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  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Forged By Blood with Ehigbor Okosun-August 11 at 7:30 PM CST
    from $0.00

    Celebrate 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 MODERATOR

    J. 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.

  • Virtual Author Panel: Black & In Love with Tia Williams, Kianna Alexander, Chenicia Higgins, Synithia Williams, A.E. Valdez, Kosoko Jackson, Charish - August 17 at 6:30PM
    from $5.00

    In honor of Bookstore Romance Day, we have gathered some of our favorite Black contemporary Romance authors, traditionally and indie published.

    EVENT DEETS

    WHEN: August 17 at 6:30PM

    WHERE: Virtual Via Zoom

    HOW: Be sure to purchase your $5 ticket or choose one of the bundles to gain entry to this virtual event. 

    ROMANCE BOOK BUNDLES

    Forbidden Love: The Perfect Find, Forbidden Promises - $26

    Second Chance Romance: All I've Ever Want All I've Ever Needed , Seven Days in June - $31

    Opposite Attract: Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up, The Secret to a Southern Wedding - $36

    Meet Queer: D'Vaughn & Kris Plan A Wedding, Can't Let Her Go , A Dash of Salt & Pepper- $45

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS

    Tia Williams had a fifteen-year career as a beauty editor for magazines including Elle, Glamour, Lucky, Teen People, and Essence. In 2004, she pioneered the beauty-blog industry with her award-winning site, Shake Your Beauty. She wrote the bestselling debut novel The Accidental Diva and penned two young adult novels, It Chicks and Sixteen Candles. Her award-winning novel The Perfect Find is a Netflix movie starring Gabrielle Union. Her latest novel is New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, Seven Days in June, published by Grand Central. Tia currently lives with her daughter and her husband in Brooklyn.

    Like any good Southern belle, Kianna Alexander wears many hats: doting mama, advice-dispensing sister, fun aunt and gabbing girlfriend. She's a voracious reader, an amateur seamstress and occasional painter in oils.She has a passion for history and an endless curiosity. Kianna is proud to tell stories where Black women are loved, valued, and thriving. A native of the TarHeel state, Kianna still lives there while maintaining her collection of well-loved vintage 80's Barbie dolls.

    Chencia Higgins hails from the big city of Houston in the greatest state of Texas. Writing has been her my passion since she was a young girl, when her subject matter were visions of middle school drama with her group of girlfriends. She entered the world of publishing in May 2016 with an erotic novella that set the stage for a career in which she would craft engaging tales of Black women being loved up on. She continues to write for women who love to read but are tired of never seeing themselves in the story. Higgins proud to be a part of an indie and self-published author community. When she's not writing, you can find her reading a book (or two, or three), saving recipes that she'll never make on Pinterest, and traveling as much as possible with her family.

    A.E. Valdez published her first book, All I’ve Wanted, All I’ve Needed, in 2021. She has continued to write stories with endearing and relatable characters centered firmly around Black love. Readers have described her work as sweet and spicy, deeply emotional, and healing.

    She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with the love of her life and their two sons. When she’s not typing away on a keyboard, she enjoys spending time with her family, going on hiking trips, gaming, or curling up with a good book.

    Kosoko Jackson is a digital-media specialist, who lives in the New York Metro Area and spends too much time listening to Halsey and Taylor Swift.

    Charish Reid is a fan of sexy books and disaster films. When she's not grading papers or prepping lessons for college freshmen, she enjoys writing romances that celebrate quirky black women who deserve HEAs. Charish currently lives in Sweden, with her husband, avoiding most forms of exercise.

    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Dr. Shaquinta Richardson is a lover of books in the realm of fantasy and filth written by and for Black women. She rediscovered her love for fiction after years of reading non-fiction for school and career and has been loving the experience of re-immersing herself in the all the beautiful stories of bad-ass powerful Black girls and women being loved fiercely. When she is not reading, she helps Black women build lives and careers with balance, ease, and daily joy as a life coach and consultant. She lives in Houston, TX with her wife and two dogs and can be found in any corner of Houston with her book or her Kindle and her caramel macchiato. 
  • IRL Author Talk: Dark Days with Roger Reeves: Fugitive Essays - August 4 at 7PM CST
    from $0.00

    Come celebrate the new essay collection, Dark Days: Fugitive Essays with National Book Award winner, Roger Reeves! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Friday, August 4 at 7 PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden

    How:  RSVP ONLY to save your seat or RSVP with ticket to support the author or programming.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A crucial book that calls for community, solidarity, and joy, even in—especially in—these dark days

    In his debut work of nonfiction, award-winning poet Roger Reeves finds new meaning in silence, protest, fugitivity, freedom, and ecstasy. Braiding memoir, theory, and criticism, Reeves juxtaposes the images of an opera singer breaking the state-mandated silence curfew by singing out into the streets of Santiago, Chile, and a father teaching his daughter to laugh out loud at the planes dropping bombs on them in Aleppo, Syria. He describes the history of the hush harbor—places where enslaved people could steal away to find silence and court ecstasy, to the side of their impossible conditions. In other essays, Reeves highlights a chapter in Toni Morrison’s Beloved to locate common purpose between Black and Indigenous peoples; he visits the realities of enslaved people on McLeod Plantation, where some of the descendants of those formerly enslaved lived into the 1990s; and he explores his own family history, his learning to read closely through the Pentecostal church tradition, and his passing on of reading as a pleasure, freedom, and solace to his daughter, who is frightened the police will gun them down.

