A grandmother and granddaughter share a magical trip to the Hudson River affirming intergenerational love and the power of water in this heart-song of a picture book.

Every day, Abuela misses the ocean in Puerto Rico. But on Saturdays, when the sun is high, Abuela takes her granddaughter on a walk down the hill in Harlem to Twelfth Avenue, to a place that is just as magical: the Hudson River.

There, they visit Yamaya, mermaids that invoke child-like wonder and hold onto the memory of all who have passed through their waters. Together, Abuela, her granddaughter, and the spirits of ancient religion and familial love celebrate the river that brought millions of new Americans to its shores through the generations.

This bookclub meeting is on June 27 at 7 PM. We're be in the Kindred Stories Reading. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read) but you are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

On the night of her husband Matt’s fortieth birthday, Rachel Abbott receives a sexy, explicit text from her husband that she quickly realizes was meant for another woman. Divorce is inevitable, and Rachel is determined not to leave her thirteen-year marriage empty handed. Meanwhile, Matt, a rising star mayor with his eye on the White House, can’t afford a messy split in the middle of his reelection campaign. They strike a deal: Rachel gets one million dollars and their lavish house in the wealthy DC suburb of Oasis Springs, as long as she keeps playing the ideal Black trophy wife until the election.

Then Rachel meets Nathan Vasquez, a very handsome, very lost twenty-six-year-old artist, and their connection makes Rachel forget about being the perfect politician’s wife. As Rachel reawakens Nathan’s long-dormant artistic aspirations, their attraction becomes impossible to resist. But secrets are hard to keep in a town like Oasis Springs, and Nathan has a few of his own. With the risk of scandal looming and their hearts on the line, they’ll have to decide whether the possibility of losing everything is worth taking a chance on love. 

The Art of Scandal is a sizzling, conversation-starting debut about rekindling passion, the transformative power of art, and finding love in unexpected places. 

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

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.

At Camp Mirror Lake, terror is the name of the game . . . but can you survive the night?

This heart-pounding slasher by New York Times bestselling author Kalynn Bayron is perfect for fans of Fear Street.

Charity has the summer job of her dreams, playing the “final girl” at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, The Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business.

But the last weekend of the season, Charity’s co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity’s role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they’ll need figure out what this killer is after. As they unravel the bloody history of the real Mirror Lake, Charity discovers that there may be more to the story than she ever suspected . . .

A Note From Chanecka 

In April 1983, Gloria Naylor’s Women of Brewster Place and Alice Walker’s The Color Purple won National Book Awards, one of America's most prestigious literary prizes.  Naylor’s debut novel won the award for First Novel while Walker’s novel  won the prize for overall Fiction. This was a historical moment in Black literature history that has mostly gone unnoticed. As we finish reading the works of Gloria Naylor, it feels necessary to honor these two women’s achievements as well as examine their work in context.

Meeting Details

When: August 21, 2022 at 2PM-4PM

Where: This meeting will be held online with the virtual conferencing platform, Zoom. 

How:  Be sure to register for this month's bonus meeting.

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.

We're meeting to discuss The Missed Connection!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Wednesday, July 8 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Romance Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

*This book is currently on PRE-ORDER and has an on sale date for June 9th. You can purchase now for your book to be picked up or shipped on June 9th. 

ABOUT THE MISSED CONNECTION

New York Times bestselling author Tia Williams returns with an intensely romantic, deliciously sexy tale about a woman searching for her handsome seatmate on a European flight--and the unexpected places her hunt for love leads her.

Sasha Cruz knows types. As a booked-and-busy casting agent, she's always casting -- at happy hour, the post office, the grocery store, everywhere. She's all about finding the perfect person to slot into the perfect role. What she doesn't do, however, are relationships. Too much energy, not enough time. Men find her intimidating, and she likes it that way.

But when Sasha's seated next to a mysterious, broodingly handsome Italian man on the way to a work trip in Paris, sparks fly - but they miss the chance to exchange contact information. Now, convinced that she's lost out on her soulmate, Sasha is on a manhunt to find Seat F.

