167 results for “by Myah Ariel”

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  • Contend: Standing Boldly for Biblical Truth While Winning the War Within cover image
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    The call to follow Christ was never a call to passive belief.

    In Contend, Philip Anthony Mitchell, founder and lead pastor of 2819 Church in Atlanta, unpacks Jude's urgent letter—a warning written to a Church under siege from false teachers, compromise, and spiritual laziness—and proves it's still our reality today.

    Countless Believers are still sitting on the sidelines, assuming they'll have another day to get serious about the Faith.

    But the days of casual Christianity are running out.

    Mitchell refuses to let the Church stay passive, and he reminds every Believer that the same Christ who saved you has also equipped you to fight. Through Contend, you will be inspired to:

    * Rediscover the passion and purpose of your Faith.
    * Trade spiritual complacency for a vibrant relationship with Jesus.
    * Boldly proclaim the Gospel with love and grace.
    * Find freedom from sin, disbelief, insecurities, and unforgiveness.
    * Disciple and prepare the next generation to stand firm and press on.

    Each chapter ends with a "Takeaway Truth" to anchor you in Scripture and a "Contender's Charge" to move you into action—because Faith isn't just believing but living out the Gospel.

    The question isn't whether the Faith is worth fighting for.

    The question is whether you will contend!

  • September YA Adult Book Club-Zyla and Kai by Kristina Forest
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    Join us for our monthly book club. Our August pick is Zyla and Kia by Kristina Forest.

    Book club will happen Wednesday, September 25 at 7:00 PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. RSVP required. See ya'll there!

    About the Book

    A fresh love story about the will they, won't they—and why can't they—of first love. 


    While on a school trip to the Poconos Mountains (in the middle of a storm) high school seniors, Zyla Matthews and Kai Johnson, run away together leaving their friends and family confused. As far as everyone knows, Zyla and Kai have been broken up for months. And honestly? Their break up hadn't surprised anyone. Zyla and Kai met while working together at an amusement park the previous summer, and they couldn't have been more different.
     
    Zyla was a cynic about love. She'd witnessed the dissolution of her parents' marriage early in life, and it left an indelible impression. Her only aim was graduating and going to fashion school abroad. Until she met Kai.
     
    Kai was a serial dater and a hopeless romantic. He'd put a temporary pause on his dating life before senior year to focus on school and getting into his dream HBCU. Until he met Zyla.
     
    Alternating between the past and present, we see the love story unfold from Zyla's and Kai's perspectives: how they first became the unlikeliest of friends over the summer, how they fell in love during the school year, and why they ultimately broke up... Or did they?
     
    Romantic, heart-stirring, and a little mysterious, Zyla & Kai will keep readers guessing until the last chapter. 

  • IRL Author Talk: Guide Me Home with Attica Locke - September 11 @ 7 PM
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    Celebrate the final installment of Attica Locke's Highway 59 Series, Guide Me Home! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, September 11, 2024 @ 7 PM

    Where: Holy Family HTX (3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77004) 

    How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to support Attica Locke and the bookstore! 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Texas Ranger Darren Mathews isn’t sure he’s been a good cop, but believes he’s got a shot at being a good man—if he manages to dodge the potential indictment hanging over his head and if he, from here on out, pledges allegiance to the truth. It’s a virtue the country appears to have wholly lost its grip on, but one Darren sees as his salvation. He is in the midst of remaking his life with the woman he loves, hoping for the peace of country living at his beloved farmhouse, when he is visited by someone who couldn’t hold the truth on her tongue if it was dipped in sugar, a woman who’s always been bent of tearing his life apart. His mother. Armed with a tall tale about a missing Black college student, Sera (whose white sorority sisters insist she isn’t missing at all). Darren must decide if his can trust his mother is telling the truth—and what her ulterior motive may be, and what if that motive has to do with a grand jury deciding his fate.

    Darren gets his hooks into the investigation, along the way discovering things about Sera’s family and her hometown that are odd at best, vaguely sinister at worst. Hamstrung by local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers who likewise doubt the account of a missing girl, if Darren wants answers, he’ll need help from the person whom he swore to never trust again—his mother.

    In this emotionally stirring conclusion to the singular Highway 59 series, set three years after the events of Heaven, My Home, Darren reckons with his life’s purpose as he’s forced to choose between his own peace and the higher call to do good.