    Together, these groundbreaking essays build a profound vision for how to see and experience the world in our present moment, and how to strive toward an alternative existence in intentional community underground. “The peace we fight and search for,” Reeves writes, “begins and ends with being still.”

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    ROGER REEVES is the author of the poetry collections King Me and Best Barbarian. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, a 2015 Whiting Award, and Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard University. His essays and poems have appeared in Poetry, the New Yorker, Granta, the Yale Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Austin, Texas.

    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Stevens is a Writer, Organizer, and Archivist. As part of the Kindred Stories family he is the Operations & Community Facilitator, and part-time Adjunct Professor. Stevens' current work and concentration is centered around his social-political analysis and its intersections with the arts, community, and revolutionary politics.
  • IRL Author Talk: Plantains & Our Coming with Melania Luisa Marte-August 24 at 7:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    Celebrate the release of Plantains & Our Becoming with Melania Luisa Marte!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: Thursday, August 24 at 7:30 PM
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
    How: 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 AUTHOR
    Melania 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 READER
    Ariana 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: Holler, Child with Latoya Watkins-August 31 at 7:30 PM
    from $0.00

    We'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 collection

    ABOUT 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. 

     

  • AUGUST 2023 ADULT BOOK CLUB: Perish by LaToya Watkins- August 31 at 7:30 PM
    from $0.00

    The bookclub meeting will take place on August 31, 2023 at 7:30PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    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.
  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Thieves Gambit with Kayvion Lewis & Kwame Mbalia-September 28 at 7PM
    from $0.00

    Join us as we celebrate the release of Thieves' Gambit with debut author, Kayvion Lewis! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Thursday, September 28 at 7PM

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden

    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy of Thieves' Gambit and support our programming

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    At only seventeen years old, Ross Quest is already a master thief, especially adept at escape plans. Until her plan to run away from her legendary family of thieves takes an unexpected turn, leaving her mother’s life hanging in the balance.

    In a desperate bid, she enters the Thieves’ Gambit, a series of dangerous, international heists where killing the competition isn’t exactly off limits, but the grand prize is a wish for anything in the world—a wish that could save her mom. When she learns two of her competitors include her childhood nemesis and a handsome, smooth-talking guy who might also want to steal her heart, winning the Gambit becomes trickier than she imagined.

    Ross tries her best to stick to the family creed: trust no one whose last name isn’t Quest. But with the stakes this high, Ross will have to decide who to con and who to trust before time runs out. After all, only one of them can win.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

    Kayvion Lewis is a young adult author of all things escapist and high-octane. A former youth services librarian, she’s been working with young readers and kidlit since she was sixteen. When she’s not writing, she’s breaking out of escape rooms, jumping out of airplanes, and occasionally running away to mountain retreats to study kung fu. Though she’s originally from Louisiana, and often visits her family in The Bahamas, these days you can find her in New York—at least until she takes off on her next adventure.

    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Kwame is a husband, father, writer, a New York Times bestselling author, and a former pharmaceutical metrologist in that order. His debut middle-grade novel, TRISTAN STRONG PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE SKY was awarded a Coretta Scott King Author Honor, and it—along with the sequels TRISTAN STRONG DESTROYS THE WORLD and TRISTAN STRONG KEEPS PUNCHING, out October 5th—is published by Rick Riordan Presents/Disney-Hyperion. He is the co-author of LAST GATE OF THE EMPEROR with Prince Joel Makonnen, from Scholastic Books, and the editor of the #1 New York Times bestselling anthology BLACK BOY JOY, published by Delacourte Press. A Howard University graduate and a Midwesterner now in North Carolina, he survives on Dad jokes and Cheezits.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Not Everyone is Going to Like You with Rinny Perkins - August 22 at 7PM
    from $0.00

    Join 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 Poetry Reading with Ariana Brown & Aris Kian-July 29 at 7PM
    from $0.00

    We're celebrating the anniversary of We Are Owed. with Ariana Brown!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: July 29, 2023

    Where: Project Row House Community Gallery 

    How: RSVP for a free ticket or support the our programming and the author by RSVP WITH BOOK to grab a copy of We Are Owed. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    We Are Owed. is the debut poetry collection of Ariana Brown, exploring Black relationality in Mexican and Mexican American spaces. Through poems about the author’s childhood in Texas and a trip to Mexico as an adult, Brown interrogates the accepted origin stories of Mexican identity. We Are Owed. asks the reader to develop a Black consciousness by rejecting U.S., Chicano, and Mexican nationalism and confronting anti-Black erasure and empire-building. As Brown searches for other Black kin in the same spaces through which she moves, her experiences of Blackness are placed in conversation with the histories of formerly enslaved Africans in Texas and Mexico.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Ariana 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.

