244 results for “by Jon Key”

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  • Make Straight the Path: Following the Just One into Righteousness and Peacemaking through Holy Activism cover image
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    Founder of Civil Righteousness Jonathan Tremaine Thomas equips Christians with a Spirit-led roadmap to navigate division with Christlike engagement and reconciling action.

    Many Christians feel both heartbreak and anger over what is happening in America today, and the church often feels the most divided of all. How do we move from lament and overwhelm to Spirit-empowered impact?

    In this compelling call to act as intercessors in the "radical middle," pastor and activist Jonathan Tremaine Thomas shows us how to resist both apathy and rage as we respond to the injustices and brokenness around us. Make Straight the Path reorients our call to renewal and offers practical tools:

    * Integrate spiritual practices like prayer and fasting with public peacemaking.
    * Receive fresh vision and language for social righteousness.
    * Process our times and our own identity through the eyes and example of Jesus.
    * Be empowered to co-labor with Christ in the "reconciliation of all things."
    * Move beyond polarized extremes to embody the way of the Kingdom.

    It is possible to turn places of pain into places of God's presence. Rich in historical context and grounded in biblical truth, Make Straight the Path is a personal, cultural, and spiritual formation guide that invites us off the sidelines and into the sacred work of reconciliation, bringing Jesus-shaped transformation to a deeply divided culture.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood & Myth with Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton & Delita Martin- March 7@ 7PM CST
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    Join us for the official launch event of Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood & Myth with author, Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton and artist, Delita Martin. 

    Event DEETS

    When: March 7, 2023 at 7PM CST

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

    How: Please RSVP reserve your spot. Checkout for RSVP with Book to support our store and the author/artists. 

    About Black Chameleon

    In the literary tradition of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, this debut memoir confronts both the challenges and joys of growing up Black and making your own truth.

    Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

    Mouton writes, “The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way. . . . Mythmaking isn’t a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women.”

    Mouton’s memoir is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.

    About Deborah DEEP Mouton

    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. 

    About Delita Martin

    Delita Martin is an artist currently based in Huffman, Texas. She received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and an MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Formerly a member of the fine arts faculty at UA Little Rock in Arkansas, Martin currently works as a full-time artist in her studio, Black Box Press. Martin’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Most recently Martin’s work was included in the State of the Arts: Discovering American Art Now, an exhibition that included 101 artists from around the United States. Her work is in numerous portfolios and collections.

  • IRL Author Talk: How to Say Babylon with Safiya Sinclair + francine j. harris - July 28 @ 3PM CST
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    The paperback of How to Say Babylon is here and we're celebrating the power of Saifya Sinclair's memoir! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, July 28 @ 3PM CST

    Where: Project Row Houses (2521 Holman Street, HTX, 77004)

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.

    In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiya’s mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her father’s beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.

    How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke, How to Say Babylon is both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    SAFIYA SINCLAIR was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography, a finalist the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the Women’s Prize in Non-Fiction and the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. How to Say Babylon was named one of the 100 Notable Books of the year by the New York Times, a Top 10 Book of 2023 by the Washington Post, one of The Atlantic’s 10 Best Books of 2023, a TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2023, a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick, and one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2023. How to Say Babylon was also named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, and Barnes & Noble, among others, and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year. The audiobook of How to Say Babylon was named a Best Audiobook of the Year by Audible and AudioFile magazine.

    She is also the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Cannibal was selected as one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Seamus Heaney First Book Award in the UK, and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize. 

    Sinclair’s other honours include a Pushcart Prize, fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, Granta, The Nation, and elsewhere. She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.

    CONVERSATION PARTNER

    francine j. harris’ third collection, Here is the Sweet Hand, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award. Originally from Detroit, she has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She is Professor of English at the University of Houston and serves as Consulting Faculty Editor at Gulf Coast. 

  • Kindred Logo Tote Bag
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    "If It's Not Spicy I Don't Want It" Enamel Pin Enamel Pin Size: 1.75 Inches Dive into a world where whimsy meets wonder with Pinstory's exclusive collection of originally designed enamel pins. Drawing inspiration from the enchanting realms of fairycore, cottagecore, and the mystique of elven lore, each pin is a gateway to a story yet untold. Crafted for dreamers, book lovers, and seekers of the magical, our pins are more than mere adornments; they are symbols of the untamed imagination, of quiet moments in sun-dappled forests, and of tales whispered beneath the ancient boughs of mythical woods. Our Fairycore series captures the whimsical essence of fairy tales with designs that feature delicate wings, sparkling enchantments, and creatures that dance in the moonlight.
  • I'm Basically A Detective Enamel Pin
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    *Use discount code: SALE at check out for 30% off*

    This one's for you: The Murderinos. The Armchair Detectives. The Citizen Sleuths. Look and listen. Most of us probably won't get a chance to actually solve a crime. But if true crime is your "thing" and you want everyone to know it, this is the pin you need! Seriously though, if you every actually solve a crime EMAIL ME IMMEDIATELY! 1.5 " soft enamel pin double clutch, rubber pin back All pins come packaged on a paper backing card and wrapped in a clear cello bag for hanging. They're ready for display right out of the box! If you'd like to omit the plastic, please leave a note at checkout.

