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  • MARCH 2025: Non Fiction Book Club - March 18 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    We're meeting to discuss Communion by bell hooks!

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Tuesday, March 18 @ 7PM CST

    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 Fiction Book Club!

    ABOUT COMMUNION

    Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey she must choose to be truly free. Silencing our fears about becoming women who love too much, Communion answers all of our questions about the place of love in a woman’s life.

    bell hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by the feminist movement, by women’s full participation in the workforce, by the culture of self-help and by popular media forces such as television and movies. She celebrates the experiences of women over 30, shares collective wisdom, and the lessons learned as we practice the art of loving. Communion is the heart-to-heart talk every woman needs to hear.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: boy maybe with W. J. Lofton - April 30 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    Celebrate W. J. Lofton's debut poetry collection, boy maybe! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, April 20 @ 7 PM

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to let us know to expect you or RSVP WITH BOOK to secure your copy of boy maybe: poems!

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    51 achingly eloquent poems from a young Cave Canem fellow: W. J. Lofton's verses explore Black queer Southern identity, grief, love, and intimacy while enduring and witnessing unfreedom in America

    W. J. Lofton writes vivid, accessible poems that channel the energy, urgency, ambitions, joys, and sorrows of a young Black queer artist. They are about love and flirtation, sweet tea and hot sauce, God and family, life and death, police brutality and extrajudicial killings. His verses honor some of the young lives extinguished by these killings—Breonna Taylor, Kendrick Johnson, Ahmaud Arbery. He also pays tribute to some of the towering figures of Black culture who have come before him—Richard Pryor, Assata Shakur. His style is endlessly propulsive, informed by some of the Harlem Renaissance greats—Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks—but also transforming that rich tradition for the present day.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    W.J. Lofton has earned fellowships from Cave Canem and Emory University. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in TIME, wildness, Obsidian, Scalawag, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day, American Poets Magazine, Prose to the People, No Justice, No Peace: From the Civil Rights Movement to Black Lives Matter, and film festivals nationwide. 

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

    Renée Watson

    Sold out

    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)

     

  • JULY 2024: Adult Book Club - July 25 @ 7PM
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    This bookclub meeting is on July 25 at 7 PM 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. 

    NOTE: Safiya Sinclair will be in town on July 28, at 4 PM to discuss her book. You can RSP here. 

    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.

  • SEPTEMBER 2024: Adult Fiction Book Club - September 26 @ 7PM
    Sold out

    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Thursday, September 26 @ 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 Adult Fiction Book Club 

    ABOUT MARTYR

    Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

    Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others.

  • August Adult Book Club- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
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    Join us for our monthly book club. Our August pick The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Secret Lives.

    Book club will happen Wednesday, August 31 at 7:00 PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. RSVP required. See ya'll there!

    About the Book

    The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church’s double standards and their own needs and passions.

    There is fourteen-year-old Jael, who has a crush on the preacher’s wife. At forty-two, Lyra realizes that her discomfort with her own body stands between her and a new love. As Y2K looms, Caroletta’s “same time next year” arrangement with her childhood best friend is tenuous. A serial mistress lays down the ground rules for her married lovers. In the dark shadows of a hospice parking lot, grieving strangers find comfort in each other.

    With their secret longings, new love, and forbidden affairs, these church ladies are as seductive as they want to be, as vulnerable as they need to be, as unfaithful and unrepentant as they care to be, and as free as they deserve to be.

  • October Young Adult Book Club- The Getaway by Lamar Giles
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    Join us for our monthly book club meeting. The October book club read is The Getaway by Lamar Giles. 

    The meeting will be held Sunday, October 30 at 1:00 PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. 

    About the Book

    ay is living his best life at Karloff Country, one of the world’s most famous resorts. He’s got his family, his crew, and an incredible after-school job at the property’s main theme park. Life isn’t so great for the rest of the world, but when people come here to vacation, it’s to get away from all that.

    As things outside get worse, trouble starts seeping into Karloff. First, Jay’s friend Connie and her family disappear in the middle of the night and no one will talk about it. Then the richest and most powerful families start arriving, only... they aren’t leaving. Unknown to the employees, the resort has been selling shares in an end-of-the-world oasis. The best of the best at the end of days. And in order to deliver the top-notch customer service the wealthy clientele paid for, the employees will be at their total beck and call.

    Whether they like it or not.

    Yet Karloff Country didn’t count on Jay and his crew--and just how far they’ll go to find out the truth and save themselves. But what’s more dangerous: the monster you know in your home or the unknown nightmare outside the walls?

  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR TALK: Janae Sanders’ Second Time Around with LaQuette - January 14 @ 6:30 PM
    Sold out

    Celebrate the release of Janae Sanders’ Second Time Around with LaQuette!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, January 14 @ 6:30 PM

    Where: Virtual! Sign up and we'll send you the link to the Zoom. 

    How: RSVP ONLY to get the link to the Zoom! RSVP WITH BOOK to get a copy of each of the authors' book and support the bookstore!