Sasha enlists her work friend for help in the search, but when she accidentally emails the entire global company, colleagues around the world begin looking for Seat F, too - with some finding love along the way. Meanwhile, Sasha takes matters into her own hands, hiring a smoldering detective who complicates matters in unforeseen ways

We're meeting to discuss Kin by Tayari Jones!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Thursday, July 30 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Fiction Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT KIN

A magnificent new novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of An American Marriage—Tayari Jones has written an unforgettable novel that sparkles with wit and intelligence and deep feeling about two lifelong friends whose worlds converge after many years apart in the face of a devastating tragedy.

Vernice and Annie, two motherless daughters raised in Honeysuckle, Louisiana, have been best friends and neighbors since earliest childhood but are fated to live starkly different lives. Raised by a fierce aunt determined to give her a stable home in the wake of her mother’s death, Vernice leaves Honeysuckle at eighteen for Spelman College, where she joins a sisterhood of powerfully connected Black women and discovers a world of affluence, manners, aspiration, and inequality. Annie, abandoned by her mother as a child and fixated on the idea of finding her and filling the bottomless hole left by her absence, sets off on a journey that will take her into a world of peril and adversity, as well as love and adventure, culminating in a battle for her life.

A novel about mothers and daughters, friendship and sisterhood, and the complexities of being a woman in the American South, Kin is an exuberant, emotionally rich, unforgettable work from one of the brightest and most irresistible voices in 

We're meeting to discuss Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 21 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Horror Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT BLOOD SLAVES

For readers of Victor LaValle, Tananarive Due, and Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad, this ingenious reimagining of the vampire origin story set during the early days of American slavery blends alternate history with supernatural horror, as the last surviving member of an ancient African vampire tribe meets a slave desperate for freedom, and together, they lead an army of enslaved people in a cinematically blood-soaked battle for freedom and revenge.

What if nobody ever freed the slaves…because they freed themselves – 150 years before the Civil War?

In the Province of Carolina, 1710, freedom seems unattainable for Willie, for his beloved Gertie, and for their unborn child. They live, suffer, and toil under their brutal master, James “Big Jim” Barrow, whose grand plantation was built by the blood, sweat, and tears of the enslaved. To flee this hell on earth is be hunted and killed. Until one strange night Willie is offered a dark hope by Rafazi, an enigmatic slave with an irresistible and blood-chilling path to liberation.

Hailing from the Kingdom of Ghana, Rafazi is the lone survivor of the Ramanga, an African vampire tribe rendered nearly extinct by plague. Rafazi has roamed the world for centuries with an undying desire to replenish the power that once defined his heritage. In Willie, Rafazi has found his first biddable subject to be turned and to help in a hungry revolt. And Willie desires nothing more than to free his people from malicious bondage. Whatever it takes.

One by one, as an army of blood slaves thirsting for revenge is gathered, the headstrong Gertie fears that no good can come from the vampiric legacy that courses through Rafazi’s veins. Willie knows that only evil can fight evil. And when the woman he loves stands between the reemergence of the Ramanga and the justified slaughter of the oppressors, Willie must make an irreversible decision. Only one thing is certain: on the Barrow plantation, and beyond, blood will spill.

Part historical drama, part supernatural horror, and part alternate history, Blood Slaves is an ingenuous and defiant new creation myth of the vampire, one rooted in both justice and the sometimes-violent means necessary to achieve it.

We're meeting to discuss Judge Stone by Viola Davis!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 28 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Mystery/Thriller Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT JUDGE STONE

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, August 13 @ 7PM 

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend and RSVP WITH BOOK to purchase your book and support Romance Book Club 

ABOUT CURVY GIRL SUMMER

After a one-night stand with her clingy ex, Aaliyah James has an epiphany: this ain’t it. She knows what she wants, and she’s ready to move past casual hookups, flings, and situationships.

But for her family, the clock is ticking—after all, she’s almost thirty. And when they imply that her personality (and her body) might be too big to land a man, she lets them know they’ve gone too far—and her (nonexistent) man loves her curves, thank you very much. Now, she has seven weeks to find the perfect boyfriend to rub in their faces at the big, fancy birthday celebration she’s been planning.

