 presidential campaign, and cultural figures ranging from Kendrick Lamar to Hamlet.
These classroom narratives weave around Enfield's own formative experiences contending with a conflicted bi-racial family lineage, reenacting the Middle Passage as the only Black student in his 7th grade history class, and moshing in both Christian and secular hardcore pits.
As Enfield wrestles with the physical, mental, and emotional burdens that American society places on educators, students, and all relatively conscious minorities in this country, he reaches for an education that better navigates our burnt-out empire.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Enfield is an essayist, poet, gardener, bassist, and educator from Dallas, TX. He also serves as an assistant non-fiction editor at Terrain.org. His debut collection of essays, Holy American Burnout!, is forthcoming from Split/Lip Press in December 2023. You can find his work at seanenfield.com.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNERMiranda Ramírez is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and writer born and raised in Houston, Texas. She’s the founder and director of Defunkt Magazine & Press, a literary columnist for Public Poetry, a guest editor for Teachers and Writers Collaborative, and a co-organizer of the Houston Poetry and Arts Festival. You may find her work in Atticus Review’s–The Attic, Coffin Bell, Cowboy Jamboree, Cutthroat Journal’s anthology Puro Chicanx Writers of the 21st Century, and Ripples in Space. She is drafting her first novel as an MFA candidate at Sam Houston State University. - IRL Author Talk: House Woman with Adorah Nworah-June 6 @7PM CST
![IRL Author Talk: House Woman with Adorah Nworah-June 6 @7PM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: House Woman with Adorah Nworah-June 6 @7PM CST
Sold outCome celebrate the release of House Woman with Adorah Nworah!EVENT DEETSWhen: Tuesday, June 6 at 7 PM (It's publication day!)Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP with book to support the author and our programming!ABOUT THE BOOKWhen Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos, Nigeria to Sugar Land, Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion, pizza parlors, and dance classes.
Desperate to please, she'll happily cater to her family's needs. But Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson grow urgent as her every move comes under scrutiny. As Ikemefuna finds there’s no way out, her new husband grapples with the influence of his parents against his own increasing affection for her.
As family secrets boil to the surface, Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation: a marriage succumbing to generational cycles of pain and silence. In the end, she may be carrying the greatest secret of all.
An unforgettably delicious thriller, House Woman is about a woman trapped in a dangerous web of conflicting desires, melting in the Texas heat.
ABOUT THE AUTHORAdorah Nworah is an Igbo writer from South-East Nigeria. Her stories have been published in AFREADA and adda magazine. Her short stories, "The Bride and Broken English" made the shortlist for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the longlist for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize respectively. She lives in Philadelphia, where she practices real estate finance law and is cat mom to her handsome Napoleon cat.ABOUT THE MODERATORWale is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples on a weekly basis. - IRL Author Talk: How to Grow with Marcus Bridgewater - May 25 at 7 PM CST
![IRL Author Talk: How to Grow with Marcus Bridgewater - May 25 at 7 PM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: How to Grow with Marcus Bridgewater - May 25 at 7 PM CST
Sold outPlease join us as we celebrate author, Marcus Bridgewater on his debut, How to Grow!
Event Deets:
When: Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 7 PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden--2304 Stuart Street, Houston, TX 77004
How: Limited in-person tickets are available. You have the option to grab a ticket for free or purchase the book and ticket (Only books purchased at the event will be eligible to be signed by the author!)
We hope you can join us!
About the Book:
In this transformative guide, TikTok’s most popular gardener, Marcus Bridgewater—aka Garden Marcus—offers lessons for growth rooted in lessons from the plant world to help cultivate the soul.
Centered on a trinity of wellbeing—Mental Health, Physical Fitness, and Spiritual Awareness, How to Grow weaves together insights from the garden with stories from Marcus’s life to help you foster personal development. With lessons rooted in his experiences gardening—from how a replanted flourishing sweet potato vine is a reminder that all living things benefit from a change of scene, to how to embrace patience to foster growth—this inspiring guide helps you do “the dirty work” (pun intended) to discover kindness, patience, and positivity within. “We cannot make anything grow,” he advises. “But we can foster an environment where it may grow.”
How to Grow isn’t a gardening book. It is a self-help book that draws inspiration from the garden. Original, timely, and filled with nurturing wisdom, it takes perennial knowledge from plants to teach us about ourselves and opens our eyes to what we are capable of achieving.
About the Author
Marcus Bridgewater is a creator, educator, motivational speaker, and plant enthusiast. He is the personality behind Garden Marcus on social media, which demonstrates that a positive, knowledgeable approach to nurturing plants also helps us grow as people. He is the Founder & CEO of Choice Forward, a company that offers life coaching, seminars, and workshops.
About the Moderator
Brittany, creator of Foliage Faerie, operates a small batch, pop-up plant apothecary and nursery. Foliage Faerie was birthed during the pandemic on May 7, 2020 while having her first mother's day pop-up on her front porch when she was a resident in The Young Mother's Residential Program at Project Row Houses. Plants were just a hobby until realizing that the life cycles of plants, nurturing plants, growing plants, was a reflection of the birthing cycle, physical and metaphysical. It was important to share the similarities within these life cycles as she is a birth worker (doula) as well. Indoor gardening had become a self care/ spiritual practice of hers and she has created a workshop, "Indoor Gardening as a Spiritual Practice" that assists with plant enthusiasts/parents connecting to self and nature though the nurturing of indoor plants. You can find Foliage Faerie on Instagram @foliagefaerie and her website www.foliagefaerie.cm
- IRL Author Talk: How to Live Free in a Dangerous World with Shayla Lawson: February 9 @ 7PM
![IRL Author Talk: How to Live Free in a Dangerous World with Shayla Lawson: February 9 @ 7PM]()
IRL Author Talk: How to Live Free in a Dangerous World with Shayla Lawson: February 9 @ 7PM
from $0.00Celebrate How to Live Free in a Dangerous World: A Decolonial Memoir with journalist, poet, author, Shayla Lawson!
EVENT DEETS
When: Friday, February 9 at 7PM
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
How: RSVP ONLY to save you seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming
ABOUT THE BOOK
In their new book, Shayla Lawson reveals how traveling can itself be a political act, when it can be a dangerous world to be Black, femme, nonbinary, and disabled. With their signature prose, at turns muscular and luminous, Lawson explores layered meanings within love, time, and the self.
Through encounters with a gorgeous gondolier in Venice, an ex-husband in The Netherlands, and a lost love on New Year’s Eve in Mexico City, Lawson’s travels bring unexpected wisdom about life in and out of love. They learn the strength of friendships, and the dangers of beauty during a near escape in Egypt. They examine Blackness in post dictatorship Zimbabwe, then take us on a secretive tour of Black freedom movements in Portugal.