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A single mom gets a second chance at love with her high school sweetheart.

    Wary of love after divorce, Janae Sanders focuses on the best things in her life: her son James and her besties in the Savvy, Sexy, and Single Club. As for romance? Not today, Satan. That is, until high school heartthrob Adam Henderson crashes back into her life at their 20-year reunion. Sparks fly, but just when Janae considers dating again, the new superintendent of James’ school district slashes his beloved arts program. Instead of getting her groove back, Janae gets her protest on.

    Returning home after twenty years, Adam jumps at the chance to reacquaint himself with Janae, the one who got away. But he’s nearly reached his limit, juggling a meddling father, school politics, and—unbeknownst to him—Janae’s ire. If he can’t get the head of the PTA off his back after cutting programs that were costing the district money, his debut role as superintendent and his love life hang in the balance.

    When a school board meeting is called and they both realize they’ve been dating the enemy, Janae gives Adam two choices: restore the program or lose her. Adam proposes a third option: one weekend at his cabin to talk it all out—funding the arts, and old feelings too. When her girls cheer her on, Janae must decide if she’s willing to risk it all. Armed with sass, sarcasm, and a suitcase full of emotional baggage, Janae and Adam discover that sometimes love shows up in the most infuriating and unexpectedly sexy ways.

     

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    LaQuette writes sexy, stylish, and sensational romance—the kind of sentimental-and-steamy stories that feel like Hallmark movies… if Hallmark suddenly ramped up the sexy and gave us the hawt love scenes we deserve. Expect big emotions, bold choices, and characters who strut through the pages like the book is their own personal runway. 

    A proud Brooklyn native, she crafts unapologetically bold, character-driven Black and interracial romances where Black women are joy-filled, desired, and absolutely treasured. These women know they belong on the page—and dare you to try telling them otherwise.

    When this current Ph.D. student isn’t writing, reading, or studying, she’s probably trying on (or hunting down) her next must-have makeup find. And honestly? No one would be surprised if it’s yet another shade of red or pink lipstick. At this point, it’s basically a personality trait. 

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Nikki Payne is a Civic anthropologist From Houston, Texas building accessible government services for vulnerable populations, by night she dreams of ways to subvert Canon literature. Hailed as "incandescent" by the Washington Post, Nikki Payne's debut novel Pride and Protest was a Phenomenal Book Club pick And was selected by the Library of Congress to represent the District of Columbia for the National Book Festival. featured in the New York Times, NPR, Elle, Oprah Daily and BuzzFeed, Nikki Payne is writing black women into their happily ever after.

  • Virtual Author Talk: Golden Ax with Rio Cortez & Ariana Brown-September 26 @7PM CST
    Sold out

    Join us as we celebrate the release of Golden Ax with Rio Cortez and poet author, Ariana Brown. 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: September 25 @7PM CST

    Where: Virtual via Crowdcast

    How: Register on this page or head over to register on Crowdcast directly using this link.  If you register using our website (with or without purchasing the book) and not Crowdcast, you will register a Crowdcast watch link at least 24 hours before the start of the event.

    About the Book 

    “Outstanding . . . the poetry in these pages is intelligent, lyrical, as invested in the past as the present and future with witty nods to pop culture.” —Roxane Gay, author of Hunger
     
    “I’ve never read anything like it. Truly a sublime experience.” —Jason Reynolds, author of Ain’t Burned All the Bright

    A groundbreaking collection about Afropioneerism past and present from Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and New York Times bestselling author Rio Cortez

    From a visionary writer praised for her captivating work on Black history and experience, comes a poetry collection exploring personal, political, and artistic frontiers, journeying from her family's history as "Afropioneers" in the American West to shimmering glimpses of transcendent, liberated futures. 
     
    In poems that range from wry, tongue-in-cheek observations about contemporary life to more nuanced meditations on her ancestors—some of the earliest Black pioneers to settle in the western United States after Reconstruction—Golden Ax invites readers to re-imagine the West, Black womanhood, and the legacies that shape and sustain the pursuit of freedom. 

    About the Author 

    Born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, Rio Cortez is the New York Times bestselling author of The ABCs of Black History (Workman, 2020) and I Have Learned to Define a Field As a Space Between Mountains, winner of the 2015 Toi Dericotte and Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. Her honors include a Poets & Writers Amy Award, as well as fellowships from Cave Canem, Canto Mundo, The Jerome Foundation, and Poet’s House. Rio holds an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University.

    About the Conversation Partner

    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 is pursuing an M.L.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.

  • JANUARY 2025: Adult Fiction Book Club - January 30 @ 7PM
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    BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

    When: Thursday, January 30 @ 7 PM CST

    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 Fiction Book Club!

    ABOUT SONG OF SOLOMON

    Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.