    ABOUT CONVERSATION PARTNER/ CO-READER

    Aris Kian is a Houston enthusiast and student of abolitionists. Her poems are published with Button Poetry, West Branch, Obsidian Lit, The West Review and elsewhere. She ranks #2 in the 2023 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam and is the 2023-2025 Houston Poet Laureate. She received her MFA from the University of Houston as an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow and currently serves as the Narrative Change & Media Manager at Houston in Action.
  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: Sisterhood Heals with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford (Founder of Therapy for Black Girls)-July 19 at 7PM CST (PURCHASE TICKETS ON EVENBRITE)
    $35.00

    Celebrate the power of sisterhood with Dr. Joy Braden Bradford & Wale Okerayi!

    TICKETS SOLD ON EVENTBRITE

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, July 19 at 7PM CST

    Where: ELDORADO BALLROOM at Project Row Houses

    How: Get Your Ticket on Eventbrite. 

    ABOUT BOOK

    Strengthen the relationships that mean the most, heal with your sisters, and transform your life for the better with the licensed clinical psychologist who founded the award-winning podcast Therapy for Black Girls.

    Sisterhood is that sacred space where all the masks that are worn for the world fall off. It’s the place where you lay down your load, refill your cup, and laugh until your belly aches. Our sister circles literally prolong our lives. However, building and keeping healthy friendships take work. How must these friendships evolve as we age? What practices can we put in place? Can they be the key to unlocking a more fulfilled existence? The answer is yes.

    Dr. Joy Harden Bradford has been doing the work to help Black women heal together for more than twenty years. In a sisterhood community with more than half a million members, she’s the go-to therapist for Black women looking to prioritize their mental health and become the best possible versions of themselves. Now she’s sharing all she’s learned using the tenets of psychology and group therapy to help us foster relationships that are not only positive, but transformative.

    In Sisterhood Heals you will
    • discover the ways in which your present-day relationships with Black women have been influenced by your past
    • identify the recurring role you play in your friend group and how it influences your relationships
    • learn new strategies to grow and sustain healthy, nurturing friendships as well as how to rebuild after a rupture

    Dr. Joy brings the warmth, wisdom, empathy, and levity found in our girlfriends to these pages, and reminds us that during difficult times sisterhood is often a lifeline with the power to help us experience fuller, more satisfying lives.

    ABOUT AUTHOR

    Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is a licensed psychologist and the host of the award-winning mental health podcast Therapy for Black Girls. Her work focuses on making mental health topics and support more relevant and accessible for Black women. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana, a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling from Arkansas State University, and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Georgia. Her work has been featured in Essence, Oprah Daily, The New York Times, HuffPost, Black Enterprise, and Women’s Health. Dr. Joy lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two sons.

    ABOUT MODERATOR

    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 on a weekly basis.

  • IRL Author Talk: My Week with Him with Joya Goffney- July 11
    Sold out

    Celebrate 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 MODERATOR
    Liara 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
  • EXTERNAL EVENT: A Mid-Summer's Night Dream - June 24 at 4PM
    Sold out

    PLEASE REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE

    Meet us in the Reading Garden at Kindred Stories for an intentional writing workshop presented by Lit & Lounge: A Writing Salon for Women and led by poet & writer Fallon Vaughn.

    The writing prompts and intention setting will be inspired by the work of Science Fiction/ Afro-Futurism pioneer Octavia Butler's work and summer solstice.

    There will be a sound bath curated by PilotJonees PilotJonees, and the Free Black Woman's Library HTX will also be on-sight with their collection of literature written by Black women.

    Feel free to dress in your most whimsical attire for the occasion.

  • June 2023 Adult Bookclub: Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun L. Harrison
    from $0.00

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 7:00 PM CST at KINDRED STORIES. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read).  If you haven't read the book at all, that's ok too.

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

    About the Book

    Exploring the intersections of Blackness, gender, fatness, health, and the violence of policing.

    To live in a body both fat and Black is to exist at the margins of a society that creates the conditions for anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Hyper-policed by state and society, passed over for housing and jobs, and derided and misdiagnosed by medical professionals, fat Black people in the United States are subject to sociopolitically sanctioned discrimination, abuse, condescension, and trauma.
     
