Celebrate the release of Nasty Work with Ericka Hart!

EVENT DEETS

When: Thursday, April 16 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (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.

Please note outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and you will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must buy a book from Kindred Stories.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When you think about sex ed, your mind likely goes back to those uncomfortable school desks and the stifled laughs of your teenage years. But what we’ve been socialized to believe about sexuality actually hinders our own pleasure well into adulthood. Whether we know it or not, even the most progressive among us are often using 400-year-old inherited thoughts and belief systems in the twenty-first century. Why are we still carrying forth these ancient values that have never served the vast majority? 

As a Black, queer, non-binary, disabled femme, Ericka Hart believes that sex ed done right can actually be a tool for liberation. In Nasty Work, she breaks down the ways that social implications keep us from experiencing pleasure, particularly for marginalized communities across race, gender, sexuality, and ability, and how we can dismantle these oppressive myths. From examining what guides our attraction to others to the history of consent, Ericka Hart takes the blinders off and reveals a more empowering view of sex and sexuality.

Nasty Work blends eye-opening research with powerful, poignant personal narrative that disrupts everything you thought you knew about sex and society; offering a liberatory framework that makes pleasure accessible for all.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ericka Hart, M.Ed. (she/they) has been teaching comprehensive, trauma informed, consent- and pleasure-based sex ed at the elementary, high school, undergraduate and graduate levels for the past 15 years and is now the founder of her own sexuality education training program, Sex Ed as Resistance. She is the co-host of the critically acclaimed podcast, Hoodrat to Headwrap with her partner Ebony and is mom to East Francis Coltrane (and cockapoo Baguette).

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. Laymon is the author of Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for fiction, and the essay collection, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, named a notable book of 2021 by the New York Times critics. 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 Barnes and Noble Discovery Award, 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 based out of the Margaret Walker Center at Jackson State University, aimed at aiding young people in Jackson get more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing on their on their own terms, in their own communities. He is the co-host of Reckon True Stories with Deesha Philyaw. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

A rich and layered photographic exploration of the people and places that influenced Raven Jackson’s directorial debut film, Stories From a Place Where All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, the companion book features lyrical writing, evocative photos, and contributions from voices that speak to the film’s quiet yet powerful themes and the rural Southern setting. Also includes the full script and incredible photography captured during the production. Includes a foreword by Kasi Lemmons; poetry by Alice Walker, Tracy K. Smith, Lucille Clifton, and Reginald Helms Jr.; essays and words by Sheila Atim, Kiese Laymon, Charleen McClure, Pamela Shepard, and many others; and an afterword by Marwa Helal.

A guide to the art of journaling—and a meditation on the central questions of life—by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more

“The Book of Alchemy proves on every page that a creative response can be found in every moment of life—regardless of what is happening in the world.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love

From the time she was young, Suleika Jaouad has kept a journal. She’s used it to mark life's biggest occasions and to weather its most ferocious storms. Journaling has buoyed her through illness, heartbreak, and the deepest uncertainty. And she is not alone: for so many people, keeping a journal is an essential tool for navigating both the personal peaks and valleys and the collective challenges of modern life. More than ever, we need a space for puzzling through.

In The Book of Alchemy, Suleika explores the art of journaling and shares everything she's learned about how this life-altering practice can help us tap into that mystical trait that exists in every human: creativity. She has gathered wisdom from one hundred writers, artists, and thinkers in the form of essays and writing prompts.Their insights invite us to inhabit a more inspired life.

A companion through challenging times, The Book of Alchemy is broken into themes ranging from new beginnings to love, loss, and rebuilding. Whether you’re a lifelong journaler or new to the practice, this book gives you the tools, direction, and encouragement to engage with discomfort, ask questions, peel back the layers, dream daringly, uncover your truest self—and in doing so, to learn to hold the unbearably brutal and astonishingly beautiful facts of life in the same palm.