     

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Attica Locke is a NY Times best-selling author of six novels, including Guide Me Home.  She is also a winner of an Edgar Award and the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and she has been short listed for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and nominated for an LA Times Book Prize and an NAACP Image award for her work as a novelist. Locke is also a screenwriter and TV producer, with credits that include Empire, When They See Us and the Emmy-nominated Little Fires Everywhere, for which she won an NAACP Image award for television writing. She co-created and executive produced an adaptation of her sister Tembi Locke’s memoir From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home for Netflix. A native of Houston, Texas, Attica lives in Los Angeles, California

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    ReShonda Tate is the national bestselling author of more than 50 books, including her latest The Queen of Sugar Hill, based on the life of Hattie McDaniel. Her novel, Let the Church Say Amen, was made into a film directed by actress Regina King, and produced by TD Jakes and Queen Latifah. Her book, The Secret She Kept, was also made into a TV One movie starring Kyla Pratt. ReShonda made appearances in both movies. She wrote a movie, Christmas with my Ex, which will run on TV One this winter. A well-respected journalist and former TV News Anchor, ReShonda is currently Managing Editor for the Defender Newspaper and also works as a professional editor, ghostwriter, and literary consultant. A highly sought-after motivational speaker and award-winning poet, ReShonda is the recipient of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature.

     

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: 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

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: Decent People with De'Shawn Charles Winslow & Kiese Laymon-January 18 @ 7PM CST
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    Join us to celebrate the release of Decent People with Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, De'Shawn Charles WInslow & MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow, Kiese Laymon. 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: January 18 at 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden, 2304 Stuart Street, Houston, TX 77004

    How: RSVP for a free ticket or RSVP with book to support the author and our programming. 

    ABOUT DECENT PEOPLE

    From prizewinning author De’Shawn Charles Winslow, a sweeping and unforgettable novel of a Black community reeling from a triple homicide, and the secrets the killings reveal.

    In the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, in 1976, Marian, Marva, and Lazarus Harmon—three enigmatic siblings—are found shot to death in their home. The people of West Mills— on both sides of the canal that serves as the town’s color line—are in a frenzy of finger-pointing, gossip, and wonder. The crime is the first reported murder in the area in decades, but the white authorities don’t seem to have any interest in solving the case.

    Fortunately, one person is determined to do more than talk. Miss Josephine Wright has just moved back to West Mills from New York City to retire and marry a childhood sweetheart, Olympus “Lymp” Seymore. When she discovers that the murder victims are Lymp’s half-siblings, and that Lymp is one of West Mills’s leading suspects, she sets out to prove his innocence. But as Jo investigates those who might know the most about the Harmons’ deaths, she starts to discover more secrets than she’d ever imagined, and a host of cover-ups—ranging from medical misuse to illicit affairs—that could upend the reputations of many.

    For readers of American Spy and Bluebird, Bluebird, Decent People is a powerful new novel about shame, race, money, and the reckoning required to heal a fractured community.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    De'Shawn Charles Winslow is the author of In West Mills, a Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, an American Book Award recipient, a Willie Morris Award for Southern Fiction winner, and a Los Angeles Times Book Award, Lambda Literary Award, and Publishing Triangle Award finalist. He was born and raised in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

    ABOUT CONVERSATION PARTNER

    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. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. Laymon’s bestselling memoir, Heavy: An American Memoir, won the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, the Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose, the Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, the Austen Riggs Erikson Prize for Excellence in Mental Health Media, and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years by The New York Times. The audiobook, read by the author, was named the Audible 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. Laymon is at work on the books, Good God, and City Summer, Country Summer, and a number of other film and television projects. He is the founder of “The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative,” a program based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.
  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries with Dr. LaToya S. Gilmore - May 8 @ 7PM
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    Celebrate the release of Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries with Dr. LaToya S. Gilmore!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Thursday, May 8 @ 7PM

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

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Stop People-Pleasing and Start Setting Healthier Boundaries Now

    Do you feel resentful because you didn’t speak up? Do find yourself saying yes when you really mean no, only to burn out later? Or maybe frustration builds, leading to blowups that push people away? In Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries, licensed psychotherapist Dr. LaToya S. Gilmore addresses the struggles many face when they can’t express their needs, often resorting to either giving in or losing control.

    This book provides essential tools to break free from these patterns and communicate with clarity and confidence. Learn how to set firm, healthy boundaries without guilt and honor yourself without fear of conflict. Tackling either people-pleasing or explosive reactions, Dr. Gilmore’s practical guidance will help you build and maintain fulfilling relationships without compromising your well-being.