    Da’Shaun Harrison--a fat, Black, disabled, and nonbinary trans writer--offers an incisive, fresh, and precise exploration of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, foregrounding the state-sanctioned murders of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people in historical analysis. Policing, disenfranchisement, and invisibilizing of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people are pervasive, insidious ways that anti-fat anti-Blackness shows up in everyday life. Fat people can be legally fired in 49 states for being fat; they’re more likely to be houseless. Fat people die at higher rates from misdiagnosis or nontreatment; fat women are more likely to be sexually assaulted. And at the intersections of fatness, Blackness, disability, and gender, these abuses are exacerbated.
     
    Taking on desirability politics, the limitations of gender, the connection between anti-fatness and carcerality, and the incongruity of “health” and “healthiness” for the Black fat, Harrison viscerally and vividly illustrates the myriad harms of anti-fat anti-Blackness. They offer strategies for dismantling denial, unlearning the cultural programming that tells us “fat is bad,” and destroying the world as we know it, so the Black fat can inhabit a place not built on their subjugation.

  • Juneteenth Trivia Night - June 18th at 6PM CST
    Sold out

    Grab the homies for our 1st annual Juneteenth Trivia Night! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, June 18th at 6PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: Purchase your ticket here TODAY! Each ticket comes with entry and one drink!

    ABOUT THE TRIVIA NIGHT

    We are hosting a pub style trivia night! Each person is a participant. You can bring your friends or family be apart of your team or be prepared to join a team when you get here. There will be five rounds of questions around Juneteenth, Black History, Black music & culture, prominent Black history figures etc. You and your team will work together to correctly answer as many questions as possible. Put prepared for a few twists during the night! 

    This is a great alternative to observe Juneteenth! 

  • Houston Reads Alice Walker! Presented by Project Row Houses, Kindred Stories, and Chanecka Williams
    $0.00

    A message from Chanecka Williams:

    "Alice Walker has been a force in the world for over forty years. As a writer, poet and activist, she is relentless in her pursuit of a free(er) world for all. In this social, political, time-space reality, Walker’s work feels essential to be explored with new eyes. Join us as we read her novels, short story collections, and a few of her nonfiction works. It would be remiss to not mention that this journey is as spiritual as literary being that Alice Walker has always given credit to the spirits that accompany her. "
    This gathering will be held on the online video conferencing platform Zoom. Please join us by registering for this month only or the entire meet-up series here.

    Kindred Stories is proud to partner with Project Row Houses and Chanecka to present Houston Reads Alice Walker.

    Alice Walker Meeting Schedule:

    September 18 - The Temple of My Familiar
    October 16 - Possessing the Secret of Joy
    November 20 - The Third Life of Grange Copeland
    December 18 - In Love & Trouble
    January 15 - Meridian
    February 19 - You Can't Keep a Good Woman Down
    March 19 - By the Light of My Father's Smile
    April 16 - The Way Forward With a Broken Heart: Stories
    May 21 - Now is the Time to Open Your Heart
    June 11 - In Search of Our Mother's Garden Pt. I & Pt. II
    July 16 - In Search of Our Mother's Garden Pt. III & Pt. IV
    August 20 - Alike Walker Poetry Reading
    September 17 - Gathering Blossoms Under Fire
    About Alice Walker

    Alice Walker is an internationally celebrated writer, poet and activist whose books include seven novels, four collections of short stories, four children’s books, and volumes of essays and poetry.  She won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1983 and the National Book Award.

    About Chanecka Williams

    In May 2020, after realizing books were talking over her personal Instagram account, Chanecka started a new account with the handle @headwrpreader centering literature. As a book influencer, she is extremely passionate about book discovery. She is always ahead of the curve on new and lesser known book releases. Currently, she works as a team member at Kindred Stories in addition to pursuing a Master of Library and Information Science. She hopes to work as a research librarian and archivist.

    About Project Row Houses

    Project Row Houses is a community platform that enriches lives through art with an emphasis on cultural identity and its impact on the urban landscape. We engage neighbors, artists, and enterprises in collective creative action to help materialize sustainable opportunities in marginalized communities.

    Project Row Houses occupies a significant footprint in Houston’s Historic Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American neighborhoods. The site encompasses five city blocks and houses 39 structures that serve as home base to a variety of community-enriching initiatives, art programs, and neighborhood development activities. PRH programs touch the lives of under-resourced neighbors, young single mothers with the ambition of a better life for themselves and their children, small enterprises with the drive to take their businesses to the next level, and artists interested in using their talents to understand and enrich the lives of others. Although PRH’s African-American roots are planted deeply in Third Ward, the work of PRH extends far beyond the borders of a neighborhood in transition. The Project Row Houses model for art and social engagement applies not only to Houston, but also to diverse communities around the world.