Through a deeply insightful journey, Lawson leads readers from a castle in France, to a hula hoop competition in Jamaica, to a traditional theater in Tokyo, to a Prince concert in Minnesota, and finally to find liberation on a beach in Bermuda, exploring each location—and their deepest emotions—to the fullest. In the end, they discover how trials of marriage, grief, and missed connections, can lead to self transformation and unimagined new freedoms.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shayla Lawson (they/them) is the author of This is Major, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle and the LAMBDA Literary Award, and two poetry collections. They have written for New York Magazine, Salon, ESPN, and Paper, and have earned fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Artist Colony. They live in Lexington, Kentucky.
- IRL Author Talk: How to Say Babylon with Safiya Sinclair + francine j. harris - July 28 @ 3PM CST
![IRL Author Talk: How to Say Babylon with Safiya Sinclair + francine j. harris - July 28 @ 3PM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: How to Say Babylon with Safiya Sinclair + francine j. harris - July 28 @ 3PM CST
from $5.00The paperback of How to Say Babylon is here and we're celebrating the power of Saifya Sinclair's memoir!
EVENT DEETS
When: Sunday, July 28 @ 3PM CST
Where: Project Row Houses (2521 Holman Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve you seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming
ABOUT THE BOOK
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.
In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.
How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SAFIYA SINCLAIR was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography, a finalist the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize in Non-Fiction and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. How to Say Babylon was named one of the 100 Notable Books of the year by the New York Times, a Top 10 Book of 2023 by the Washington Post, one of The Atlantic’s 10 Best Books of 2023, a TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2023, a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick, and one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2023. How to Say Babylon was also named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, and Barnes & Noble, among others, and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year. The audiobook of How to Say Babylon was named a Best Audiobook of the Year by Audible and AudioFile magazine.
She is also the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Cannibal was selected as one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Seamus Heaney First Book Award in the UK, and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Sinclair’s other honours include a Pushcart Prize, fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Granta, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
CONVERSATION PARTNER
francine j. harris’ third collection, Here is the Sweet Hand, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award. Originally from Detroit, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She is Professor of English at the University of Houston and serves as Consulting Faculty Editor at Gulf Coast.
- IRL Author Talk: I Finally Bought Some Jordans with Michael Arceneaux - March 19 @ 7PM
![IRL Author Talk: I Finally Bought Some Jordans with Michael Arceneaux - March 19 @ 7PM]()
IRL Author Talk: I Finally Bought Some Jordans with Michael Arceneaux - March 19 @ 7PM
Sold outLet's celebrate I Finally Bought Some Jordans with Michael Arceneaux, one of our favorite Houston authors!
EVENT DEETS
When: Tuesday, March 19 @ 7 PM
Where: Hogan Brown Gallery (2310 Elgin Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH Book to get a signed copy of I Finally Bought Some Jordans and support our programming. No refunds.
Note: There will be books on site. Copies of I Finally Bought Some Jordans bought from other retailers will not be allowed in the venue. If you would like an copy early, please purchase here.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In his books I Can't Date Jesus and I Don't Want to Die Poor, Michael Arceneaux established himself as one of the most beloved and entertaining writers of his generation, touching upon such hot-button topics as race, class, sexuality, labor, debt, and, of course, paying homage to the power and wisdom of Beyoncé. In this collection, Arceneaux takes stock of how far he has traveled—and how much ground he still has to cover in this patriarchal, heteronormative society. He explores the opportunities afforded to Black creatives but also the doors that remain shut or ever-so-slightly ajar; the confounding challenges of dating in a time when social media has made everything both more accessible and more unreliable; and the allure of returning home while still pushing yourself to seek opportunity elsewhere.
I Finally Bought Some Jordans is both a corrective to, and a balm for, these troubling times, revealing a sharply funny and keen-eyed storyteller working at the height of his craft.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michael Arceneaux is the New York Times-bestselling author of I Can’t Date Jesus, I Don’t Want To Die Poor, and his latest, I Finally Bought Some Jordans
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Josie Pickens is a womanist and abolitionist professor, organizer, writer and thought leader. In addition to speaking and writing about topics that focus on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, Josie is also the program director for upEND Movement, which is an organization committed to abolishing the the child welfare system. Connect with Josie and follow her musings on Twitter and Instagram at @jonubian.
- IRL Author Talk: If My Flowers Bloom with DeShara Suggs - Joe - May 24 @ 6:30PM
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IRL Author Talk: If My Flowers Bloom with DeShara Suggs - Joe - May 24 @ 6:30PM
Sold outCelebrate the release of If My Flowers Bloom with DeShara Suggs!
EVENT DEETS
When: Friday, May 24 at 6:30 PM
Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to serve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.
This event is in collaboration with OQUPI HTX.
ABOUT THE BOOK
If My Flowers Bloom is about desire. Is there room to bloom or does the harvest only come in the afterlife? Is it okay to be Black and queer and woman in this world?
Overflowing with love and aching for more space, DeShara Suggs-Joe questions the powers that be while longing for space carved out for her flourishing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Into the Light with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport-April 22 at 6 PM CST
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IRL AUTHOR TALK: Into the Light with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport-April 22 at 6 PM CST
Sold outCome talk mystery and fantasy with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport!EVENT DEETSWhen: April 22 at 6PM CSTWhere: Kindred Stories Reading GardenHow: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support store programming and that authorABOUT THE BOOKKEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOMEIt’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving—and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.
Eli abides by the rules of his family, living in a secluded community that raised him to believe his obedience will be rewarded. But an unsettling question slowly eats away at Eli’s once unwavering faith in Reconciliation: Why can’t he remember his past?
But the reported discovery of an unidentified body found in the hills of Idyllwild, California, will draw both of these young men into facing their biggest fears and confronting their own identity—and who they are allowed to be.
For fans of Courtney Summers and Tiffany D. Jackson, Into the Light is a ripped-from-the-headlines story with Oshiro's signature mix of raw emotions and visceral prose—but with a startling twist you’ll have to read to believe.ABOUT THE AUTHORMARK OSHIRO is the award-winning Latinx queer author of Anger Is a Gift, Each of Us a Desert, as well as their middle grade books The Insiders and You Only Live Once, David Bravo. They are the coauthor (with Rick Riordan) of the upcoming Nico di Angelo adventure book. When not writing, they are trying to pet every dog in the world.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNERN. E. Davenport is the Science Fiction/Fantasy author of the Blood Gift duology. She attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre Arts. She also has an M.A. in Secondary Education. She teaches English and Biology to amazing students. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie. She’s an advocate for diverse perspectives and protagonists in literature. You can find her on Twitter @nia_davenport, or on Instagram @nia.davenport, where she talks about binge-worthy TV, killer movies, and great books. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids
- IRL Author Talk: Love & Sportsball with Meka James - October 9 @ 7:30 PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Love & Sportsball with Meka James - October 9 @ 7:30 PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate Love & Sportsball with author, Meka James!
