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  • IRL Author Talk: Plantains & Our Coming with Melania Luisa Marte-August 24 at 7:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    Celebrate the release of Plantains & Our Becoming with Melania Luisa Marte!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: Thursday, August 24 at 7:30 PM
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
    How: RSVP ONLY for free ticket or support the author by RSVP WITH BOOK. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK 
    PLANTAINS AND OUR BECOMING is an imaginative, blistering, beautifully written poetry collection about identity and history on the island of the Dominican Republic and Haiti to celebrate and center the Black Diasporic experience.

    Through the exploration of the themes of self-love, nationalism, displacement, generational traumas, and ancestral knowledge, this collection uproots Black stereotypes while creating a new joyous vision for Black identity and personhood, one that is deeply grounded in the heirlooms and teachings of Black celebration as well as preservation.

    The collection is structured in the following sections: Part I: Daughter of Diaspora, exploring immigration and identity within the U.S. Part II: A History of Plantains, exploring the aftermath of colonialism, displacement and gentrification for Afro-descendants.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Melania Luisa Marte is a writer, poet, and musician from New York living between the Dominican Republic and Texas. Her viral poem “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over nine million views. Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, AfroPunk, The Root, Teen Vogue, Telemundo, Remezcla, PopSugar, and elsewhere.
    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER/CO READER
    Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, TX, currently based in Houston. She is the author of We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Ariana’s work investigates queer Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, Black relationality and girlhood, loneliness, and care. She holds a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies, an M.F.A. in Poetry, and an M.S. in Library Science. Ariana is a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion and owes much of her practice to Black performance communities led by Black women poets from the South. She has been writing, performing, and teaching poetry for over ten years. Follow Ariana online @ArianaThePoet.
  • IRL Poetry Reading with Ariana Brown & Aris Kian-July 29 at 7PM
    from $0.00

    We're celebrating the anniversary of We Are Owed. with Ariana Brown!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: July 29, 2023

    Where: Project Row House Community Gallery 

    How: RSVP for a free ticket or support the our programming and the author by RSVP WITH BOOK to grab a copy of We Are Owed. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    We Are Owed. is the debut poetry collection of Ariana Brown, exploring Black relationality in Mexican and Mexican American spaces. Through poems about the author’s childhood in Texas and a trip to Mexico as an adult, Brown interrogates the accepted origin stories of Mexican identity. We Are Owed. asks the reader to develop a Black consciousness by rejecting U.S., Chicano, and Mexican nationalism and confronting anti-Black erasure and empire-building. As Brown searches for other Black kin in the same spaces through which she moves, her experiences of Blackness are placed in conversation with the histories of formerly enslaved Africans in Texas and Mexico.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Ariana Brown is a queer Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, TX, currently based in Houston. She is the author of We Are Owed. (Grieveland, 2021) and Sana Sana (Game Over Books, 2020). Ariana’s work investigates queer Black personhood in Mexican American spaces, Black relationality and girlhood, loneliness, and care. She holds a B.A. in African Diaspora Studies and Mexican American Studies, an M.F.A. in Poetry, and an M.S. in Library Science. Ariana is a 2014 national collegiate poetry slam champion and owes much of her practice to Black performance communities led by Black women poets from the South. She has been writing, performing, and teaching poetry for over ten years. Follow Ariana online @ArianaThePoet.

    ABOUT CONVERSATION PARTNER/ CO-READER

    Aris Kian is a Houston enthusiast and student of abolitionists. Her poems are published with Button Poetry, West Branch, Obsidian Lit, The West Review and elsewhere. She ranks #2 in the 2023 Womxn of the World Poetry Slam and is the 2023-2025 Houston Poet Laureate. She received her MFA from the University of Houston as an Inprint C. Glenn Cambor Fellow and currently serves as the Narrative Change & Media Manager at Houston in Action.
  • Virtual Author Panel: Black & In Love with Tia Williams, Kianna Alexander, Chenicia Higgins, Synithia Williams, A.E. Valdez, Kosoko Jackson, Charish - August 17 at 6:30PM
    from $5.00

    In honor of Bookstore Romance Day, we have gathered some of our favorite Black contemporary Romance authors, traditionally and indie published.

    EVENT DEETS

    WHEN: August 17 at 6:30PM

    WHERE: Virtual Via Zoom

    HOW: Be sure to purchase your $5 ticket or choose one of the bundles to gain entry to this virtual event. 