    ABOUT KINDRED STORIES

    Kindred Stories was born of a love for reading and a passion for community.

    Kindred Stories is here to give kids and adults alike a space to explore the wide open world of literary content and creative works fashioned by black and brown hands. We are a bookstore committed to amplifying Black voices and bringing diverse stories from throughout the African diaspora to our local community in Houston, TX. We will be located in the Third Ward neighborhood, where we'll provide a well curated offering to edify the swelling appetites for authentic stories as told by those who have lived them.

    We are beyond thrilled to serve Houston and the world at large through our website offerings. Stay tuned for what’s in store with the opening of our physical space later this year.  Thank you for being a part of our tribe!

  • IRL Author Talk-What She Missed with Liara Tamani-June 17 at 3PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the launch of What She Missed with the author, Liara Tamani!
    EVENT DEETS
    WHEN: Saturday, June 17 at 3PM CST
    Where: 3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77003
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your book and support our programming.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Sixteen-year-old Ebony Jones is devastated when both of her parents lose their jobs, and her family moves from Houston to her grandmother’s house in the country. There’s nothing for Ebony in Alula Lake, Texas. So She Thinks. What She Missed is a rich and emotional novel that celebrates change, nature, friendship, growing up, and love, for readers of Sarah Dessen’s The Rest of the Story and Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land. 

    When Ebony and her parents move from Houston to her grandmother’s house in a small lake town, Ebony is sure that her life is doomed. And to make matters worse, the ghost of Ebony’s beloved grandmother—a strong swimmer who tragically drowned in the lake—is everywhere. Alula Lake does offer one perk: reconnecting Ebony with her childhood friend, Jalen.

    But as Ebony settles into life, she finds herself drifting away from Jalen and gravitating to his older sister, Lena. Lena is chaotic, disorderly, and rebellious, yet she offers a reprieve from the anger and sadness Ebony feels over losing so much.

    An ode to nature, art, friendship, history, family, and love, this lyrical coming-of-age story explores one girl’s summer of self-discovery as she reimagines the world and her place in it.

    ABOUT AUTHOR 

    Liara Tamani lives in Houston, Texas. She is the author of the acclaimed young adult novels Calling My Name, All the Things We Never Knew, and What She Missed. Her words have appeared in Time Magazine, NPR, and The New York Times. And her work has been featured by Good Morning America, Buzzfeed, Essence Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets & Comets, production assistant for Girlfriends (TV show), home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University. www.liaratamani.com

    ABOUT MODERATOR

    J. 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.

  • Kindred Stories + Murder By The Book Presents All the Sinners Bleed with S.A. Cosby-June 14 at 6:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    We're joining forces with our friends from Murder By The Books to celebrate the release of All the Sinners Bleed with author, S.A. Cosby.
    EVENT DEETS
    When: Wednesday, June 14 at 6:30 PM CST
    Where: Murder By The Book ( 2342 Bissonnet Street, HTX, 77005)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket OR RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy and support our store's programming. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK
    After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and corn bread, fistfights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires Titus to run for sheriff. He wins and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county.

    Then, a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies.

    Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever it leads. But no one expected he would unearth a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

    Now Titus must pull off the impossible: stay true to his instincts, prevent outright panic, and investigate a shocking crime in a small town where everyone knows everyone yet secrets flourish—all while breaking up backroad bar fights and being forced to protect racist Confederate pride marchers.

    For a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South, that’s no easy feat. But Charon is Titus’s home and his heart, and he won’t let the darkness overtake it. Even as it threatens to consume him.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award–winning writer from southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Razorblade Tears, which won two ITW Thriller Awards and was named to more than thirty Best of the Year lists, and Blacktop Wasteland, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others
  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: ONYX with Adrienne Raquel & Nandi Howard-June 9 at 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of Adrienne Raquel: ONYX!

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, June 9 at 7PM CST
    Where: 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 BOOK

    NYX 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: House Woman with Adorah Nworah-June 6 @7PM CST
    from $0.00
    Come celebrate the release of House Woman with Adorah Nworah! 
    EVENT DEETS
    When: 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 BOOK

    When 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 AUTHOR
    Adorah 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 MODERATOR
    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 on a weekly basis.


  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: We are a Haunting with Tyriek White & Kiese Laymon-June 1 @7PM CST
    from $0.00
    Come swoon over We are a Haunting with us! 
    EVENT DEETS
    WHEN: June 1 at 7PM CST
    WHERE: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX 77004)
    HOW: RSVP to reserve your free ticket or RSVP with book to support our store and programming. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK
    A poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. 

