Celebrate the release of Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (or Just Me)?  with Jay Ellis!

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, August 6, 2024 @ 7PM (Doors Open at 6PM)

Where: STAGES (800 Rosine St, HTX, 77019)

How: Grab your ticket today! Each ticket come with a signed copy of Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend (Or Just Me)?: Adventures of Boyhood.  Books will be available for pick up at the event.

*NO REFUNDS*

ABOUT THE BOOK

What to do when you're the perpetual new kid, only child, military brat hustling school-to-school each year and everyone's looking to you for answers? Make some shit up, of course! And a young Jay Ellis does just that, with help from every child's favorite co-conspirator—their imaginary best friend. Born in the perfect storm of especially ferocious rain and a sugar-fueled imagination, Mikey, his imaginary best friend, steps in to figuratively hold Jay's hand through various youthful shenanigans. 

A testament to the importance of imagination, trusting oneself, and making space for your creativity, Did Everyone Have an Imaginary Friend or Just Me? is a story of a 90s kid who confided in his imaginary sidekick to navigate everything from parallel pop culture universes, like watching Fresh Prince alongside John Hughes movies or listening to Ja Rule and Dave Matthews, to a lifetime of birthday disappointment (being a Christmas season Capricorn will do that to you) and hoop dreams gone bad. Mikey also guides him through greater tragedies, like losing his teenage cousin in a mistaken-target driveby and the shame and fear of being pulled over by cops almost a dozen times the year he got his driver's license. 

As imaginary friend morphs into adult consciousness, Ellis charts an unforgettable story of looking within yourself for guidance to some of life’s biggest (and smallest) challenges, told in the roast-you-with-love voice of your closest homie.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Sumter, South Carolina, to a military family, Jay Ellis spent his childhood inventing new personas for every town he landed in. Too many to count. After college, he realized the NBA wasn’t good enough for him and he didn’t want to crush other players’ dreams as he dominated the league so he decided to take his one-man show to Hollywood, where he got his start on BET’s The Game. Now an accomplished actor, philanthropist, and entrepreneur, Ellis is best known for his role as Lawrence on HBO’s Insecure, for which he won an NAACP Image Award. He appeared alongside Tom Cruise, flying jets through the skies, in the Oscar-nominated film in Top Gun: Maverick. When he’s not on set filming he spends the majority of his days cleaning up the messes that his daughter’s imaginary friend “Jack” made. Karma.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Kendrick Sampson is an actor, producer and activist who leverages his platform and storytelling to shift culture for good. 

Growing up in Houston and Missouri aka “Mo City”, Texas, Kendrick Sampson was dropped into a unique and deeply rooted culture of music and art.

His most acclaimed and notable characters from "Nathan" on HBO's Emmy-nominated comedy series, Insecure, to "Ethan" in Prime’s popular romantic comedy Something from Tiffany’s and his personal favorite, the surrealist satire I am a Virgo from Boots Riley - Kendrick has been achieving his lifelong goal of shifting culture through storytelling and uplifting nuanced, diverse, and authentic portrayals of Black men.

He uses his platform to amplify transformational grassroots work in intersectional mental health justice, sexual health and liberation and fighting state violence. Kendrick co-founded BLD PWR which includes a production company and social impact (501c3) arm whose mission is to “Reimagine and Realize the liberated future we know our people deserve” by organizing Hollywood and shifting the culture toward nourishing and protecting nuanced Black, Indigenous, and marginalized leaders and everyday people, especially our storytellers and their stories.

Join us as we celebrate author, Adiba Nelson & the release of Ain't That A Mother!

Event Deets:

When: Wednesday, May 4 at 7:00 pm CST

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

How:  Limited in-person tickets are available.  You have the option to grab a ticket for free or purchase the book and ticket.  Only books purchased at the event will be eligible to be signed by the author.

We hope to see you there!

About the Book

Witty and bold, Afro-Latina Adiba grew up in survival mode. Her sometimes complicated relationship with her strong-willed, vibrant, religious mother marked her views of mothering and love. When a chance encounter with a tall-ish, brown-skinned brotha at Ruby Tuesday's right before closing time collided with a Jill Scott song and the right time of the month, Adiba found herself unexpectedly pregnant. She also found herself unexpectedly falling into the same relationship patterns of the matriarchs before her-the ones she swore she'd never end up in.

Mom to a new baby with high medical needs and a slew of hardships that just didn't seem to quit, she set out on a reckoning that was just as generational as it was personal. Along the way, Adiba never loses her heart or her humor. This is a true love story, but the kind about a woman loving herself enough to change the course of her life for herself, her child, and the women after her as well as before. From pasties to postpartum depression, Ain't That a Mother is not your average motherhood memoir-and Adiba is not your average mother.