EVENT DEETS
When: Tuesday, October 9 @ 7:30 PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to save your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our bookstore and the author!
ABOUT THE BOOK
In this steamy and sweet sapphic romance, set in the world of women's basketball, an uptight athletic trainer has one taboo night with a hot team member determined to play for her heart – and win.
Hard work has Khadijah Upton starting her dream job as an athletic trainer for the WNBA Atlanta Cannons. Then an evening of celebratory letting loose turns into a one-night-stand with a beautiful stranger. It’s a reckless, wildly sexy encounter that Khadijah intends to forget…until her first day on the job lands her face to face with Shae Harris again.
Shae is a major player in every sense of the word, and Khadijah doesn’t plan to be the latest in a long line of “Harris Honeys.” Personal and professional just don’t mix. But Shae, who’s all about living life to the fullest, keeps tempting Khadijah to blur the boundaries. And the more Shae reveals about herself, the harder it is for Khadijah to resist her.
In the bedroom, their tension sizzles. On the court, it’s a liability. But unless Khadijah’s willing to really let Shae in, it won’t be just the championship on the line, but a body-and-soul connection that rewrites all the rules.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meka James is a writer of adult contemporary and erotic romance. A born and raised Georgia Peach, she still resides in the southern state with her hubby of 16 years and counting. Mom to four kids of the two legged variety, she also has four fur-babies of the canine variety. Leo the turtle and Spade the snake rounds out her wacky household. When not writing or reading, Meka can be found playing The Sims 3, sometimes Sims 4, and making up fun stories to go with the pixelated people whose world she controls.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Chencia C. Higgins is just a girl from Texas who has made it her mission to create stories in which sassy, southern Black women are loved out loud. In 2019 she won a Romance Slam Jam Emma award for her debut paranormal romance, Janine: His True Alpha. When she isn't hunkered down in her writing cave, Chencia can be found with her nose in a book, saving recipes on Pinterest for things she'll never make, and dreaming about traveling even further south for the winter.
- IRL Author Talk: Love Cake with Douglas Bell - May 18 @ 2PM
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IRL Author Talk: Love Cake with Douglas Bell - May 18 @ 2PM
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Love Cake with author, Douglas Bell!
EVENT DEETS
When: Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 2 PM
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat. RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Love Cake is contemporary fiction about Bryan Hicks and his transgender girlfriend, Nadia Brooks. Together they own and operate a bakery in conservative Texas. At its red velvet core, Love Cake is a story about how love persists in the face of prejudice and about the value of found family. It speaks to the power of loving people despite the mistakes they make.
With thought-provoking insight, Douglas Bell in Love Cake, the second book of The Cakes Series duology and the sequel to Cake Walk, rings a bell again on an untold story that teaches how we can find the courage to show up for each other as the world tries to tear us apart.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Douglas Bell is a fiction writer based in the bustling city of Houston, Texas. He draws inspiration from a variety of sources, including the teachings of Buddha and the Dalai Lama, as well as the powerful storytelling of James Baldwin. When he's not writing, you can usually find him hitting the gym, experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen, or staying up to date with the latest fashion trends.
- IRL Author Talk: Masquerade with O.O. Sangoyomi - July 10 @ 7:30 PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Masquerade with O.O. Sangoyomi - July 10 @ 7:30 PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Masquerade with O.O. Sangoyomi!
EVENT DEETS
When: Wednesday, July 10 @ 7:30 PM
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Òdòdó’s hometown of Timbuktu has been conquered by the warrior king of Yorùbáland, and living conditions for the women in her blacksmith guild, who were already shunned as social pariahs, grow even worse.
Then Òdòdó is abducted. She is whisked across the Sahara to the capital city of ?àngót?`, where she is shocked to discover that her kidnapper is none other than the vagrant who had visited her guild just days prior. But now that he is swathed in riches rather than rags, Òdòdó realizes he is not a vagrant at all; he is the warrior king, and he has chosen her to be his wife.
In a sudden change of fortune, Òdòdó soars to the very heights of society. But after a lifetime of subjugation, she finds the power that saturates this world of battle and political savvy too enticing to resist. As tensions with rival states grow, revealing elaborate schemes and enemies hidden in plain sight, Òdòdó must defy the cruel king she has been forced to wed by reforging the shaky loyalties of the court in her favor, or risk losing everything—including her life.
Loosely based on the myth of Persephone, O.O. Sangoyomi’s Masquerade takes you on a journey of epic power struggles and political intrigue which turn an entire region on its head.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
O. O. SANGOYOMI is a Nigerian American author with a penchant for African mythology and history. During a childhood of constantly moving around within the U.S., she found an anchored home in the fictional worlds of books. Sangoyomi is a graduate of Princeton University, where she studied English and African American Studies. Masquerade is her debut novel
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Vaishnavi Patel is the author of Goddess of the River and the instant New York Times bestseller Kaikeyi. A lawyer specializing in civil rights, she likes to write at the intersection of Indian myth, feminism, and anticolonialism. She grew up in and around Chicago and, in her spare time, enjoys activities that are almost stereotypically Midwestern: knitting, ice skating, drinking hot chocolate, and making hotdish.
- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Mind, Body & Soul with Oludara Adeeyo - January 12 at 7PM
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IRL AUTHOR TALK: Mind, Body & Soul with Oludara Adeeyo - January 12 at 7PM
from $10.00Celebrate what makes Black women powerful, brilliant, and brave with Mind, Body, & Soul: A Self-Care Coloring Book for Black Women!
EVENT DEETS
When: Friday, January 12 @ 7PM
Where: 2310 Elgin Street, HTX, 77004 (We will be on the first floor in the garden room)
How: Grab a $10 ticket to reserve a seat or grab a $25 ticket to purchase a book with the Mind, Body & Soul: A Self Coloring Book for Black Women! (No refunds)
ABOUT THE BOOK
Relax, rejuvenate, and renew your mind, body, and soul with this coloring books designed for Black women that focuses and elevates the already popular—and effective—self-care activity with illustrations to color and affirmations to empower.
Celebrate what makes Black women powerful, brilliant, and brave with Mind, Body, & Soul: A Self-Care Coloring Book for Black Women. As you enjoy coloring in 35 gorgeous art pages, you’ll be practicing self-care as you take the time to relax for just you. You’ll find stunning art pages depicting Black women vibing, being creative in their homes, listening to music, practicing yoga, meditating in nature, and transcending in metaphysical dimensions. With affirmations included on each page, you’ll internalize the positive messages and manifest positive outcomes for yourself as you color.
