Event Details:

When: Friday, September 17 at 7:00 PM CST

Where: The Fountain of Praise, 13950 Hillcroft Ave, Houston, TX 77085

How:  Ticket required for entry.  Every ticket includes a copy of Gabrielle Union’s book, You Got Anything Stronger?, which will be available for pick-up when checking in at the venue. 

Cost: $35 via Eventbrite (includes book)

We hope to see you there!

About the Book:

Over the years Gabrielle Union has been a tireless advocate for the marginalized and the victimized, and fans around the world have watched her both on and off-screen stand up to and speak out against injustice, in its myriad forms. 

With her newest book, You Got Anything Stronger?, Gabrielle is at her most vulnerable. Life happens with all its plot twists, and Gabrielle is opening up about everything from her surrogacy journey to navigating married life to aging and leveling up in your career. This will be a memorable evening of conversation that will leave guests feeling empowered and inspired. 

About the Author:

Gabrielle Union is an actress, executive producer, activist, best-selling author and most recently, a Time100 cover honoree. Union formed her production shingle “I’ll Have Another” in 2018 with the goal of telling stories that center marginalized communities with their specific point of views in an authentic manner. In August of 2020, she relaunched her haircare brand “Flawless by Gabrielle Union” for women with textured hair. The new and improved collection includes an array of options, affordably priced between $4 - $10, that empowers consumers to customize a regimen specific to their texture and style preferences. Prior to relaunching Flawless, Union learned of the disparities in the food space and joined Bitsy's as a cofounder with the goal of making healthy, allergen-friendly, school-safe snacks that are accessible and affordable for all families regardless of their socioeconomic or geographical status. Her first book, We’re Going To Need More Wine: Stories That Are Funny, Complicated and True, was released in 2017 and instantly became a New York Times bestseller. Union serves as a leader and advocate for inclusion in the entertainment industry. She is also a champion of breast health and combating sexual violence.

Event guidelines subject to change.

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!

Order copies of Fly by Brittany Thurman here!

Grab your little ones and join us for a fun author chat as we reminiscence on a favorite Black girl magic pastime - double dutch!  In Fly, Africa decides to compete in a Double Dutch competition despite never having jumped in one before, she'll have to learn the winning moves, but it's the birthmark in the shape of her name that tells her she's always been a winner.

 EVENT DEETS:

When: Wednesday, March 16 at 6:30 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:

When Africa decides to compete in a Double Dutch competition despite never having jumped in one before, she'll have to learn the winning moves, but it's the birthmark in the shape of her name that tells her she's always been a winner.

Africa doesn't hesitate to train for a competition. She asks for help from her female friends who give her all sorts of useful advice and train with her. This book is perfect for anyone looking to surround young readers with stories of confident and successful African American girls.

Africa is inspired by the memory of her grandmother's achievements to help her on her own quest.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Brittany Thurman is the author of Fly from Caitlyn Dlouhy Books. As a former children’s library specialist and museum educator, Brittany is dedicated to ensuring children's literature truthfully reflects the world in which we live. Brittany is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University where she studied Dramatic Writing, and Kingston University (London, England) where she studied theater. Her plays have been produced in Aspen, Colorado and on New York City's Theater Row.

Her forthcoming title includes FEARLESS: BOULEVARD OF DREAMS, by Mandy Gonzalez, co-written by Brittany J. Thurman, FOREVER AND ALWAYS, illustrated by Shamar Knight-Justice (Winter, 2024; Greenwillow/Harpercollins) and THE FIRST LIBRARY: THE STORY OF THE FIRST LIBRARY BY AND FOR BLACK AMERICA (2024, Clarion/HarperCollins).

ABOUT THE MODERATOR:

Joy Sewing has always had a way with words and becoming a journalist was a childhood dream. In August 2020, she was named Houston Chronicle’s Lifestyle and Culture Columnist and previously was the fashion and beauty editor. She has worked at the Kansas City Star, New York Post and has written regularly for Money, People, Vibe, Shape, Time, Town & Country, and other magazines. She has interviewed hundreds of famous faces, from Oscar de la Renta to Houston’s own Beyoncé Knowles.

EVENT DEETS

When: Sunday, April 23, 2023 at 5PM CST

Where: Hogan Brown Gallery (2310 Elgin St, Houston, TX 77004)

How: RSVP ONLY for TICKET or RSVP WITH BOOK to get your copy of THE HOUSE OF EVE!

ABOUT THE BOOK

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sadeqa Johnson is the award-winning author of four novels, including Yellow Wife. Her accolades include the National Book Club Award, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the USA Best Book Award for Best Fiction. She is a Kimbilio Fellow, former board member of the James River Writers, and a Tall Poppy Writer. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children. To learn more, visit SadeqaJohnson.net.

Let's celebrate a few of the new-ish Black women mystery writers! 

