Celebrate the paperwork release of Death Doula, Alua Arthur's book, Briefly Perfectly Human! 

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, April 29 @ 7PM

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

How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy of Briefly Perfectly Human. If you already have a hardcover copy of Briefly Perfectly Human and you would like to get your book signed, please use the RSVP WITH SIGNING option. 

Note: There are limited RSVP ONLY tickets. Please be sure that you can attend before checking out. Additionally, paperback copies of Briefly Perfectly Human will not be allowed in the venue. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

 For her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

New York Times bestselling author Alua Arthur is the most visible and active death doula working in America today. She is a recovering attorney and the founder of Going with Grace, a death doula training and end-of-life planning organization. Her TED Talk titled, “Why Thinking About Death Helps You Live a Better Life,” went online in July 2023 and has already received 1.5 million views. A frequent guest on TV and radio, Arthur has been featured on CBS’s The Doctors and in Disney's Limitless docu-series with Chris Hemsworth, as well as in national print media outlets, such as Vogue, InStyle, the Los Angeles Times, The Cut, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. International newspaper features on Arthur include Brazil’s Estadão and Norway’s Årets Avis. She has appeared on dozens of podcasts, and a Refinery29 video feature on Arthur and her work received ten million views across social platforms. She travels the country and world as a keynote speaker, addressing audiences of several hundred to several thousand people at medical and end-of-life conferences, universities, seminaries, senior citizens’ communities, and more.

A critical collection of conversations with Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones and other Black women writers that changed the scope of Black literature in the 20th century and beyond.

“Black women writers and critics are acting on the old adage that one must speak for oneself if one wishes to be heard.” —Claudia Tate, from the introduction

Long out of print, Black Women Writers at Work is a vital contribution to Black literature in the 20th century. 

Through candid interviews with Maya Angelou, Toni Cade Bambara, Gwendolyn Brooks, Alexis De Veaux, Nikki Giovanni, Kristin Hunter, Gayl Jones, Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, Sonia Sanchez, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Margaret Walker, and Sherley Anne Williams, the book highlights the practices and critical linkages between the work and lived experiences of Black women writers whose work laid the foundation for many who have come after.

Responding to questions about why and for whom they write, and how they perceive their responsibility to their work, to others, and to society, the featured playwrights, poets, novelists, and essayists provide a window into the connections between their lives and their art.

Finally available for a new generation, this classic work has an urgent message for readers and writers today.

Celebrate the release of Bringing Wreck with Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, in partnership with The Eldorado Ballroom!

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, October 18 @ 6 PM CST

Where: 2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004

How: 

• RSVP ONLY to reserve your seat.
• RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and purchase a copy of Bringing Wreck, supporting both the author and our store programming. The book will be available for pickup at the event.

Please Note: Books purchased from other retailers are not permitted in the bookstore and are not eligible for the signing or photo line. To participate in the signing and photo opportunity, you must either purchase a copy from Kindred Stories or select the RSVP: I Already Have the Book ticket option, which allows you to bring a copy purchased elsewhere. If you already purchased your book from Kindred Stories, you may select the RSVP Only ticket option and bring your Kindred Stories copy to 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 your book is not retrieved it will be returned to the publisher and will not be available for pick up in the future.

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley is Professor and Chair of Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her books include The Color Pynk: Black Femme Art for Survival (2022), Beyoncé in Formation: Remixing Black Feminism (2018), Ezili’s Mirrors: Imagining Black Queer Genders (2018), and Thiefing Sugar: Eroticism Between Women in Caribbean Literature (2010).

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

After decades out of print, Passion—one of June Jordan’s most important collections—has returned to readers. Originally entitled, passion: new poems, 1977-1980, this volume holds key works including “Poem About My Rights,” “Poem About Police Violence,” “Free Flight,” and an essay by the poet, “For the Sake of the People’s Poetry: Walt Whitman and the Rest of Us.” June Jordan was a fierce advocate for the safety and humanity of women and Black people, and for the freedom of all people—and Barack Obama made a line from this book famous: “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” With love and humor, via lyrics and rants, she calls for nothing less than radical compassion. This new edition includes a foreword by Nicole Sealey.

This Library of America volume, with its companion, brings together for the first time all of the best writing of Zora Neale Hurston, one of the most significant twentieth-century American writers, in one authoritative set.