    Communication Skills for Healthier Boundaries includes:

    * Verbal and nonverbal communication skills and activities. Attain lifelong skill sets to build assertiveness, confidence, and self-awareness.
    * Real-life dialogue scripts. Practice setting and asserting boundaries at your own pace while finding your communication style.
    * Easy implementation in two parts. Learn core communication skills in the first part of the book, and then apply these skills in the second part, which features common scenarios where boundaries are challenged in everyday life, rela

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Dr. LaToya S. Gilmore is a licensed therapist, educator, consultant, writer, and speaker. She inspires those she works with to intentionally integrate self-care and healthy boundaries in their daily lives and is an advocate for ending the stigma related to seeking therapy. She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Prairie View A&M University and a doctorate in counselor education from Texas Southern University. Her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy was earned at Fuller Theological Seminary. She resides in Houston, Texas.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Kandice Ewing is a lifelong Houston resident and a dedicated co-leader at the Fellowship of Love Church for over 20 years. Recently, Kandice earned a Master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Houston Christian University and is now a Licensed Professional Counselor-Associate. Believing that therapy is her true calling, Kandice is committed to supporting individuals, groups, and couples experiencing mental distress, emotional dysregulation, and life stressors.

    With expertise in areas such as grief and loss, depression, suicidal ideation, anxiety, spiritual struggles, relationships, boundaries, assertiveness, and self-esteem, Kandice takes an eclectic therapeutic approach and tailors’ treatment to meet each client's unique needs.

    Passionate about guiding others on their wellness journey, Kandice is dedicated to fostering healing and personal growth in a compassionate and supportive environment.

  • Monument Eternal cover image
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    The long-awaited reissue of Alice Coltrane’s original spiritual teachings and reflections, which provide powerful insight into her transcendent music, cherished by millions across the globe 

    ALICE COLTRANE (1937–2007) was a composer, master of various musical instruments, improviser, spiritual leader, and wife of John Coltrane. Throughout her adult life, she worked within and combined a broad range of musical genres, including gospel, R&B, bebop, free jazz, Indian devotional song, and Western art music. She recorded more than twenty full-length albums for Impulse and Warner Bros. Her music speaks to her experiences as a child playing for church congregations in Detroit; the transcendent and mind-bending avant-garde improvisations she performed with her husband John Coltrane; and her religious pilgrimages to India. 

    When Monument Eternal was originally published in 1977, Alice Coltrane was living in Southern California and had recently become a swami, building and nurturing an alternative spiritual community. In these pages, she says that the book is “based upon the soul’s realizations in Absolute Consciousness and its spiritual relationships with the Supreme One.” Monument Eternal offers deep insight into Coltrane’s tremendous musical output, and shines a light on her transformation from Alice McLeod, Detroit church organist and bebopper, to sage thought leader Swami Turiyasangitananda. It also reflects the extraordinary fluidity of American religious customs in the mid and late twentieth century. 

    Akashic’s long-awaited reissue of Monument Eternal includes a new foreword by Ashley Kahn.

  • Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream... cover image
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    Through his work across many media, Houston and Los Angeles-based artist Vincent Valdez bears witness to the world around him, chronicling an America at the margins. Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… features work from over twenty years and writings addressing Valdez's work through the lens of politics, history and humanity. Valdez's approach to imaging his country, its people, politics, pride, and foibles includes boxing, lynchings of Mexican Americans, border walls, politics, greed, the Ku Klux Klan, and the failings and triumphs of American society. Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream… accompanies survey exhibitions of his work by the same name at the Contemporary Art Museum of Houston (CAMH) in 2024-5 and MASS MoCA in 2025-6. The bilingual (English/Spanish) publication features both full-color works and a gatefold for The Strangest Fruit as well as a sewn-in booklet of behind-the-scenes studio images. Texts include a reprint of Joyce Carol Oates' On Boxing, essays by exhibition co-curators Denise Markonish and Patricia Restrepo; and a text by Evan Garza on the artist's relationship to Texas.

  • In My Book Era - Enamel Pin
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    Celebrate your bookish era in style with our exclusive “In My Book Era” enamel pin. Thoughtfully designed for readers who take pride in their stories, this pin perfectly captures the joy, calm, and confidence of getting lost in a good read.

    This vibrant pin adds a joyful pop to totes, jean jackets, lanyards, or your favorite book bag. Its sturdy backing ensures it stays secure through every bookstore visit, author event, and cozy reading session.

    Whether you’re gifting it to a fellow reader or treating yourself, this pin is a charming reminder to stay unapologetically in your book era—today and always.