  • IRL Author Talk: A Little Kissing Between Friends with Chencia Higgins - May 28 @ 7PM
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    We're celebrating A Little Kissing Between Friends with Chencia Higgins!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Tuesday, May 28 @ 7 PM 

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

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    The NYT-lauded author of D’VAUGHN AND KRIS PLAN A WEDDING is back with another witty and heartfelt novel celebrating unapologetic Black joy in all its forms. This body-positive, friends-to-lovers, lesbian romance tackles weighty topics while never losing that Chencia C. Higgins spark.

    “Triumphantly Black, queer and contemporary… The dialogue snaps and shimmers.” —New York Times Book Review on D’Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding

    Music producer on the rise Cyn Tha Starr knows what she likes, from her sickening beats in the studio to the flirty femmes she fools around with. Her ever-rotating roster has never been a problem until her latest fling clashes with Jucee, her best friend and the most popular dancer at strip club Sanity.

    It makes Cyn see Jucee in a different light. One with far fewer boundaries and a lot more kissing.

    Juleesa Jones makes great money dancing the early shift and spends most evenings with her son, her Sanity family or at Cyn’s house. Relationships are not high on the priority list—until she’s forced to admit that maybe friendship isn’t the only thing she wants from her bestie.

    But hooking up with your ride-or-die is risky. Jucee isn’t just Cyn’s best friend—Jucee is her muse. When Cyn lays down her tracks, it’s Jucee she imagines in the club throwing it back to every note. If they aren’t careful, this could crash and burn…but isn’t real love worth it

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS

    Karmen Lee is a lifelong Southerner living it up in Atlanta, Georgia, with her kid, her cats and the humidity. When not packing lunches or working her nine-to-five, she can be found drinking coffee too late at night, watching House Hunters International and dreaming up ways to show her readers a good time. Find her on Twitter (@author_klee) or Instagram (@authorkarmenlee). 

    Chencia C. Higgins is just a girl from Texas who has made it her mission to create stories in which sassy, southern Black women are loved out loud. In 2019 she won a Romance Slam Jam Emma award for her debut paranormal romance, Janine: His True Alpha. When she isn't hunkered down in her writing cave, Chencia can be found with her nose in a book, saving recipes on Pinterest for things she'll never make, and dreaming about traveling even further south for the winter.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Dear Manny with Nic Stone - March 4 @ 7 PM
    Sold out

    Celebrate the release of Dear Manny with Nic Stone!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Tuesday, March 4 @ 7PM

    Where: The Eldorado Ballroom -The Hogan Brown Gallery (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Dear Martin comes the thrilling final installment of the series, set in college. Jared (white, Justyce's roommate, woke) is running for Junior class president. With his antiracism platform, he's a shoo-in. But he's up against the new girl, Dylan. Will Jared have to choose between his head and his heart?

    Jared Peter Christensen is running for president (of the Junior Class Council at his university, but still). His platform is solid—built on increased equity and inclusion in all sectors of campus life—and he’s got a good chance of beating the deeply conservative business major he’s running against.

    But then a transfer student enters the race and calls Jared out for his big-talk/little-action way of moving. But what’s the right way to bring about change? As the campaign heats up, feelings are caught, and juicy secrets come to light, and Jared writes letters to his deceased friend Manny, hoping to make sense of his confusion. What’s a white boy to do when love and politics collide?

    New York Times bestselling author Nic Stone writes from a new perspective in this exciting final chapter of the Dear Martin series that examines privilege, love, and our political climate.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Nic Stone is the author of many novels, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Dear Martin and its New York Times bestselling sequel, Dear Justyce. She also penned the young adult titles Odd One Out, an NPR Best Book and an ALA Rainbow Book Top Ten, Jackpot, the YALSA Quick Pick Selection that takes a searing look at economic inequality, and Chaos Theory, a Southern Book Prize finalist and a YALSA Best Fiction Book for Young Adults Reading List selection. Her middle-grade novels include Clean Getaway, a New York Times bestseller, and Fast Pitch, a YALSA Quick Pick Selection. Nic lives in Atlanta and will continue to write books that ruffle feathers

    ABOUT CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Britt Hawthorne is a New York Times bestselling author, educator, and advocate for racial justice. Her book Raising Antiracist Children: A Practical Parenting Guide has been widely recognized as an essential resource for parents committed to fostering inclusivity and justice.  She continues to educate and inspire through her forthcoming children's book, Main Street: A Story of Redlining, co-authored with Tiffany Jewell. This powerful story introduces young readers to the history of redlining—a discriminatory housing practice that denied homeownership opportunities to communities of color—helping children understand systemic inequality in an accessible and meaningful way.

    Britt’s impactful work has been featured by PBS, Essence magazine, NPR, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Britt is based in Houston, Texas, and shares her home with her two teenagers and a lively dog named Butter. She remains dedicated to empowering families and educators by leading transformative conversations, sipping coffee, indulging in sweets, or sneaking in a well-earned nap. Learn more about her on Instagram @britthawthorne or at britthawthorne.com.

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