  • Virtual Author Talk: Weightless with Evette Dionne & Morgan Jerkins-December 7 @ 7PM CST
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    Join us on a screen near you to celebrate the release of Weightless with author, Evette Dionne and Morgan Jerkins.


    EVENT DEETS: 

    When: December 7 at 7 PM CST

    Where: Virtual via Crowdcast

    How: Grab a free ticket or support the author and the store by purchasing a ticket with book. You can self register here or we will send you a link before the event. 

    About the Book

    My body has not betrayed me; it has continued rebounding against all odds. It is a body that others map their expectations on, but it has never let me down.

    In this insightful, funny, and whip-smart book, acclaimed writer Evette Dionne explores the minefields fat Black woman are forced to navigate in the course of everyday life. From her early experiences of harassment to adolescent self-discovery in internet chatrooms to diagnosis with heart failure at age twenty-nine, Dionne tracks her relationships with friendship, sex, motherhood, agoraphobia, health, pop culture, and self-image.

    Along the way, she lifts back the curtain to reveal the subtle, insidious forms of surveillance and control levied at fat women: At the doctor’s office, where any health ailment is treated with a directive to lose weight. On dating sites, where larger bodies are rejected or fetishized. On TV, where fat characters are asexual comedic relief. But Dionne’s unflinching account of our deeply held prejudices is matched by her fierce belief in the power of self-love.

    An unmissable portrait of a woman on a journey toward understanding our society and herself, Weightless holds up a mirror to the world we live in and asks us to imagine the future we deserve.

    About Author

    Evette Dionne is a journalist, editor, and pop culture critic. She is the National Book Award–nominated author of Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box, a middle-grade nonfiction book about Black women suffragists, and the former editor in chief of Bitch Media. Her work has appeared in Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Time, the New York Times, the Guardian, Teen Vogue, and elsewhere. A graduate of Bennett College, Dionne is based in Los Angeles, where she works at Netflix.

    About Conversation Partner 

    Morgan Jerkins is the author of Caul Baby, Wandering in Strange Lands and the New York Times bestseller This Will Be My Undoing and a Senior Culture Editor at ESPN’s The Undefeated. Jerkins is a visiting professor at Columbia University and a Forbes 30 Under 30 leader in media, and her short-form work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Elle, Esquire, and the Guardian, among many other outlets. She is based in Harlem. 

  • AUTHOR SIGNING: My Monsters Ain't Like Yours with R.J. Joseph - July 19 @ 3 PM
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    Celebrate the release of My Monsters Ain't Like Yours with R.J. Joseph! This event is a SIGNING ONLY. 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, July 19 @ 3 PM - 5PM

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

    How: RSVP WITH BOOK to grab your copy of the book and reserve your spot in the signing line while supporting the author and our store programming. The author will be on site from 3 PM–5 PM, and you may arrive at any point during that time slot to pick up your book and meet the author.

    Please note: Outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must purchase a copy from Kindred Stories.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    At its core, the horror genre is an effective vehicle for exploring human behavior. From within its terrifying boundaries, and lack thereof, we can examine monstrosity. We can determine how monsters are labeled, analyze the actions of those deemed monstrous, and prophesy the impacts this labeling and actions have on the world around us.

    Monsters are personal. Monsters are universal. These facts create an intriguing juxtaposition where the things deemed monstrous or frightening can be shaped by personal experiences, while also representing many aspects of the human condition; our fears are much more similar than dissimilar. This means my monsters are absolutely like yours: they are our collective nightmares.

    My Monsters Ain't Like Yours reflects this irony through Black feminist intersectional horror at its rawest.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    R. J. Joseph is an award winning, Shirley Jackson and Stoker Award™ nominated
    Texas based writer/speaker/editor. Her creative and academic work examines the
    intersections of race, gender, and class in the horror genre andpopular culture. Her
    next short story collection, My Monsters Ain’t like Yours, will be released in summer
    2026 by Quill & Crow Publishing. Her nonfiction book, Mothers, Lovers, and Others: An
    Examination of Black Women in Horror Films, will be released in fall 2027 by Creature Publishing.