    A must-have accessory for book lovers, Kindred fam, and nyone who believes in the magic of representation on the page and beyond.

    Size: 1.5 " 

  • GRIEF WRITING WORKSHOP: All the Blues in the Sky with Renée Watson - Feburary 11 @ 7PM

    Renée Watson

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    Attend a grief focused writing workshop with award winning author, Renee Watson in honor of the release of All the Blues in Sky! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Tuesday, February, 11 @ 7PM

    Where: 2310 Elgin Street, HTX, 77004

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Sage's thirteenth birthday was supposed to be about movies and treats, staying up late with her best friend and watching the sunrise together. Instead, it was the day her best friend died. Without the person she had to hold her secrets and dream with, Sage is lost. In a counseling group with other girls who have lost someone close to them, she learns that not all losses are the same, and healing isn't predictable. There is sadness, loneliness, anxiety, guilt, pain, love. And even as Sage grieves, new, good things enter her life—and she just may find a way to know that she can feel it all.

    In accessible, engaging verse and prose, this is a story of a girl's journey to heal, grow, and forgive herself. To read it is to see how many shades there are in grief, and to know that someone understands.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Renée Watson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author. Her novel, Piecing Me
    Together, received a Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King Award. Her books include
    the Ryan Hart series, Some Places More Than Others, This Side of Home, What Momma
    Left Me, Betty Before X, cowritten with Ilyasah Shabazz, Watch Us Rise, cowritten with
    Ellen Hagan, and Love Is a Revolution, as well as acclaimed picture books: Maya's Song,

    The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, written with Nikole Hannah-Jones, A Place Where
    Hurricanes Happen, and Harlem's Little Blackbird, which was nominated for an NAACP
    Image Award. Renée splits her time between Portland, Oregon and New York City.
    http://www.reneewatson.net | @harlemportland (Instagram) | @reneewauthor (X)

     

  • 2025 Buzzed Adult Spelling Bee: Black History Month Edition - February 16 @ 6PM
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    WE'RE BACK BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

    Join us for the 4th Buzzed Adult Spelling Bee presented by Babe Events and Kindred Stories, sponsorship by the Third Ward Cultural District and Brugal 1888!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, February 16 @ 6 PM (Doors open at 5 PM)

    Where: Eldorado Ballroom (2310 Elgin Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: There are two different ticket options. If you would like to attend and enjoy the show, purchase your ticket as an attendee. If you would like to contest as the spelling bee champ, grab your ticket as a contestant. Both tickets come with three drinks. THIS EVENT IS FOR ADULTS (21+) ONLY! 

    Tickets are final sale and non refundable. You will not be allowed to transfer tickets. 

    ABOUT THE SPELLING BEE 

    Contestants will be asked to spell words that speak to the theme of Black History Month including slang and AAVE over the course of four rounds. If you misspell the word, you are out!  As the words get harder, you might be able to Phone a Friend or Battle to earn your place back into the competition. Fun and music-filled, this event is for folks looking for something BLACKITY BLACK to do on a Sunday night! 

    Be mindful that you don't have to participate in the Bee. We definitely need an audience! 

    Contact lanise.harris@gmail.com or chanecka@kindredstorieshtx.com for more details.

  • 2024 Buzzed Adult Spelling Bee: Black History Month Edition - February 24 @ 7PM
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    WE'RE BACK BABY!!!!!!!!!!!

    Join us for the 3rd Buzzed Adult Spelling Bee presented by Babe Events and Kindred Stories!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Saturday, February 24 @ 7 PM (Doors open at 6 PM)

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

    How: There are two different ticket options. If you would like to attend, purchase your ticket as an attendee. If you would like to contest for the cash prize, grab your ticket as a contestant. Both tickets come with two drinks. THIS EVENT IS FOR ADULTS (21+) ONLY! 

    Tickets are final sale. You will be allowed to transfer tickets to guests.

    ABOUT THE SPELLING BEE 

    Contestants will be asked to spell words that speak to the theme of Black History Month including slang and AAVE over the course of four rounds. If you misspell the word, you are out!  As the words get harder, you might be able to Phone a Friend or Battle to earn your place back into the competition. Fun and music-filled, this event is for folks looking for something BLACKITY BLACK to do on a Saturday night! 

    Be mindful that you don't have to participate in the Bee. We definitely need an audience! 

    Contact lanise.harris@gmail.com or chanecka@kindredstorieshtx.com for more details.

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