With Mind, Body, & Soul, every time you sit down to color in these inspiring designs, you’ll be affirming yourself and your right to self-care.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Oludara (Dara) Adeeyo is a Los Angeles based mental health therapist, author, and social media content creator who is passionate about encouraging people, especially Black women, to face every day with self-confidence and self-love.
Her first series of books, published by Adams Media, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, share specific advice and activities designed to help Black women outwardly express their inner joy: Self-Care for Black Women (2022), Affirmations for Black Women: A Journal (2022), and Mind, Body, & Soul: A Self-Care Coloring Book for Black Women (2024).
Oludara’s accessible approach to writing and talking about mental health is influenced by her previous professional experience in the media industry as a writer and editor where she worked for popular publications such as Teen Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and XXL. Her writing has also appeared in Women’s Health and Wondermind.
As a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Oludara has extensive experience with treating mood disorders, personality disorders, and thought disorders for diverse populations. She is currently working to establish her own private practice where she will specialize in helping people of color, especially Black women, manage their stressors, boost their self-confidence, and manifest their desires by releasing people-pleasing impulses. Oludara holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Southern California (USC) and a Bachelor of Arts in Print Journalism with a Minor in Women’s Studies from Hofstra University.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Wale is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples, writers and creative folks on a weekly basis.
As an avid reader and Kindred Stories aficionado, Wale has moderated various author talks featuring: Lyvonne Briggs, Sochil Washington, Tyriek White, Adorah Nworah, Dr. Joy, and Nicole Walters.
- IRL Author Talk: Mo'Lasses with Viktor Givens - March 6 @ 6 PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Mo'Lasses with Viktor Givens - March 6 @ 6 PM CST
$0.00Celebrate Viktor Given's book, Mo'Lasses: Ancestral (Re)Memories, Myth 'nd Lore!
EVENT DEETS
When: Wednesday, March 6 @ 6:00 PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden
How: RSVP to let us know that you will be present
ABOUT THE BOOK
There is magic, reverence and mystery in the spaces, objects and writings of Viktor le. Givens a multi-modal performance artist, whose practice centers around the gathering and arrangement of ancestral objects to re-contextualize the seemingly mundane into the spectacularly sacred. Part ritual ‘nd part prose performance score this book is written to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to (re)reading, (re)sounding, (re)imagining ‘nd (re)staging memories ‘nd pathologies of his Afro-southern-ancestors… The work takes us on a lucid journey of self discovery and cultural reawakening after a young man inherits a mysterious box of objects following the passing of his grandfather in East Texas. Through recipes, flash fictions, images and poetry the audience is invited to reinterpret the sweet complexities of Blackness, the memories, the objects and rituals discovered on his journey.
- IRL Author Talk: My Week with Him with Joya Goffney- July 11
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IRL Author Talk: My Week with Him with Joya Goffney- July 11
Sold outCelebrate the release of My Week With Him with author, Joya Goffney!
EVENT DEETS
When: Tuesday, July 11, 2023
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
How: RSVP ONLY for a free ticket and RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and book. Books will be available onsite for sale. Only copies of My Week With Him purchased from Kindred Stories are eligible for the signing line.
ABOUT THE BOOK
From Joya Goffney, author of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry, comes her third stunning YA novel, a stirring coming-of-age, best friends-to-lovers romance about a girl named Nikki who plans to run away from small-town Texas but ultimately finds that her oldest friend, Mal, just might be the one who’s been there for her all along. Filled with Joya’s signature heart and humor, this book captures complex family dynamics, friendship, and love. For fans of I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest and Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan.
After a painful betrayal by her sister and a heated argument with their mother, Nikki is kicked out and finds herself homeless over spring break, only two months away from graduation. But instead of relying on anyone, especially someone like Malachai and his rich, overeager, overgenerous parents, to give her a home, and instead of waiting for her dad who isn't actually her birth-dad to talk some sense into her heartless mother again, she decides to jet. She'll drive as far as her car will take her, so long as it's away from that woman.
When Malachai catches wind of her plan to flee Texas, he begs her to stay the remainder of spring break with him at his parent-free house. He believes that over the course of a week, he can either convince her to stay in Cactus, Texas, or at least help her come up with a solution that ends with her graduating. All the while, she's dead set on heading to California at the end of the week to get started on her dream music career, no matter how impractical it is. But all their spring break plans are interrupted when Nikki's sister goes missing. Running away isn't something Vae does—it's always been Nikki's thing.
Nikki is forced to work alongside her wretched mother, her mother's ex-husband, and Malachai, who may or may not be moving into the boyfriend slot, to find her little sister, all with the uncertainty of what will happen at the end of the week. Will Nikki find a way to stay in Cactus, or will this spring break be the last time she ever sees these people?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joya Goffney is the author of the novels Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry and Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl. Joya grew up in New Waverly, a small town in East Texas. In high school, she challenged herself with to-do lists full of risk-taking items, like "hug a random boy" and "eat a cricket," which inspired her debut novel, Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry. With a passion for black social psychology, she moved out of the countryside to attend the University of Texas in Austin, where she still resides. Her second novel, Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl was released in 2022.ABOUT THE MODERATORLiara Tamani holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University. She is the author of the acclaimed young adult novels Calling My Name, a 2018 PEN America Literary Award Finalist and SCBWI Golden Kite Finalist; All the Things We Never Knew, a 2020 Kirkus Best YA Book of the Year; and What She Missed. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets and Comets, production assistant for Girlfriends (TV show), home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She lives in Houston, Texas. www.liaratamani.com - IRL Author Talk: Nicole Lynn in Conversation with Keisha Nicole - July 20, 2021 at 6:30 PM CST
![IRL Author Talk: Nicole Lynn in Conversation with Keisha Nicole - July 20, 2021 at 6:30 PM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: Nicole Lynn in Conversation with Keisha Nicole - July 20, 2021 at 6:30 PM CST
Sold outJoin us for our first-ever, in-person event in celebration of Nicole Lynn's debut book, Agent You, which drops on July 13. This conversation will be moderated by Keisha Nicole of 97.9 The Box, and it's all going down at Project Row Houses in Third Ward!
Event Deets:
When: Tuesday, July 20, 2021 at 6:30 pm CST
Where: Project Row Houses Community Gallery - 2521 Holman Street, Houston, TX 77004
How: Limited in-person tickets are available. You have the option to grab a ticket for free or purchase the book and ticket. All books purchased prior to the event will be signed by the author, and will be available for pick up at the event.
We hope to see you there!