    In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losing the public housing apartment they once shared. Colly, Key’s grieving son, soon learns that he too has inherited this sacred gift and begins to slip into the liminal space between the living and the dead on his journey to self-realization.

    In the present, an expulsion from school forces Colly across town where, feeling increasingly detached and disenchanted with the condition of his community, he begins to realize that he must, ultimately, be accountable to the place he is from. After college, having forged an understanding of friendship, kinship, community, and how to foster love in places where it seems impossible, Colly returns to East New York to work toward addressing structural neglect and the crumbling blocks of New York City public housing he was born to; discovering a collective path forward from the wreckages of the past. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise.
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
    Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, where he served at-risk and marginalized youth, artists, and scholars in the classroom. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Lit, a literary foundation which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writers Institute, and Key West Writers’ Workshop, among other honors. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College, and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, WE ARE A HAUNTING (Astra House, 2023).
    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is also the  author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and  Heavy: An American Memoir.  Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR PANEL: Black & Killer with Johnny Compton, Tananarive Due, Alexis Henderson, Victor LaValle, Brandon Massey-May 26 at 7:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    We always receive requests for Black Horror recommendations, so we've gathered up some of the best to ever write horror to discuss ALL the things!

    *ZOOM LINK*

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, May 26 at 7:30 PM CST
    Where: Virtual via Zoom
    How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot! RSVP WITH BUNDLE to reserve your spot AND get a Black Horror starter pack!

    The OG Bundle includes The Between by Tananarive Due, Dark Corner by Brandon Massey, and The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle.

    The New School Bundle includes The Spite House by Johnny Compton and The Year of Witching by Alexis Henderson.

    Be sure to check out our Black Horror Collection! 
    ABOUT THE PANELIST
    Johnny Compton has short stories that have appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast, and many other markets. He is an HWA member and creator, and host of the podcast Healthy Fears. Spite House is his debut novel. 
    Tananarive Due is an American Book Award–winning, Essence bestselling author of sixteen books, including the Blood Colony, The Living Blood, The Good House, Joplin’s Ghost, and Devil’s Wake. She was also a contributor to Jonathan Maberry’s middle grade anthology, Don’t Turn Out the Lights. She has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award. She teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her website TananariveDue.com to learn more about her work.
    Alexis Henderson is the author of the Goodreads Choice Awards nominated novels, House of Hunger and The Year of the Witching. When she's not writing, you'll find her tending to an assortment of houseplants or nursing a hot cup of tea
    Victor LaValle  is the author of seven works of fiction: four novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.
    Brandon Massey sold his first short story in 1996 to a speculative fiction magazine. Three years later, he self-published Thunderland, his first novel. After managing to sell a few thousand copies on his own, Kensington Publishing Corp signed him to a publishing contract and republished the novel in 2002. Since then, Massey has published up to three books a year, ranging from thriller novels such as The Landlord and The Other Brother, vampire fiction such as Dark Corner, and short story collections such as Twisted Tales. Massey currently lives with his family near Atlanta, GA.
    Get ready for a killer time! 
  • May 2023 Adult Book Club: Zami by Audre Lorde
    Sold out

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 7:00 PM CST at KINDRED STORIES. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read).  If you haven't read the book at all, that's ok too.

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

    About the Book

    A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem. Around her, a heady swirl of passers-by, car horns, kerosene lamps, the stock market falling, fried bananas, tales of her parents' native Grenada. She trudges to public school along snowy sidewalks, and finds she is tongue-tied, legally blind, left behind by her older sisters. On she stumbles through teenage hardships -- suicide, abortion, hunger, a Christmas spent alone -- until she emerges into happiness: an oasis of friendship in Washington Heights, an affair in a dirty factory in Connecticut, and, finally, a journey down to the heat of Mexico, discovering sex, tenderness, and suppers of hot tamales and cold milk. This is Audre Lorde's story. It is a rapturous, life-affirming tale of independence, love, work, strength, sexuality and change, rich with poetry and fierce emotional power.

  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR TALK: Homebodies with Tembe Denton-Hurst-May 15 at 6 PM CST
    Sold out
    Celebrate Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel, Homebodies:A Novel with the Black Bookstore Collective!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: May 15 at 6 PM CST
    Where: Virtual 
    How: RSVP ONLY to get your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our programming! We'll send the link to view the talk 24 hours before the event. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Urgent, propulsive, and deeply insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her job in media and her searing manifesto about racism in the industry goes viral.

    Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list media parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, everything finally seems to be falling into place—until she finds out she’s being replaced.

    Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles.

    Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life—and the flirtation of a former flame—but the life she left behind in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted—isn’t it?