The in-between moments and the self-revelations are where this bold and brilliant story of love, family secrets, and lots of "what the…?" really shines. Just like parenting, the story is messy, but the reward is incredibly satisfying.

About the Author

Adiba Nelson writes about inclusion and her life as a Black mother, woman, and daughter. She wrote her 2013 children’s book, Meet ClaraBelle Blue, after searching fruitlessly for a children’s book that adequately and appropriately represented her Afro-Latinx daughter with special needs. The subject of the Emmy Award– winning documentary The Full Nelson, Adiba is a highly acclaimed speaker and in 2017 delivered a TEDx talk to a sold out house on what to do when life throws you a curveball. As the curveballs keep coming, Nelson continues to write.

Join us as we celebrate the release of Black Roses by Harold Green III at the Houston Museum of African American Culture.  

Event Deets:

When: Tuesday, March 22 at 7:00 pm CST

Where: Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC)-4807 Caroline Street, Houston, Texas, 77004

How:   Limited in-person tickets are available.  Book purchase required with entry.

About the Book

Black Roses is a love letter to the underrepresented women that inspire and uplift author and poet, Harold Green III. After going viral on Instagram for these beautiful poems, Green assembled BLACK ROSES, a stunning collection of his odes and artist Melissa Koby’s stunning, full-color illustrations.

With poems on figures such as Ava DuVernay, Janelle Monae, Issa Rae, Kamala Harris, Lizzo, Misty Copeland, Robin Roberts, Roxane Gay, and Simone Biles, BLACK ROSES reflects the diversity of Black female excellence. Divided into five sections—dedicated to advocates, curators, innovators, luminaries, and trailblazers—Green’s odes and Koby’s portraits highlight a range of women.

About the Author

Harold Green III is an ever-evolving and internationally admired artist. Using poetry as his central art form, he is a highly sought-after talent, bandleader, and event producer. He earned the prestigious Carl Sandburg Literary Award for his self-published debut poetry collection From Englewood, with Love. He has created commissioned work in partnership with major brands and organizations, including Nike, Lululemon, Jordan, and Go

About the Moderator

Sherhara Downing the CoFounder and Chief Visionary Officer of SpeakHaus, a training and professional development company dedicated to transforming business and thought leaders into confident and bold speakers. SpeakHaus is the first in the public speaking industry to provide mobile in-person group coaching that goes directly to the homes of leaders, jumpstarting speaking transformation in one workshop.

With over 16 years of coaching and corporate training experience, Sherhara has elevated the speaking skills of leaders from companies like Under Armour, Capital One, Toyota, AT&T and more.

She has a deep passion for facilitating human connection and cultivating community! She loves tacos and remains the world-leading subject matter expert of the cult classic, Coming to America!

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.

Join us along with ACLU Texas and the Houston Public Library in celebrating Barracoon: Adapted for Young Readers: The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"!

EVENT DEETS

When: Saturday, February 3 at 1 PM CST

Where: 500 McKinney Street, HTX, 77002

How: To get your free ticket, please use the following link on the Houston Public Library website. If you would like to donate to support our programming, check out by adding this product to your cart!

ABOUT THE BOOK 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Ibram X. Kendi is a National Book Award–winning and #1 New York Times bestselling author. His books include Antiracist Baby; Goodnight Racism; How to Be an Antiracist; and How to Raise an Antiracist. Kendi is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and the director of the BU Center for Antiracist Research. In 2020, Time magazine named Kendi one of the 100 most influential people in the world. He has also been awarded a 2021 MacArthur Fellowship.

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist. She wrote four novels (Jonah’s Gourd Vine, 1934; Their Eyes Were Watching God, 1937; Moses, Man of the Mountains, 1939; and Seraph on the Suwanee, 1948); two books of folklore (Mules and Men, 1935, and Every Tongue Got to Confess, 2001); a work of anthropological research, (Tell My Horse, 1938); an autobiography (Dust Tracks on a Road, 1942); an international bestselling nonfiction work (Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo,” 2018); and over fifty short stories, essays, and plays. She attended Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University and was a graduate of Barnard College in 1928. She was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

Join us for our monthly adult book club.  Our July pick is Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. 

Book club will happen on Thursday, July 28 at 7:00 pm in our reading garden.  RSVP required.  See ya'll there!

About the Book:

In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett's death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a traditional Caribbean black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking journey Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child, challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their family, and themselves.
 
Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor's true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right?” Will their mother's revelations bring them back together or leave them feeling more lost than ever? 

Charmaine Wilkerson's debut novel is a story of how the inheritance of betrayals, secrets, memories, and even names, can shape relationships and history. Deeply evocative and beautifully written, Black Cake is an extraordinary journey through the life of a family changed forever by the choices of its matriarch.