About the book:
"In this book, Nicole reveals her incredible journey and how she got where she is today." -Gabrielle Union (from the foreword)
Agent You shares Nicole’s key strategies for creating a plan and executing it, even in the face of self-doubt and external obstacles. Each chapter includes exercises to help you implement the strategies presented, so you can start working toward your goals today. After reading Agent You, you’ll learn how to:
- Discover and stay focused on your purpose.
- Develop your personal brand and advocate for yourself.
- Prepare for big opportunities.
- Land your dream job.
- Manage your workload and still prioritize self-care.
“Imagine if you had an agent for your own life…someone guiding you to determine what your purpose is, someone advocating for you in rooms you have not even stepped into, someone that was pushing you to your greatest potential…now, imagine that that agent is you,” says Lynn. “I believe that everyone can own their success story, no matter life’s challenges,” adds Lynn. “And, I believe that you are your best agent.”
Thriving in a male-dominated profession, Lynn tells about her extraordinary successes that were earned through a combination of hard work, preparation, self-advocacy, tenacity, and faith.
About the Author:
In 2019, Nicole Lynn became the first Black woman to represent a Top 3 NFL draft pick (and only the second woman in history to solo represent a NFL first rounder). The following year, Lynn again made history, representing back-to-back Top 10 NFL draft picks. Beyond the realm of sports, she represents multiple clients in the entertainment industry; ranging from broadcasters and a music artist. A TV show inspired by her life will be produced and released by 50 Cent and STARZ. Most recently, Lynn joined Klutch Sports Group as senior agent and president of football operations.
In 2020, she was named to Sports Illustrated’s ‘The Unrelenting’ list, honored as one of the most powerful, most influential and most outstanding women in sports. Glamour magazine featured Lynn in their ‘Women of the Year’ series (2019), and most recently, NBC profiled her amongst a number of extraordinary people that are making a positive impact in their communities in their primetime special, “Inspiring America: The 2021 Inspiration List.”
- IRL AUTHOR TALK: Not Everyone is Going to Like You with Rinny Perkins - August 22 at 7PM
![IRL AUTHOR TALK: Not Everyone is Going to Like You with Rinny Perkins - August 22 at 7PM]()
IRL AUTHOR TALK: Not Everyone is Going to Like You with Rinny Perkins - August 22 at 7PM
from $0.00Join us as we celebrate Houston's own, Rinny Perkins and her new book, Not Everyone is Going to Like You!
EVENT DEETS
When: August 22 at 7 PM CST
Where: The Reading Room HTX (401 Franklin St, Houston, TX 77201)
How: RSVP to grab you free ticket or RSVP with book to support the author and our program!
ABOUT THE BOOK
A debut illustrated manifesto by Rinny Perkins (@RinnyRiot) about what she's learned as a queer Black woman through the art of self-validation.
In this graphic collection of mini essays, comedian Rinny Perkins illustrates her experiences as the owner of a popular online shop while she figures out antidepressant prescriptions and the seemingly never-ending dating-app cycle.
Rinny shares what she's learned across topics like mental health, work, sex and dating, and family and friends. Featuring funny, real reflections from experiences in her hometown of (Third Ward!) Houston, Texas to Los Angeles — the author traces her journey to understanding that whether through a friendship break-up or saving up for a Telfar bag, the only person who can truly validate us is ourselves.
With 1970s-inspired graphics like a "When To Quit Your Job" checklist and Microaggressions Bingo, Not Everyone's Going to Like You is a long DM of affirmations from Rinny to herself on how to get through life. Her advice? Stop ignoring your intuition, ignore perfection, and leave them on read.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rinny Perkins is a performer, multidisciplinary artist, and writer. Her graphic design and installation work nods to '70s ephemera with an emphasis on Black and queer womanhood. Her work has been featured by outlets such as I-D/VICE, Nylon and Teen Vogue.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
deun ivory is a texas-based creative wellness visionary, multidisciplinary artist & photographer whose work centers and celebrates black women. widely known for her ethereal aesthetic & creative ingenuity, ivory curates visual experiences that inspire those who engage with her work to restore and reclaim narratives rooted in self-empowerment, joy & worthiness. ivory draws from the belief that beauty is wellness, which informs her exploration of art, spaces and design as healing mechanisms for marginalized communities.
as a visionary, ivory serves as the founder and creative director of two influential brands: the body: a home for love, a 501(c)3 non-profit & black women are worthy, a social impact initiative specializing in conceptual design and immersive art installations.
ivory has cemented her power and influence as a thought-leader and visual storyteller by working with some of the world’s biggest brands to produce creative projects that have resonated & inspired communities worldwide. some of her clients include: google, facebook, lululemon, HBO, glossier, issa rae, apple, and more. ivory has been featured in vogue, harpers bazaar, essence, glamour magazine and beyond for her impactful contributions & authentic presence in the creative and wellness space.
ABOUT THE READING ROOM
Founded by Amarie Gipson, The Reading Room is a reference library and creative incubator based in Houston, Texas.
Gipson is a Houston-born art worker, writer and creative entrepreneur. She has held curatorial positions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Renaissance Society, the Contemporary Austin and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Independently, her writing has been published in several journals and magazines including Artforum, ARTNews, ARTS.BLACK, Cite, ESSENCE, Gulf Coast, MUD and THE SEEN.
After seven years of travel, Gipson is currently based in her hometown. She created an open-format dance party and community called PHYSICAL THERAPY where she serves as creative director and resident DJ. She is also the former Arts & Culture editor of Houstonia Magazine, where she worked to bring much-needed attention to Houston’s art scene.
With nearly a decade of experience in the realms of fine art, music and media, Gipson built The Reading Room with a desire to share her deep passion for Black culture. It is a culmination of her professional experience and a labor of love. - IRL AUTHOR TALK: ONYX with Adrienne Raquel & Nandi Howard-June 9 at 7PM CST
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IRL AUTHOR TALK: ONYX with Adrienne Raquel & Nandi Howard-June 9 at 7PM CST
Sold outCome celebrate the release of Adrienne Raquel: ONYX!EVENT DEETSWhen: Friday, June 9 at 7PM CSTWhere: ELDORADO BALLROOM at Project Row Houses (2310 Elgin Street, Houston, Texas 77004)How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket and RSVP WITH BOOK to support this Texas author!ABOUT THE BOOKNYX pays homage to the heyday of hip-hop music videos of the '90s and early 2000s, adopting their aesthetics and alluding to the seductive power of the video vixen.” –CNN
In ONYX, photographer Adrienne Raquel explores the intensity and escapism of the strip club experience, documenting performers at Houston’s famed Club Onyx. Raquel’s photography is usually editorial, with high-powered celebrities such as Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Nas X and Travis Scott as subjects. Now, for this project commissioned by Fotografiska New York, she turns her lens toward a community of underrepresented artists in her hometown. At Club Onyx, strippers display their bodies and seductiveness, but there’s a virtue to this particular space: “they don’t get naked” is a common description of the club’s ambiance. Performers there negotiate what “stripper” means to them on their own terms.