    Insightful, funny, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space, and introduces a standout new writer.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Tembe Denton-Hurst is a staff writer at New York magazine’s The Strategist and has written for Nylon magazine, them, and Elle. When she’s not writing, Tembe can be found on her couch in Queens, New York, where she lives with her partner and their two cats, Stella and Dakota.
  • IRL Poetry Reading: No Sweet Without Brine with Cynthia Manick and Kendra Allen-May 11 at 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Join us for a live poetry reading with Cynthia Manick and Kendra Allen!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: May 11 at 7PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden 
    How: Select RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot for this free reading or RSVP with book to support our store programming and the author. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    No Sweet Without Brine is both a soulful and celebratory collection that summons sticky sweet memories with an acrid aftertaste of deep thought. Satisfying moments are captured in odes to Idris Elba’s dulcet tones on a meditation app and the satisfaction of half-priced Entenmann’s poundcake; in childlike observations of parental Black love, the coveted female form on Jet Magazine covers, and the desire for Zamunda to be a real place full of Black joy. The sour taps into an analysis of reclusiveness, silencing catcalls from men on the street, and detailed recipes and advice to the Black girls forced to endow themselves with armor against the world.

    Cynthia Manick’s latest is a playlist of everyday life, introverted thoughts, familial bonds, and social commentary. In piercing language, she traces the circle of life for a narrator who dares to exist between youthful remembrances and adulthood realities. Each poem in No Sweet Without Brine is a reminder that a hint of sorrow makes the celebration and recognition of the glory of Blackness in all ways, and through all people, that much sweeter.

    ABOUT POET
    Cynthia Manick is the winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. Manick is the creator of the Soul Sister Revue reading series and her poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller and performer at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and most recently the Brooklyn and Frye museums, Manick and her work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Callaloo, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. She currently serves on the board of the International Women’s Writing Guild and the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. 
    ABOUT THE READING PARTNER

    Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She's the author of poetry collection The Collection Plate and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now. 

  • JUNETEENTH Storytime with Van Garrett-May 6 at Noon
    Sold out

    Join us to celebrate the release of Juneteenth with Houston based author, Van Garrett

    EVENT DEETS

    WHEN: Saturday, May 6, 2023

    WHERE: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    HOW: RSVP ONLY to reserve your littles seats or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our programming and the author. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A lyrical picture book about our newest national holiday, Juneteenth follows the annual celebration in Galveston, Texas—the birthplace of Juneteenth—through the eyes of a child coming to understand their place in Black American history in a story from three Texan creators.

    A young Black child experiences the magic of the Juneteenth parade for the first time with their family as they come to understand the purpose of the party that happens every year—and why they celebrate their African American history!

    The poetic text includes selected lyrics from “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the unofficial Black National Anthem, and the vibrant art illuminates the beauty of this moment of Black joy celebrated across the nation. This vibrant adventure through the city streets invites young readers to make a joyful noise about freedom for all.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Van G. Garrett is the author of Kicks, his debut picture book. An acclaimed poet, he won the Poetry Question National Chapbook Contest for Scrap and the Best Book of African American Poetry from the Texas Association of Authors for 49: Wings and Prayers. He is a musician and visual artist.

     

  • IN PERSON: Houston Reads Alice Walker Meet & Greet-April 30 @1:30 PM CST
    Sold out
    We have been reading the works of Alice Walker for over six months. Gathering and building each other up online through literature. With Spring having just arrived, it feels good to meet each other in person. Come out, have some light bites and commune. 
    *Newbies are welcome*

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, April 30 at 1:30 PM

    Where: Project Row House Community Gallery (2521 Holman Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP to let us know you're coming. 

    See you all there! 
  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The Everyday Feminist with Latanya Mapp Frett & Oni Blair-April 28 at 7PM CST
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    Welcome Latanya Mapp, author of The Everyday Feminist and President of the Global Fund for Women to Houston! 

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, April 28 at 7PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories HTX (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our store programming and the author!

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    An invigorating exploration of impactful feminist movements and strategies for replicating their success

    In The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact-Driving Movements We Need Now More than Ever, accomplished feminist activist and executive Latanya Mapp Frett delivers a powerful and practical exploration of the factors that make a feminist social movement impactful in its place and time. In the book, you'll discover popular and not-so-popular social movements and the leaders, art, research, and narratives that drove them.

    The author explains what made these social movements so effective and explains the steps that organizations, nonprofits, and social impact professionals can take to replicate that success on the ground and in the present.

    The book also includes:

    • Discussions of the importance of feminist funds in bankrolling critical feminist movements
    • Explanations of the roles played by men and boys in building a feminist future
    • Actionable and straightforward advice applicable to everyone trying to make a difference for women around the world

    An essential text for feminist advocates who find themselves in an increasingly challenging political and social environment, The Everyday Feminist is the practical blueprint to social change that lawmakers, activists, entrepreneurs, and non-profit professionals have been waiting for.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Latanya Mapp Frett is President and CEO of Global Fund For Women, a nonprofit foundation and leading funder of gender justice movements worldwide. She is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and serves as Board Director for Oxfam and Management Sciences for Health. She is the former Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Global.