“Folklore is the arts of the people,” Hurston wrote, “before they find out that there is any such thing as art.” A pioneer of African-American ethnography who did graduate study in anthropology with the renowned Franz Boas, Hurston devoted herself to preserving the black folk heritage. In Mules and Men (1935), the first book of African-American folklore written by an African American, she returned to her native Florida and to New Orleans to record stories and sermons, blues and work songs, children’s games, courtship rituals, and formulas of voodoo doctors. This classic work is presented here with the original illustrations by the great Mexican artist Miguel Covarrubias.

Tell My Horse (1938), part ethnography, part travel book, vividly recounts the survival of African religion in Jamaican obeah and Haitian voodoo in the 1930s. Keenly alert to political and intellectual currents, Hurston went beyond superficial exoticism to explore the role of these religious systems in their societies. The text is illustrated by twenty-six photographs, many of them taken by Hurston. Her extensive transcriptions of Creole songs are here accompanied by new translations.

A special feature of this volume is Hurston’s controversial 1942 autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. With consultation by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., it is presented here for the first time as she intended, restoring passages omitted by the original because of political controversy, sexual candor, or fear of libel. Included in an appendix are four additional chapters, one never published, which represent earlier stages of Hurston’s conception of the book.

Twenty-two essays, from “The Eatonville Anthology” (1926) to “Court Order Can’t Make Races Mix” (1955), demonstrate the range of Hurston’s concerns as they cover subjects from religion, music, and Harlem slang to Jim Crow and American democracy.

The chronology of Hurston’s life prepared for this edition sheds fresh light on many aspects of her career. In addition, this volume contains detailed notes and a brief essay on the texts.

LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.

Join us for this epic party in celebration of Our Vicious Oaths with N. E. Davenport and special guest Gabi Burton! 

Don't forget your most enchanting Fae attire to compete for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place Best Dressed prizes. (Costumes are optional)

EVENT DEETS

When: Monday, October 27 @ 9PM

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

How:  RSVP to reserve your spot.

RSVP Includes:

• Signed Book 
• Author Talk and Signing 
• Exclusive Art Print
• Cocktails and Light Bites

*If you Pre- Ordered Oath Vicious Oaths from Kindred Stories, there is a special discount ticket price. You must provide your order # in the notes of the order. Make sure to check out using the same email as your Pre-Order. This Ticket can only be used for the same # of books you purchased in your PRE-ORDER. (Ex. 1 Book -1 RSVP). If order # is not included your order will be rejected. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Enter a new world of romantic fantasy from award-winning author N.E. Davenport—a journey of powerful magic, enemies-to-lovers, and political intrigue—as a warrior-princess and a vengeful king from rival fae courts form a fierce alliance to take down a merciless despot.

Princess of the Aether Dominion, Kadeesha wants nothing to do with fae politics. She is a warrior, first and foremost, and believes her greatest strength is leading her squadron of elite winged serpent flyers to protect her homeland. But bound since infancy to be betrothed to the Hyperion High King, ruler of all Dominions, she has no choice but to do what men have chosen for her.

Repulsed by the idea, she decides to spend one last night of freedom—in the arms of a dangerous stranger who takes her to sexual heights she’s never experienced before…but who is only using Kadeesha to set a trap for the High King.

For the High King and the kings of his six Dominions were responsible for the decimation of the Apollyon Court, and its new king, Malachi, wants his pounds of flesh.

On Kadeesha’s wedding day, Malachi and his special forces attack. Her father is killed, and Malachi wounds the High King, ultimately taking Kadeesha as hostage back to his land.

But she is no true hostage. The two form a pact: she will help lure the High King so Malachi can kill him once and for all, and he in turn will not harm Kadeesha or the Aether people. And as much as Kadeesha hates politics, she is now the Queen of her folk. Fae bonds are unbreakable…and so, perhaps, is the attraction Kadeesha and Malachi feel for each other. For even as they must publicly display their connection to provoke the High King’s jealousy, they struggle to resist the powerful allure between them in order to achieve their ultimate goals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

N.E. Davenport attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre. She has an M.A. in Secondary Education, and she teaches English and Biology. She is also the author of Out of Body and the adult sci-fi novel The Blood Trials and The Blood Gift. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and is a huge foodie. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids. You can find her online at www.nedavenport.com, on Twitter @nia_davenport, or on Instagram @nia.davenport.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Gabi Burton is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Sing Me to Sleep and Drown Me with Dreams. She grew up reading and writing in St. Louis, Missouri. She majored in English and Government at Bowdoin College. When she’s not working or writing, she’s probably watching Netflix, mindlessly scrolling on Tiktok, or finding beautiful places to walk—preferably near a body of water.