Raquel captures these performers with her signature glossy style. From powerful images of the dancers mid-movement to detailed shots and intimate portraits, Raquel’s photographs place their beauty and energy on full display. She also takes viewers behind the scenes, giving us a window into the community the dancers have built in the privacy of the locker room. ONYX displays the empowerment and inclusivity in strip clubs that society has tended to ignore.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adrienne Raquel (born 1990) is a Texas-raised photographer and art director working between Houston, New York and Los Angeles. Featured in Aperture's New Black Vanguard, she received her first solo exhibition at Fotografiska New York in 2021. Clients include Apple, Savage x Fenty, Pat McGrath Labs, Dior, Bacardi, Rare Beauty, Bacardi, Nike and Beats By Dre, as well as covers for Vanity Fair, V Magazine, GQ and Interview.
- IRL Author Talk: Ours with Phillip B. Williams + Kiese Laymon - October 27 @ 3PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Ours with Phillip B. Williams + Kiese Laymon - October 27 @ 3PM CST
from $5.00Join us to commemorate Phillip B. Williams's first novel, Ours: A Novel!
EVENT DEETS
When: Sunday, October 27 @ 3PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve you seat (and bring your own copy) or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy.
If you are student or in financial need, please reach out to inquire about a free ticket.
ABOUT THE BOOK
In this ingenious, sweeping novel, Phillip B. Williams introduces us to an enigmatic woman named Saint, a fearsome conjuror who, in the 1830s, annihilates plantations all over Arkansas to rescue the people enslaved there. She brings those she has freed to a haven of her own creation: a town just north of St. Louis, magically concealed from outsiders, named Ours.
It is in this miraculous place that Saint’s grand experiment—a truly secluded community where her people may flourish—takes root. But although Saint does her best to protect the inhabitants of Ours, over time, her conjuring and memories begin to betray her, leaving the town vulnerable to intrusions by newcomers with powers of their own. As the cracks in Saint’s creation are exposed, some begin to wonder whether the community’s safety might be yet another form of bondage.
Set over the course of four decades and steeped in a rich tradition of American literature informed by Black surrealism, mythology, and spirituality, Ours is a stunning exploration of the possibilities and limitations of love and freedom by a writer of capacious vision and talent.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Phillip B. Williams is from Chicago, Illinois, and is the author of two collections of poetry: Thief in the Interior, which was the winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and a Lambda Literary Award, and Mutiny, which was a finalist for the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry Collection and the winner of a 2022 American Book Award. Williams is also the recipient of a Whiting Award and fellowships from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the National Endowment for the Arts. He currently teaches in the MFA in creative writing program at New York University and the Randolph College low-residency MFA.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of “The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative,” a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
- IRL Author Talk: People Person with Candice Carty-Williams and Kiese Laymon-September 20 @7PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: People Person with Candice Carty-Williams and Kiese Laymon-September 20 @7PM CST
Sold outJoin us to celebrate the US release of Candice Carty-Williams' sophomore novel, People Person with our friends from Blue Willow Bookshop.
Event DEETS:
When: Tuesday, September 20, 2022 at 7 PM
Where: 3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX 77003
How: Grab a free ticket without a book OR support our store, programming and the author by purchasing a book with your ticket. Limited seating available.
Only books bought from Kindred Stories are eligible from the signing line.
About Book
The author of the “brazenly hilarious, tell-it-like-it-is first novel” (Oprah Daily) Queenie returns with another witty and insightful novel about the power of family—even when they seem like strangers.
If you could choose your family...you wouldn’t choose the Penningtons.
Dimple Pennington knows of her half siblings, but she doesn’t really know them. Five people who don’t have anything in common except for faint memories of being driven through Brixton in their dad’s gold jeep, and some pretty complex abandonment issues. Dimple has bigger things to think about.
She’s thirty, and her life isn’t really going anywhere. An aspiring lifestyle influencer with a terrible and wayward boyfriend, Dimple’s life has shrunk to the size of a phone screen. And despite a small but loyal following, she’s never felt more alone in her life. That is, until a dramatic event brings her half siblings Nikisha, Danny, Lizzie, and Prynce crashing back into her life. And when they’re all forced to reconnect with Cyril Pennington, the absent father they never really knew, things get even more complicated.
From an author with “a flair for storytelling that appears effortlessly authentic” (Time), People Person is a vibrant and charming celebration of discovering family as an adult.About Author
Candice Carty-Williams is a writer and the author of the Sunday Times (London) bestselling Queenie, which has been shortlisted by Waterstones, Foyles, and Goodreads for book of the year, 2019, as well as selected as the Blackwell’s Debut of the Year. In 2016, Candice created and launched the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, the first inclusive initiative of its kind in book publishing. Candice has written for The Guardian, i-D, Vogue, every iteration of The Sunday Times (London), BEAT magazine, Black Ballad, and more. She will probably always live in South London.
About Moderator
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the author of the genre-bending novel, Long Division and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the 2018 Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. He serves as Ottilie Schillig Professor in English and Creative Writing at the University of Mississippi and Libby Shearn Moody Professor of Creative Writing and English at Rice University.
COVID ProtocolWe are asking all event attendees to mask and we have surgical masks on hand if you find yourself without one. Given the rapidly shifting circumstances surrounding COVID, please check this page to confirm that the event will take place in person. - IRL Author Talk: Perish with LaToya Watkins & Kendra Allen- August 25 @ 7PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Perish with LaToya Watkins & Kendra Allen- August 25 @ 7PM CST
Sold outCome celebrate the release of Perish, LaToya Watkin's debut novel.Event DEETS:When: August 25 at 7PM CSTWhere: Assembly HTX (2015 Berry Street, Houston, TX 77004)How: Grab a $5 ticket without a book or support our store, programming and the author by purchasing a book with your ticket. Limited seating available.About the BookFrom a stunning new voice, comes a powerful and moving debut novel and sweeping family saga, PERISH, about a Black Texan family, exploring the effects of inherited trauma and intragenerational violence as the family comes together to say goodbye to their matriarch on her deathbed.
Bear it or Perish. Those are the words Helen Jean hears that fateful night in her cousin’s outhouse that changes the trajectory of her life.
Spanning decades, PERISH tracks the choices Helen Jean—the matriarch of the Turner family—makes and the way those choices have ripped across generations, from her children, to her grandchildren and beyond.