    She occasionally peeks out on various social media platforms from behind 
    @rjacksonjoseph or at www.rhondajacksonjoseph.com

  • IN PERSON Author Talk: On The Rooftop with Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and Kiese Laymon-November 3 at 7:00 PM CST
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    Join us as we talk to Margaret Wilkerson Sexton about her new release, On The Rooftop. 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: November 3 at 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories' Reading Garden

    How: Grab a free ticket OR purchase the book with your ticket to support the authors and our store programming. 

    About the Book

    A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters’ ambitions for their own lives—set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San Francisco

    At home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore.

    Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Vivian knows this is the big break she’s been praying for. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine.

    The neighborhood is changing, too: all around the Fillmore, white men in suits are approaching Black property owners with offers. One sister finds herself called to fight back, one falls into the comfort of an old relationship, another yearns to make her own voice heard. And Vivian, who has always maintained control, will have to confront the parts of her life that threaten to splinter: the community, The Salvations, and even her family.

    About the Author

    MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, The Revisioners, won a 2020 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and a George Garrett New Writing Award; was a California and Northern California Book Award finalist, a 2020 Hurston/Wright Foundation Legacy Award Finalist and a Willie Morris Award for Southern Writing finalist; was nominated for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize; and was a national bestseller as well as a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, won the Crook's Corner Book Prize, and was the recipient of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Zyzzyva, The Paris Review; O, The Oprah Magazine; The New York Times Book Review; and other publications. She lives in Oakland with her family.

    About the Moderator

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. He is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America. 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 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 aimed at getting Mississippi young people and their parents more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing.

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The House of Eve with Sadeqa Johnson-April 23 @5PM CST
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    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.


  • Toni Morrison Cat Portrait Sticker: Glossy Waterproof
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    Toni Morrison with Cat Vintage Portrait kiss-cut sticker • Comes in Glitter or Glossy Waterproof • 2x2.75"
  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR TALK: Writer In Residence with Rhonda McKnight - September 28 @ 6:30 PM
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    Celebrate the release of Writer In Residence with Rhonda McKnight!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Monday, September 28 @ 6:30 PM CST

    Where: Virtual via Zoom.

    https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85955526083?pwd=YcqxDwhEWlqeoahsmg4aTVaCEzJYh0.1

    Meeting ID: 859 5552 6083
    Passcode: 184602

    How: 

    • RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot.
    • RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your spot and purchase a copy of Writer In Residence, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup or shipped on the day of the event.

    If you purchase a ticket and are unable to attend the event, your ticket is non-refundable. If your ticket includes a book, an email will be sent to all attendees before and after the event with instructions on how to receive your book. Books must be claimed within 14 days following the event. If you do not retrieve your event book , it will be returned to the publisher and you are not eligible for a refund. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    From award-winning author Rhonda McKnight comes a new story of faith, history, and the power of legacy that merges the romance of The Bookshop Sisterhood with the rich Lowcountry setting of Mary Alice Monroe.

    Alexandra Chambers is a writer who has run out of words. Struggling with writer's block and the pressure to secure a new book deal, she wins a week in a writer-friendly cabin through a drawing held at a Lowcountry literacy center.

    What she finds is far more than she expected--a vibrant community brimming with inspiration, a past steeped in history and culture, and a man who both intrigues and unsettles her.

    Gabe Scott, a bestselling author and the former writer-in-residence, is everything Alex feels she's not--acclaimed, award-winning, and unshakably confident. When their paths cross at the center, his literary brilliance and dedication to helping struggling Gullah students stir feelings Alex isn't ready to confront. Though undeniably attracted to him, Alex wrestles with the fear that her books pale beside his celebrated work.

    When a surprising family connection unearths long-hidden truths about her past, Alex is forced to confront a lie that has shaped her life. Guided by the quiet wisdom of Ms. Kate, an elderly Gullah cleaning woman with losses of her own, Alex finds the strength to forgive truths long withheld, embrace her voice, and write the story only she can tell.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Rhonda McKnight is the author of the 2025 Christy Award winning novel, BITTER AND SWEET, and the 2024 Emma Award winner, The Thing About Home. She has twenty-eight books, including other award-winning, bestselling romances. She currently writes book club fiction set in the South Carolina Lowcountry for an imprint at HarperCollins Publishing. Originally from a small coastal town in New Jersey, she writes from the comfort of her Midlands South Carolina home..

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Wale Okerayi is a licensed mental health therapist and a passionate literary enthusiast, uniquely blending her professional insights with her profound love for literature. Her work as a book influencer, particularly through her platform @theehottgirlbooks, focuses on celebrating and sharing BIPOC stories. Wale’s dual role enriches her contributions to both fields, making her a valuable voice in discussions around mental health and literature.
    When she’s not reading or in the therapy room, you can find her building lego sets and watching the real housewives. 


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