Also includes essays from: Martha Beck • Nadia Bolz-Weber • Alain de Botton • Susan Cheever • Lena Dunham • Melissa Febos • Liana Finck • John Green • Marie Howe • Pico Iyer • Oliver Jeffers • Quintin Jones • Michael Koryta • Hanif Kureishi • Kiese Laymon • Cleyvis Natera • Ann Patchett • Esther Perel • Adrienne Raphel • Jenny Rosenstrach • Sarah Ruhl • Sharon Salzberg • Dani Shapiro • Mavis Staples • Linda Sue Park • Nafissa Thompson-Spires • Jia Tolentino • Lindy West • Lidia Yuknavitch • And many others

*Ships/ready for pick up in 5-8 business days*

This celebration of Black resistance, from protests to art to sermons to joy, offers a blueprint for the fight for freedom and justice -- and ideas for how each of us can contribute

Many of us are facing unprecedented attacks on our democracy, our privacy, and our hard-won civil rights. If you're Black in the US, this is not new. As Colorlines editors Akiba Solomon and Kenrya Rankin show, Black Americans subvert and resist life-threatening forces as a matter of course. In these pages, leading organizers, artists, journalists, comedians, and filmmakers offer wisdom on how they fight White supremacy. It's a must-read for anyone new to resistance work, and for the next generation of leaders building a better future.

Featuring contributions from:

• Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tarana Burke
• Harry Belafonte
• Adrienne Maree brown
• Alicia Garza
• Patrisse Khan-Cullors
• Reverend Dr. Valerie Bridgeman
• Kiese Laymon
• Jamilah Lemieux
• Robin DG Kelley
• Damon Young
• Michael Arceneaux
• Hanif Abdurraqib
  
• Dr. Yaba Blay
  
• Diamond Stingily
  
• Amanda Seales
• Imani Perry
  
• Denene Millner
  
• Kierna Mayo
  
• John Jennings
  
• Dr. Joy Harden Bradford
  
• Tongo Eisen-Martin

Celebrate the release of Good Morning Means I Love You with Kendra Allen!

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, July 7 @ 7PM CST

Where: Kindred Stories (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.

Please note outside copies of the book will not be allowed in the bookstore and you will not be eligible for the signing/photo line. You must buy a book from Kindred Stories.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A couple years after Noon and I fall in love, we fall in love with Micah—and a couple years after that, I have both of their babies. We choose, this land and this life. We share, ourselves and our sons. We name them, Morning and Night.”

In her arresting first novel, Kendra Allen investigates love, partnership, motherhood, pleasure and the pursuit of freedom in one young woman’s defiantly unconventional terms. Rae has just returned to her family after leaving for a stretch and suddenly – that family being her two male partners and the sons, named Morning and Night, that she has mothered with each of them. In the span of one year, they will experience unfathomable depths of devastation—and joys they could never predict.

Good Morning Means I Love You follows Rae as she makes choices around sex, mothering, and partnership that are as stunning to everyone else as they are natural to herself. With pain and pleasure, she watches as her children learn to walk and give language to the world as her lovers contend with their own ideas of masculinity, personhood, and fatherhood. Along the way, Rae begins to understand the hardest and most beautiful truth: that we have only so much time on earth to make love, to make family, and to make good on the promise of this one, short life.
This is a novel of the self in all its simultaneities and a living portrait of intimacy written in poetic, bold, and sensual prose that shines a light on what it means to redefine expectation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kendra Allen is the author of the memoir Fruit Punch, the poetry collection The Collection Plate, and the essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction, awarded by Kiese Laymon. She writes to music column “Make Love in My Car” for Southwest Review. She was born and raised in Dallas. 

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Kamisha Escoto, PhD, is a Lecturer at Rice University who teaches graduate students how to communicate complex ideas clearly through writing. By day, she works in engineering communication; outside the classroom, she's an avid reader who views fiction as a way to explore the human side of how we think and relate to one another. She enjoys literary fiction and is especially drawn to stories about friendship, identity, and emotional ambiguity. A native Houstonian, she reads widely across genres with her son (and often aloud to her dog). 

We're meeting to discuss You've Got a Place Here, Too edited by Ebony LaDelle!

BOOK CLUB MEETING DEETS

When: Tuesday, September 9 @ 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP ONLY to let us know you plan to attend! Support the Romance Book Club by purchasing a copy of the book from Kindred Stories here!