EVENT DEETS

When: Monday, August 11, 2025 @ 6:30 PM CT

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 BUNDLE to get a copy of each of the authors' book and support the bookstore!

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Zoe B. Wallbrook is a recently tenured professor whose academic research has appeared in outlets such as the New York Times and The New Yorker. She was selected for mentorship by LA Times bestseller Elizabeth Little, and History Lessons, her first novel, was a runner-up for the Eleanor Taylor Bland Award. Zoe’s hobbies include beginning all emails with, “My sincerest apologies for my slow reply,” pretending to understand how astrological signs work, and crying at the end of every Call the Midwife episode. She and her husband live with their stalker, a black lab/pittie mix named Sophie.

SANDRA JACKSON-OPOKU is the author of Hot Johnny and the Women Who Loved Him and the award-winning novel The River Where Blood is Born. She also coedited the anthology Revise the Psalm: Work Celebrating the Writing of Gwendolyn Brooks. Her fiction, nonfiction, and dramatic works have been published and produced in Adi Magazine, Midnight & Indigo, Aunt Chloe, Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, New Daughters of Africa, Obsidian, storySouth, the Chicago Humanities Festival, and others.

Elise Bryant is the NAACP Image Award-nominated author of Happily Ever Afters, One True Loves, Reggie and Delilah’s Year of Falling, and It’s Elementary. For many years, Elise had the joy of working as a special education teacher, and now she spends her days reading, writing, and eating dessert. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Long Beach, California. You can visit her online at www.elisebryant.com.

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.

The bookclub meeting will take place on April 23, 2024 at 6:30 PM in the Kindred Stories' Reading Garden. Be sure to show up with the book read (or partially read). You are always welcome to just come and take up space. 

ABOUT THE BOOK

Join us to celebrate the release of Decent People with Center for Fiction First Novel Prize winner, De'Shawn Charles WInslow & MacArthur Genius Grant Fellow, Kiese Laymon. 

EVENT DEETS

When: January 18 at 7PM CST

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

How: RSVP for a free ticket or RSVP with book to support the author and our programming. 

ABOUT DECENT PEOPLE

From prizewinning author De’Shawn Charles Winslow, a sweeping and unforgettable novel of a Black community reeling from a triple homicide, and the secrets the killings reveal.

In the still-segregated town of West Mills, North Carolina, in 1976, Marian, Marva, and Lazarus Harmon—three enigmatic siblings—are found shot to death in their home. The people of West Mills— on both sides of the canal that serves as the town’s color line—are in a frenzy of finger-pointing, gossip, and wonder. The crime is the first reported murder in the area in decades, but the white authorities don’t seem to have any interest in solving the case.

Fortunately, one person is determined to do more than talk. Miss Josephine Wright has just moved back to West Mills from New York City to retire and marry a childhood sweetheart, Olympus “Lymp” Seymore. When she discovers that the murder victims are Lymp’s half-siblings, and that Lymp is one of West Mills’s leading suspects, she sets out to prove his innocence. But as Jo investigates those who might know the most about the Harmons’ deaths, she starts to discover more secrets than she’d ever imagined, and a host of cover-ups—ranging from medical misuse to illicit affairs—that could upend the reputations of many.

For readers of American Spy and Bluebird, Bluebird, Decent People is a powerful new novel about shame, race, money, and the reckoning required to heal a fractured community.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Join us as we celebrate the release of Nobody's Magic by Destiny O. Birdsong.  

EVENT DEETS:

When: Wednesday, February 23 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.

Like Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, Nobody's Magic is set against a backdrop of complicated social and racial histories, and it explores the region’s culture and its relationship to Blackness and Black womanhood. It is also a testament to the power of family—the ones you're born in and the ones you choose. And in the three narratives of Nobody’s Magic, among the yearning and loss, each of these women finds a seed of hope for the future.

Debut author, Destiny O. Birdsong’s writing has appeared in The Paris Review Daily, African American Review, and Catapult, among other publications. She has received the Academy of American Poets Prize and the Richard G. Peterson Poetry Prize. Her critically‑acclaimed debut collection of poems, Negotiations, was longlisted for the 2021 PEN/Voelcker Award and published by Tin House Books.

Hailin and Hollin, Kadiedre Henderson is a Black, Queer, Lesbian, and Houston native. She is most precious about the care she brings to herself and others. Through deep listening to the world and stars,  Kadie extends care by providing space for folks to tell their own stories. A lover of stories and storyteller at heart, Kadie started working with books back in 2019 and hasn't left since. A self-proclaimed optimist, Kadie loves Queer YA, Romance, Biographies, and Magic! She is especially excited by stories that speak to navigating grief, trauma, and Black Femme Eroticism. They are so happy to be a team member of the Kindred Stories staff. 

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?

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.

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.