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.

Join us for our month bookclub meeting. April is Poetry Month and we're reading Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves, a National Book Award Winner. 

Please support the space and opportunities we create by purchasing your book from our store. 

Our meeting will be on Thursday, April 27, 2023 in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read). 

Order copies of Who Are Your People an exclusive signed book plate here!

WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE? is a tribute to community—it takes a village to raise a child, and we stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Sellers, New York Times bestselling author of My Vanishing Country, takes readers on a journey from cotton fields to sit-ins to the present day through the eyes of a young father and his children in this powerful picture book with illustrations from Reggie Brown.

This event is presented in partnership with the Emancipation Park Conservancy.

Event Deets:

When: Wednesday, January 19 at 6 pm CT/ 7 pm ET

Where: Virtual (watch link will be sent no more than 24 hours prior to the start of the event)

How:  Registration is required.  You have the option to get a free ticket or a ticket that includes one signed copy of the book.  

We hope you can join us!

About the Author:

ABOUT BAKARI SELLERS:

Bakari Sellers made history in 2006 when, at just 22 years old, he defeated a 26-year incumbent state representative to become the youngest member of the South Carolina state legislature and the youngest African American elected official in the nation. In 2010 he was named to TIME’s 40 Under 40 list. In 2014 and 2015 he was named to The Root’s 100 Most Influential African Americans list. Sellers is the author of the New York Times bestseller My Vanishing Country and recently expanded his audience with the Bakari Sellers Podcast in collaboration with The Ringer and Spotify. He practices law with the Strom Law Firm, LLC, in Columbia, SC, and is a political commentator at CNN.

About The Emancipation Park Conservancy:

Emancipation Park Conservancy is a non-profit 501 c3 charitable corporation established in 2014 to restore, manage, and enhance Emancipation Park. Its purpose is to create an open space of environmental and community excellence while continuing to preserve the integrity and historical roots of the park. Its goal is to transform the park into one of the nation's premier landmark parks and international destinations through capital initiatives, operational improvements, strategic partnerships, programming and events.

Book Club Meeting DEETS

When: Tuesday, November 19 @ 7PM

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend or RSVP WITH BOOK to support Non Fiction Book Club and our other programming. 

About We Refuse 

Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” In We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women.  
 
The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. 
 
Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation.

Please join us as we celebrate author, Marcus Bridgewater on his debut, How to Grow!

Event Deets: 

When: Wednesday, May 25, 2022 at 7 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 you can join us!

About the Book: 

In this transformative guide, TikTok’s most popular gardener, Marcus Bridgewater—aka Garden Marcus—offers lessons for growth rooted in lessons from the plant world to help cultivate the soul.

Centered on a trinity of wellbeing—Mental Health, Physical Fitness, and Spiritual Awareness, How to Grow weaves together insights from the garden with stories from Marcus’s life to help you foster personal development. With lessons rooted in his experiences gardening—from how a replanted flourishing sweet potato vine is a reminder that all living things benefit from a change of scene, to how to embrace patience to foster growth—this inspiring guide helps you do “the dirty work” (pun intended) to discover kindness, patience, and positivity within. “We cannot make anything grow,” he advises. “But we can foster an environment where it may grow.”

How to Grow isn’t a gardening book. It is a self-help book that draws inspiration from the garden. Original, timely, and filled with nurturing wisdom, it takes perennial knowledge from plants to teach us about ourselves and opens our eyes to what we are capable of achieving.

About the Author

Marcus Bridgewater is a creator, educator, motivational speaker, and plant enthusiast. He is the personality behind Garden Marcus on social media, which demonstrates that a positive, knowledgeable approach to nurturing plants also helps us grow as people. He is the Founder & CEO of Choice Forward, a company that offers life coaching, seminars, and workshops.

About the Moderator

Brittany, creator of Foliage Faerie, operates a small batch, pop-up plant apothecary and nursery. Foliage Faerie was birthed during the pandemic on May 7, 2020 while having her first mother's day pop-up on her front porch when she was a resident in The Young Mother's Residential Program at Project Row Houses.  Plants were just a hobby until realizing that the life cycles of plants, nurturing plants, growing plants, was a reflection of the birthing cycle, physical and metaphysical. It was important to share the similarities within these life cycles as she is a birth worker (doula) as well. Indoor gardening had become a self care/ spiritual practice of hers and she has created a workshop, "Indoor Gardening as a Spiritual Practice" that assists with plant enthusiasts/parents connecting to self and nature though the nurturing of indoor plants. You can find Foliage Faerie on Instagram @foliagefaerie and her website www.foliagefaerie.cm

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?

Register at https://www.crowdcast.io/e/an-evening-with-zora

We're celebrating the release of the boxed set of Zora Neale Hurston's collection of works, all with reimagined covers illustrated by incredible Black artists, and her newest release of essays, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays.

NYT bestselling author, Morgan Jerkins, will moderate a conversation with Lucy Ann Hurston (scholar and niece of Zora Neale Hurston), Patrick Dougher (cover artist for Their Eyes Were Watching God), and Genevieve West (co-editor of You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays).

About the Boxed Set:

Available for the first time, this amazing boxed set includes 10 repackaged Zora Neale Hurston classics--each with a newly imagined cover by a popular contemporary Black artist. It's a beautifully-imaged package at a very affordable price point.

Cover artists are: Charly Palmer, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jerome Lagarrigue, Patrick Dougher, Diana Ejaita, Jeff Manning, Samira Addo, Terry Lynn, Jamilla Okubo, and Tizta Berhanu.

Books included in the set:

• Dust Tracks on a Road
• Jonah's Gourd Vine
• Mules and Men
• Tell My Horse
• The Complete Stories
• Every Tongue Got to Confess
• Moses, Man of the Mountain
• Seraph on the Suwanee
• Mule Bone
• Their Eyes Were Watching God

About You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays:

Spanning more than 35 years of work, the first comprehensive collection of essays, criticism, and articles by the legendary author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, showcasing the evolution of her distinctive style as an archivist and author.

“One of the greatest writers of our time.”—Toni Morrison

One of the most acclaimed artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston was a gifted novelist, playwright, and essayist. Drawn from three decades of her work, this anthology showcases her development as a writer, from her early pieces expounding on the beauty and precision of African American art to some of her final published works, covering the sensational trial of Ruby McCollum, a wealthy Black woman convicted in 1952 for killing a white doctor. Among the selections are Hurston’s well-known works such as “How It Feels to be Colored Me” and “My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience.” 

The essays in this essential collection are grouped thematically and cover a panoply of topics, including politics, race and gender, and folkloric study from the height of the Harlem Renaissance to the early years of the Civil Rights movement. Demonstrating the breadth of this revered and influential writer’s work, You Don't Know Us Negroes and Other Essays is an invaluable chronicle of a writer’s development and a window into her world and time.

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.

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.