  • April 2023 Book Club-Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves-April 27 @7PM CST
    Sold out

    Join us for our month bookclub meeting. April is Poetry Month and we're reading Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves, a National Book Award Winner. 

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, April 27, 2023 in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read). 

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The Blue is Where God Lives with Sharon Sochil Washington-April 25@ 7PM CST
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    Come celebrate the release of The Blue is Where God Lives with debut author, Sharon Sochil Washington!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: April 25 at 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP WITH Book to reserve your seat and book while helping support our programming! 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A powerful work of Afro-magic realism that interrogates the legacy of slavery and roots of poverty, witnesses the beauty and power in survival, and asks whether belief, magic, and intention can forge new realities

    Blue’s daughter, Tsitra, is dying a horrific death. Thousands of miles away, Blue feels time slowing and hears voices, followed by an 18-month stillness. More than a century before, Blue’s grandparents, Amanda and Palmer, attend a salon party in New Orleans. It’s a veritable array of who’s-who within pre–Civil War social circles. Conversations get heated quickly as Ismay, the hostess who hails from French royalty, antagonizes Palmer, a landowner whose parents had been sold into American slavery and who’s there to seek revenge, and Amanda, a shapeshifter and puzzlemaker who had been enslaved until this very gathering. At this party, Amanda learns of a plot that will doom a line of her—and Palmer’s—family to poverty. She devises her own counter-plot to undo the damage.

    Meanwhile, Blue comes out of her stillness, broke and devoid of inspiration. In profound grief and consumed by guilt, Blue travels to The Ranch where the voices grow louder and she has visions of two women from the distant past. As time collapses and Blue and Amanda meet in the space of possibility, Blue feels the spark of a power and creative energy she has only glimpsed. A novel of invention but grounded in the real, The Blue Is Where God Lives is a dual-timeline, time-bending novel of undeniable beauty, magic, and possibility

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Sharon Sochil Washington, a cultural anthropologist and creator of White Space, a newsletter on Substack that explores the meaning between the words we use, has written for the Dallas Times Herald, New York Newsday, and the Akron Beacon Journal. She received degrees from Columbia University and The New School in New York City, and speaks regularly at universities and conferences on issues of social justice, race, economic insecurity, education, and media influences. The Blue Is Where God Lives is her debut novel. She lives in Houston

    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 on a weekly basis.

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The House of Eve with Sadeqa Johnson-April 23 @5PM CST
    Sold out
    Come meet Sadeqa Johnson, author of Yellow Wife and The House of Eve! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, April 23, 2023 at 5PM CST

    Where: Hogan Brown Gallery (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY for TICKET or RSVP WITH BOOK to get your copy of THE HOUSE OF EVE!

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    “A triumph of historical fiction” (The Washington Post) set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

    1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

    Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

    With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Sadeqa Johnson is the award-winning author of four novels, including Yellow Wife. Her accolades include the National Book Club Award, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the USA Best Book Award for Best Fiction. She is a Kimbilio Fellow, former board member of the James River Writers, and a Tall Poppy Writer. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children. To learn more, visit SadeqaJohnson.net.


  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Into the Light with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport-April 22 at 6 PM CST
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    Come talk mystery and fantasy with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: April 22 at 6PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support store programming and that author

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    KEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOME
    It’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 AUTHOR
    MARK 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 PARTNER

    N. 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: The Blood Gift with N.E Daveport & Ehigbor Okosun-April 19 @ 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of The Blood Gift, the follow up to The Blood Trials!

    EVENT DEETS: 

    When: Wednesday, April 19 at 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, Houston, Texas, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY for your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our store programming and the author. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    In this stunning conclusion to N. E. Davenport’s fast-paced, action-packed sci-fantasy duology, elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides.

    After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen’s Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.

    Yet, somehow, that’s the least of her worries.

    Her grandfather’s longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites…and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.

    Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.

    The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation.

    War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Nia "N. E." Davenport is the science fiction/fantasy author of The Blood Trials and its sequel. 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 or on Instagram, where she talks about bingeworthy TV, killer movies, and great books. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Ehigbor Okosun (Eh-hee-bor Oh-koh-soon), or just Ehi, is an Austin-based author who writes speculative fiction, mystery thrillers, and contemporary novels for adult and YA audiences. A British private school survivor turned Nigerian-American immigrant, she hopes to do justice to the myths and traditions she grew up 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 Pre-Medical studies and is a Cynthia Leitich Smith Mentorship Award finalist. When she’s not reading, you can catch her bullet journalling, gaming, baking, and spending time with her loved ones.

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