Told in in alternate chapters that follows four members of the Turner clan: Julie B., a woman who regrets her wasted youth and the time spent under Helen Jean's thumb; Alex, a police officer grappling with a dark and twisted past; Jan, mother of two, who yearns to go to school and leave Jerusalem and all of its trauma behind for good; and Lydia, a woman whose marriage is falling apart because her body can't seem to stay pregnant; as they're called home to say goodbye to their mother and grandmother.
This family's "reunion" unearths long-kept secrets and forces each member to ask themselves important questions about who is deserving of forgiveness and who bears the cross of blame.
With stirring, evocative prose and a sense of place that is wholly immersive, offering a nuanced look into Black communities in Texas, and tackling themes like family, trauma, legacy, home, class, race and more, this beautiful yet heart-wrenching debut novel, will appeal to anyone who is interested in the intricacies of family and the ways bonds can be made, maintained or irrevocably broken.About the AuthorLaToya Watkins’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in A Public Space, The Sun, McSweeney's, Kenyon Review, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and elsewhere. She has received grants, scholarships, and fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and A Public Space (she was one of their 2018 Emerging Writers Fellows). She holds a PhD in Aesthetic Studies from the University of Texas at Dallas and is co-director of the Jack Jones Literary Arts Retreat. PERISH was her debut novel.About the ModeratorBorn and raised in Dallas, Texas, Kendra Allen is the author of The Collection Plate and When You Learn the Alphabet, an essay collection that won the 2019 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction; and she also writes music column Make Love in My Car for Southwest Review. Her memoir, Fruit Punch, will be out in August 2022. You can keep up with her work at KendraCanYou.Com. - IRL Author Talk: Plantains & Our Coming with Melania Luisa Marte-August 24 at 7:30 PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Plantains & Our Coming with Melania Luisa Marte-August 24 at 7:30 PM CST
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Plantains & Our Becoming with Melania Luisa Marte!EVENT DEETSWhen: Thursday, August 24 at 7:30 PMWhere: Kindred Stories Reading GardenHow: RSVP ONLY for free ticket or support the author by RSVP WITH BOOK.ABOUT THE BOOK
PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is an imaginative, blistering, beautifully written poetry collection about identity and history on the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to celebrate and center the Black Diasporic experience.
Through the exploration of the themes of self-love, nationalism, displacement, generational traumas, and ancestral knowledge, this collection uproots Black stereotypes while creating a new joyous vision for Black identity and personhood, one that is deeply grounded in the heirlooms and teachings of Black celebration as well as preservation.
The collection is structured in the following sections: Part I: Daughter of Diaspora, exploring immigration and identity within the U.S. Part II: A History of Plantains, exploring the aftermath of colonialism, displacement and gentrification for Afro-descendants.ABOUT THE AUTHORMelania Luisa Marte is a writer, poet, and musician from New York living between the Dominican Republic and Texas. Her viral poem “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over nine million views. Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, AfroPunk, The Root, Teen Vogue, Telemundo, Remezcla, PopSugar, and elsewhere.ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER/CO READERAriana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, TX, currently based in Houston. She is the author of We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Ariana’s work investigates queer Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, Black relationality and girlhood, loneliness, and care. She holds a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies, an M.F.A. in Poetry, and an M.S. in Library Science. Ariana is a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion and owes much of her practice to Black performance communities led by Black women poets from the South. She has been writing, performing, and teaching poetry for over ten years. Follow Ariana online @ArianaThePoet. - IRL Author Talk: Pretty with KB Brookins & Kiese Laymon - May 29 @ 7:30 PM
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IRL Author Talk: Pretty with KB Brookins & Kiese Laymon - May 29 @ 7:30 PM
from $0.00Celebrate the release of Pretty: Memoir with author, KB Brookins!
EVENT DEETS
When: Wednesday, May 29 @ 7:30 PM CST
Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP with book to support the author and our programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
By a prize-winning, young Black trans writer of outsized talent, a fierce and disciplined memoir about queerness, masculinity, and race.
Even as it shines light on the beauty and toxicity of Black masculinity from a transgender perspective—the tropes, the presumptions—Pretty is as much a powerful and tender love letter as it is a call for change.
“I should be able to define myself, but I am not. Not by any governmental or cultural body,” Brookins writes. “Every day, I negotiate the space between who I am, how I’m perceived, and what I need to unlearn. People have assumed things about me, and I can’t change that. Every day, I am assumed to be a Black American man, though my ID says ‘female,’ and my heart says neither of the sort. What does it mean—to be a girl-turned-man when you’re something else entirely?”
Informed by KB Brookins’s personal experiences growing up in Texas, those of other Black transgender masculine people, Black queer studies, and cultural criticism, Pretty is concerned with the marginalization suffered by a unique American constituency—whose condition is a world apart from that of cisgender, non-Black, and non-masculine people. Here is a memoir (a bildungsroman of sorts) about coming to terms with instantly and always being perceived as “other”ABOUT THE AUTHOR
KB BROOKINS is a Black, queer, and trans writer and cultural worker from Texas. They are the author of Freedom House and How to Identify Yourself with a Wound. Brookins has poems, essays, and installation art published in Academy of American Poets, Teen Vogue, Poetry Magazine, Prizer Arts & Letters, Okayplayer, Poetry Society of America, Autostraddle, and other venues. They have earned fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, Equality Texas, and others.
ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of “The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative,” a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
- IRL Author Talk: Raising Anti-Racist Children with Britt Hawthorne-June 11 @1:00PM CST
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IRL Author Talk: Raising Anti-Racist Children with Britt Hawthorne-June 11 @1:00PM CST
Sold outPlease join us to celebrate the release of Raising Anti-Racist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide with Britt Hawthorne.
EVENT DEETS
WHEN: Saturday, June 11 @1PM CST
WHERE: 3719 Navigation Blvd, Houston TX 77003
HOW: Limited in person seating is available. You can grab a ticket for free or purchase a book with ticket.
About the Book
Raising inclusive, antiracist children is a noble goal for any parent, caregiver, or educator, but it can be hard to know where to start. In Raising Antiracist Children, Britt Hawthorne—a nationally recognized teacher and advocate—and her coauthor Natasha Yglesias offer an interactive guide for strategically incorporating the tools of inclusivity into everyday life and parenting. Hawthorne and Yglesias break down antiracist parenting into four comprehensive sections to help adults and kids find common ground in becoming anti-biased and antiracist (ABAR) human beings -healthy bodies, radical minds, conscious shopping, thriving communities.