Registration is closed via our website, but please register directly via Crowdcast

ORDER South to America here for an exclusive signed copy!

We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, Gone with the Wind, the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge. In SOUTH TO AMERICA: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation, one of our most important thinkers and critics, acclaimed author Imani Perry tackles her most ambitious project yet, moving across the color line to grapple with the mix of intimacy and racial violence in Southern and American history, showing that what it means to be American is inextricably linked with the South.  

Imani Perry will be in conversation with Dr. Melanye Price of Prairie View University

Event Details

When: Tuesday, February 1 @ 6:30 PM CST

Where: Virtual via Crowdcast

How:  Register here or on Crowdcast.  Although the event is free, we encourage you to support our store and future programming by purchasing the book here.

About the Author: 

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University where she also teaches in Gender and Sexuality Studies, Law and Public Affairs and Jazz Studies. She has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D in the history of American civilization from Harvard University. Perry is the author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, winner of the Bograd-Weld Biography Prize of 2019 from the Pen America Foundation. She is also the author of Breathe: A Letter to My Sons, Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation, and May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem, which was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Nonfiction. Perry, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, who grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Chicago, lives outside of Philadelphia with her two sons.

About the Moderator:

Dr. Melanye Price is Endowed Professor of Political Science at Prairie View A&M University and principle investigator for their African American Studies Initiative, which is funded by grants and gifts from the Mellon Foundation. Her research/teaching interests include black politics, public opinion, political rhetoric, and social movements. Her most recent book, The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race (NYU, 2016) examines the multiple and strategic ways that President Obama uses race to deflect negative racial attitudes and engage with a large cross-section of voters. Her first book, Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African American Public Opinion (NYU, 2009) examined contemporary support for Black Nationalism. Her new project is called “Mountaintop Removal: Martin Luther King, Trump and the Racial Mountain,” which uses MLK’s “Mountaintop Speech” as a lens for understanding the rise of Trump and the 2016 election.

Join us as we examine the intersection of Black feminist politics and public housing with author Dr. Akira Drake Rodriguez and Josie Pickens!

EVENT DEETS:

When: Wednesday, April 6 at 7:00 PM 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.

We hope you can join us!

ABOUT THE BOOK:

This book explores the often-overlooked positive role of public housing in facilitating social movements and activism. Taking a political, social, and spatial perspective, the author offers Atlanta as a case study. Akira Drake Rodriguez shows that the decline in support for public housing, often touted as a positive (neoliberal) development, has negative consequences for social justice and nascent activism, especially among Black women. Urban revitalization policies target public housing residents by demolishing public housing towers and dispersing poor (Black) residents into new, deconcentrated spaces in the city via housing choice vouchers and other housing-based tools of economic and urban development.

Diverging Space for Deviants establishes alternative functions for public housing developments that would necessitate their existence in any city. In addition to providing affordable housing for low-income residents—a necessity as wealth inequality in cities increases—public housing developments function as a necessary political space in the city, one of the last remaining frontiers for citizens to engage in inclusive political activity and make claims on the changing face of the state.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

AKIRA DRAKE RODRIGUEZ is an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Weitzman School of Design. She received her PhD from the Edward J. Bloustein School of Urban Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.  She has a MPA from the Fels Institute at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  Her husband Ruben and her son Jack keep her laughing in their home in Philadelphia.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:

Josie Pickens is a womanist and abolitionist professor, organizer, writer and thought leader. In addition to speaking and writing about topics that focus on the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality, Josie is also the program director for upEND Movement, which is an organization committed to abolishing the the child welfare system. Connect with Josie and follow her musings on Twitter and Instagram at @jonubian.

Join us as we celebrate the release of God is a Black Woman by Dr. Christena Cleveland.

God Is a Black Woman presents a powerful critique of a society shaped by white patriarchal Christianity and culture. Cleveland reveals how America’s collective idea of God as a white man has perpetuated hurt, hopelessness, and racial and gender oppression. Integrating womanist ideology, and theological, historical, and social science research, she invites readers to take seriously the truth that God is not white nor male and points to a new path for connecting with the divine and honoring the sacredness of all Black people.

Christena Cleveland Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal as well as its sister organization, Sacred Folk, which creates resources to stimulate people’s spiritual imaginations and support their journeys toward liberation. An award-winning researcher and. An award-winning researcher and a former professor at Duke University’s Divinity School, Christena’s work has appeared in magazines ranging from Essence to Christianity Today. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts. 

EVENT DEETS:

When: Friday, February 11 at 6:30 PM CST

Where: Virtual via Crowdcast.  You can register using this event page or directly through Crowdcast.

How:  Registration is required.  You can RSVP with a book purchase or without a book purchase.  We appreciate your support of our store by purchasing the book with us.  This empowers us to continue bringing amazing author programming to Houston and beyond.