After her first blind date goes wrong, charming local bartender Ahmad Williamson consoles her with a drink and some playful banter. Aaliyah takes him up on his suggestion to use a dating app—but the more she sees of his warm, funny, and easygoing nature, the less she wants to check her DMs. Will her next swipe bring her closer to true love—or is her real match closer than she thinks?

Celebrate the release of Bones at the Crossroads with LaDarrion Williams!

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, August 10 @ 5:30 PM

Where: Kindred Stories (2310 Elgin St #2, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support the author and our store programming.

You must purchase a copy of Bones at the Crossroads to join the signing line. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

It's Homecoming season at Caiman University, and all 17-year-old Malik Baron wants to do is be a regular college student…or as regular as he can get at a magical HBCU for young, Black Conjurers. He’s ready to go to parties, hang out with his new friends, choose a major, and talk to girls. Instead, he's reeling from a summer of revelations, heartbreak and betrayal, and still uncovering the truth about his powers and his legacy. 

The family he only just discovered is already fractured beyond repair, and a new relative who shows up on his doorstep brings even more questions. Then there’s the mother he risked everything to find, who might be the biggest threat to the life he's trying to build. To protect his new community, Malik joins an elite secret society with roots in ancient magic.

His journey takes him even deeper into his own heritage and the history of the magical world, while bringing him closer to a classmate whose friendship might mean something more, if Malik is ready to let her in. But how can he use powers he can’t even control to defend a world he’s not sure will ever fully accept him? And as the pressure and danger builds, will he be able to confront the deepening cracks within the magical society, and those building within himself?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hailing from the small town of Helena, Alabama, LaDarrion Williams is a self-taught playwright, filmmaker, author, and screenwriter committed to shaping a new era of Black fantasy. His theatrical work has garnered attention at notable venues, including the Echo Theatre Playwrights Lab, the Great Plains Theatre Conference in Omaha, TSU’s Black and Latino Playwrights Festival, and the Boise Contemporary Theater BIPOC Playwrights Festival.

An esteemed alum of the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, LaDarrion’s play Hurt People was selected for the 2024 conference, further solidifying his place as a bold and necessary voice in contemporary theater. His play Coco Queens was featured in the 2019 Sundance Institute’s Playwriting Intensive, won the New Works@theWorks Playwriting Award, and celebrated its world premiere at Playhouse on the Square in July 2024.

His Jeff Award-nominated play Boulevard of Bold Dreams—a poignant exploration of Hattie McDaniel’s historic Oscar win—debuted at TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago, had its East Coast Premiere at Greater Boston Stage Company in March 2023, and was part of the Orlando Shakes Theater Signature Series in October 2023, with plans for national productions in 2024-2025.

Beyond theater, LaDarrion has directed three short films featured on YouTube and made his mark as a debut author with Blood at the Root, a New York Times and USA Today Bestseller. Through storytelling across multiple mediums, he continues to craft narratives that amplify Black voices, history, and imagination.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Janaya Britton is a Dallas native turned Houstonian. Coining herself as a “professional cool girl”, Janaya is forging her path by honoring her passions, creating art + working in spaces that uplift the Black community, and advocating for self-expression. She currently works as a fashion/lifestyle content creator, host, model, singer-songwriter, and the Social Media Manager for Kindred Stories. 

She graduated from Texas Southern University in 2022 with a Bachelor’s in Radio, TV, and Film. At TSU, she served as On-Air talent at KTSU2, started a fashion blog “Mommy’s Lil Militant", and became a Spring '20 initiate of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. 

After noticing the lack of support from the school’s counseling center, she created a self-love/mental health organization, Me-lationship, during her freshman year of college--garnered over 100 members before becoming an official campus org.

Now, her star is shining brighter than ever-- from developing the first large-scale digital + on-site Black influencer campaign for the Broccoli City Music Festival in Washington, D.C., to creating content for brands like Walmart and Hot Topic.

She hopes to continue growing as a media personality + artist and preserve her family’s historical legacy at the Lott-Canada School, American Legion Post #818, and the Bethlehem Missionary Baptist Church in Beeville, Texas.