Full of questionnaires, stories, practical activities, helpful tips, and tools to foster an antiracist lens, Raising Antiracist Children empowers you and your kids to become conscious citizens and active participants in working towards justice. This must-have, practical guide is essential for parents and caregivers everywhere.About the Author
Britt Hawthorne (she/her) is a Black bi-racial momma, teacher, author, and anti-bias and antiracist facilitator. Together with her beloved partner, they are raising their children to become empathic, critical thinkers, embracing justice, and activism. To learn more, visit BrittHawthorne.com.
About the Moderator
Sachelle Reed is the morning anchor Spectrum News 1 Wisconsin. Sachelle has extensive experience, working previously as an anchor and reporter for stations in Milwaukee and Rockford. Most recently, she was an anchor / reporter for WKMG-TV in Orlando.
- IRL Author Talk: Rooted with Brea Baker - June 29 @ 2PM
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IRL Author Talk: Rooted with Brea Baker - June 29 @ 2PM
Sold outCelebrate the release of Rooted: The American Legacy of Land Theft and the Modern Movement for Black Land Ownership with Brea Baker!
This event is in partnership with Project Row Houses.
EVENT DEETS
When: Saturday, June 29 at 2 PM
Where: Project Row Houses (2521 Holman Street, HTX, 77004)
How: RSVP ONLY to attend the talk or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and programming.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Why is less than 1% of rural land in the U.S. owned by Black people? An acclaimed writer and activist explores the impact of land theft and violent displacement on racial wealth gaps, arguing that justice stems from the literal roots of the earth.
To understand the contemporary racial wealth gap, we must first unpack the historic attacks on Indigenous and Black land ownership. From the moment that colonizers set foot on Virginian soil, a centuries-long war was waged, resulting in an existential dilemma: Who owns what on stolen land? Who owns what with stolen labor? To answer these questions, we must confront one of this nation’s first sins: stealing, hoarding, and commodifying the land.
Research suggests that between 1910 and 1997, Black Americans lost about 90% of their farmland. Land theft widened the racial wealth gap, privatized natural resources, and created a permanent barrier to access that should be a birthright for Black and Indigenous communities. Rooted traces the experiences of Brea Baker's family history of devastating land loss in Kentucky and North Carolina, identifying such violence as the root of persistent inequality in this country. Ultimately, her grandparents' commitment to Black land ownership resulted in the "Bakers Acres"—a family haven where they are sustained by the land, surrounded by love, and wholly free.
A testament to the Black farmers who dreamed of feeding, housing, and tending to their communities, Rooted bears witness to their commitment to freedom and reciprocal care for the land. By returning equity to a dispossessed people, we can heal both the land and our nation’s soul.ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brea Baker has been working on the frontlines for over a decade. She believes deeply in nuanced storytelling and Black culture to drive change, and has commented on race, gender, and sexuality for Elle, Harper’s BAZAAR, Refinery29, THEM, and more. Her writing has been featured in the anthologies OUR HISTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTRABAND and NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE.
A Yale alumna, Brea has been recognized as a 2017 Glamour Woman of the Year, a 2019 i-D Up and Rising, and a 2023 Creative Capital awardee. She has spoken at the United Nations' Girl Up Initiative, Yale Law School, the Youth 2 Youth Summit in Hong Kong, the Museum of City of New York, and more.ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
Kavon Ward is an award-winning spoken word artist and activist. Within the past decade, Kavon has won 1st place at the historic Apollo Theater and has shared the stage with gospel artists Hezekiah Walker, Patti LaBelle, Fantasia, and activists like Joe Madison and Dick Gregory, to perform her piece, “I Am Trayvon Martin” Kavon is the founder of Justice for Bruce’s Beach and has led the historic and successful movement that made it possible for stolen land to be returned to the descendants of Black landowners, Willa and Charles Bruce. The descendants of the Bruces recently sold the reclaimed land to LA County for $20 million dollars. Kavon was named a 35th Senate District, 2022 Woman of the Year by Senator Steven Bradford.
Kavon has since been quoted in the New York Times, the L.A. Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and a host of other articles. She has interviewed with NPR, 94.7 The WAVE, and a number of other radio stations, to discuss what justice for the Bruce family means and what reparations for Black Americans look like. Kavon has partnered with Patrisse Cullors, of Black Lives Matter, to create a petition calling for restitution and restoration for the Bruce family. Kavon is a reparative justice consultant and Founder and CEO of Where Is My Land, an organization focused on getting Black land back nationally. She is a former Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) fellow and public policy lobbyist. Kavon holds a BA in Communications and a Master of Public Administration.
- IRL Author Talk: Seasons of Growth with Marcus Bridgewater - September 21 @ 9:30AM CST
![IRL Author Talk: Seasons of Growth with Marcus Bridgewater - September 21 @ 9:30AM CST]()
IRL Author Talk: Seasons of Growth with Marcus Bridgewater - September 21 @ 9:30AM CST
Marcus Bridgewater
Sold outCelebrate the release of Seasons of Growth with Marcus Bridgewater!
EVENT DEETS
When: Saturday, September 21 @ 9:30AM
Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
HOW: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming
ABOUT THE BOOK
Start your journey to flourishing with wisdom from the garden.
With the same soothing and sage insights from his beloved online channels where he is known as Garden Marcus, Marcus Bridgewater invites us all to journal on growth and transformation inspired by nature.
Using the central metaphor of a tree, Bridgewater explores how to undergo personal transformation in our minds (the leaves), in our bodies (the trunk), and in our spirit (our roots). Just as a tree yearns to grow, so do we. But as Marcus makes clear, “writing a single journal entry and expecting your life to turn around is like asking for fruit from a tree you planted yesterday. Growth doesn’t just happen—it’s a never-ending process, something we should welcome and embrace.”
In this beautiful self-care journal, we can discover powerful and healing practices organized by the seasons, each mirroring different stages of our growth process:
- SUMMER: learning how to pace and keep tempo
- FALL: opening ourselves to embrace transition and practice gratitude
- WINTER: taking time to rest, reflect, and prepare
- SPRING: discovering inspiration, keeping momentum
Like the rings of a tree marking every year of growth, our journal can become a log of lessons learned throughout the seasons of our lives. Featuring journal prompts, activities, breathing and mindfulness exercises, and bite-sized bits of knowledge to help us slow down, experiment with new wellness practices, Seasons of Growth can lead us to find inner clarity, harmony, and peace.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marcus Bridgewater is a creator, educator, motivational speaker, and plant enthusiast. He is the personality behind Garden Marcus on social media, which demonstrates that a positive, knowledgeable approach to nurturing plants also helps us grow as people. He is the Founder & CEO of Choice Forward, a company that offers life coaching, seminars, and workshops, and he is the author of How to Grow: Nurture Your Garden, Nurture Yourself. He lives in Texas with his wife, son, and a thousand plants.
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