ABOUT You've Got a Place Here, Too: An Anthology of Black Love Stories Set at HBCUs

A heartwarming and unforgettable collection of love stories set at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, exploring hope, endurance, and what it means to leave a legacy, from some of today’s most prominent Black writers and edited by the acclaimed author of Love Radio

Love can be messy, painful, and heartbreaking, but it can also be revolutionary, profound, and hopeful. For Celine, a forbidden crush on a professor evolves into a second chance at romance years later. Myra’s focus on a coveted audition for the Fisk Jubilee Singers is challenged by the handsome music major determined to help her. Kiese investigates the darker side to academia, love, and identity. Like most blessings, love emerges in the most unexpected places—in a training cockpit for new pilots, during a Mardi Gras celebration, or while gathering signatures to start the first-ever LGBTQ+ student organization officially recognized at an HBCU.

These are just a few of the heart-searing, tender, and transporting love stories collected in You’ve Got a Place Here, Too—a true celebration of Black love and the profound impact of HBCUs on the community.

Featuring stories by Elizabeth Acevedo, Jasmine Bell, Carla Bruce, Aaron Foley, Kai Harris, Ebony LaDelle, Kiese Laymon, Christine Platt, Farrah Rochon, Kennedy Ryan, Dawnie Walton, and Nicola Yoon.

Celebrate the release of The Waterbearers : A Memoir of Mothers and Daughters with Sasha Bonet!

EVENT DEETS

When: Tuesday, September 23 @ 7PM

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

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

Note: Outside copies of The Waterbearers will not be allowed in the venue. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

A sweeping narrative of the unique beauty and trials of Black matriarchy in America that weaves a sharp, tender examination of three single Black mothers—the author's grandmother, mother, and the author herself—with stories of influential Black women in our culture

"Bonét tells the whole history of this country through the relationships of and between Black mothers and daughters."—Imani Perry, National Book Award-winning author of South to America

“Bonét dances on our hearts in this classic creation of will and wit. Electrifying... Wow.”—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir

Betty Jean, the author’s grandmother, had a house along a bayou in Texas, a home paid for and run without a man by her side. This home served as the center of Bonét’s family’s universe, the one place that was a constant through all of life’s changes.

Mama Connie, one of Betty Jean’s eleven children, vowed that her life would be different. And in many ways it was: she got married, lived in suburbia, and built a life resembling the American dream. But when it came to raising children of her own, she was more like Betty Jean than she cared to admit. But, like her mother before her, Connie’s sweat was the founding salt of her own universe.

Today, Sasha Bonét navigates all aspects of being a mother—escape, promise, burden, assent, and rebellion—not just for the women in her family who came before her, but for Black women with whom society is acquainted, too: figures like Nina Simone, Betty Davis, and Darnella Frazier, who filmed the murder of George Floyd.

Generations of Black women have borne children, borne the burdens of events untold, and borne witness to unspeakable trials. The Waterbearers carries this history, its fierce eloquence capturing a masterpiece of life written by an author who is intimately acquainted with how Black women have passed down knowledge and culture. Sasha Bonét doesn’t just present genealogical lineages but illuminates the cultural and societal connections of strong Black women who have built legacies and changed the world, sometimes in the most mundane of moments. The fierce eloquence of this story confirms Sasha Bonét as a voice we all now need to hear.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SASHA BONÉT is a writer and cultural critic based in New York City. Her criticism and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Aperture, New York Magazine, Vogue, and BOMB, among other publications. Bonét is a professor of creative writing for Columbia University and Barnard College.

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Amarie Gipson is a Houston-born writer, editor and cultural worker. She has held curatorial positions at various art institutions, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Independently, her writing has been published in ARTS.BLACK, Artforum, ArtNews, ESSENCE, Oxford American and many others. She previously held editor positions at Houstonia and Atlanta-based arts criticism publication Burnaway. In 2024, she was awarded the AICA-USA's Irving Sandler Award for New Voices in Art Criticism. Gipson is the Founder and Director of The Reading Room, an independent reference library dedicated to increasing access to Black art and culture through literature, print media and community engagement. Located in downtown Houston, The Reading Room hosts curated events, including artist talks, film screenings, and interactive workshops, all designed to foster a deeper connection to the library’s growing collection of over 700 books.