    ROMANCE BOOK BUNDLES

    Forbidden Love: The Perfect Find, Forbidden Promises - $26

    Second Chance Romance: All I've Ever Want All I've Ever Needed , Seven Days in June - $31

    Opposite Attract: Mickey Chambers Shakes It Up, The Secret to a Southern Wedding - $36

    Meet Queer: D'Vaughn & Kris Plan A Wedding, Can't Let Her Go , A Dash of Salt & Pepper- $45

    ABOUT THE AUTHORS

    Tia Williams had a fifteen-year career as a beauty editor for magazines including Elle, Glamour, Lucky, Teen People, and Essence. In 2004, she pioneered the beauty-blog industry with her award-winning site, Shake Your Beauty. She wrote the bestselling debut novel The Accidental Diva and penned two young adult novels, It Chicks and Sixteen Candles. Her award-winning novel The Perfect Find is a Netflix movie starring Gabrielle Union. Her latest novel is New York Times bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, Seven Days in June, published by Grand Central. Tia currently lives with her daughter and her husband in Brooklyn.

    Like any good Southern belle, Kianna Alexander wears many hats: doting mama, advice-dispensing sister, fun aunt and gabbing girlfriend. She's a voracious reader, an amateur seamstress and occasional painter in oils.She has a passion for history and an endless curiosity. Kianna is proud to tell stories where Black women are loved, valued, and thriving. A native of the TarHeel state, Kianna still lives there while maintaining her collection of well-loved vintage 80's Barbie dolls.

    Chencia Higgins hails from the big city of Houston in the greatest state of Texas. Writing has been her my passion since she was a young girl, when her subject matter were visions of middle school drama with her group of girlfriends. She entered the world of publishing in May 2016 with an erotic novella that set the stage for a career in which she would craft engaging tales of Black women being loved up on. She continues to write for women who love to read but are tired of never seeing themselves in the story. Higgins proud to be a part of an indie and self-published author community. When she's not writing, you can find her reading a book (or two, or three), saving recipes that she'll never make on Pinterest, and traveling as much as possible with her family.

    A.E. Valdez published her first book, All I’ve Wanted, All I’ve Needed, in 2021. She has continued to write stories with endearing and relatable characters centered firmly around Black love. Readers have described her work as sweet and spicy, deeply emotional, and healing.

    She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest with the love of her life and their two sons. When she’s not typing away on a keyboard, she enjoys spending time with her family, going on hiking trips, gaming, or curling up with a good book.

    Kosoko Jackson is a digital-media specialist, who lives in the New York Metro Area and spends too much time listening to Halsey and Taylor Swift.

    Charish Reid is a fan of sexy books and disaster films. When she's not grading papers or prepping lessons for college freshmen, she enjoys writing romances that celebrate quirky black women who deserve HEAs. Charish currently lives in Sweden, with her husband, avoiding most forms of exercise.

    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Dr. Shaquinta Richardson is a lover of books in the realm of fantasy and filth written by and for Black women. She rediscovered her love for fiction after years of reading non-fiction for school and career and has been loving the experience of re-immersing herself in the all the beautiful stories of bad-ass powerful Black girls and women being loved fiercely. When she is not reading, she helps Black women build lives and careers with balance, ease, and daily joy as a life coach and consultant. She lives in Houston, TX with her wife and two dogs and can be found in any corner of Houston with her book or her Kindle and her caramel macchiato. 
  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: Sisterhood Heals with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford (Founder of Therapy for Black Girls)-July 19 at 7PM CST (PURCHASE TICKETS ON EVENBRITE)
    $35.00

    Celebrate the power of sisterhood with Dr. Joy Braden Bradford & Wale Okerayi!

    TICKETS SOLD ON EVENTBRITE

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, July 19 at 7PM CST

    Where: ELDORADO BALLROOM at Project Row Houses

    How: Get Your Ticket on Eventbrite. 

    ABOUT BOOK

    Strengthen the relationships that mean the most, heal with your sisters, and transform your life for the better with the licensed clinical psychologist who founded the award-winning podcast Therapy for Black Girls.

    Sisterhood is that sacred space where all the masks that are worn for the world fall off. It’s the place where you lay down your load, refill your cup, and laugh until your belly aches. Our sister circles literally prolong our lives. However, building and keeping healthy friendships take work. How must these friendships evolve as we age? What practices can we put in place? Can they be the key to unlocking a more fulfilled existence? The answer is yes.

    Dr. Joy Harden Bradford has been doing the work to help Black women heal together for more than twenty years. In a sisterhood community with more than half a million members, she’s the go-to therapist for Black women looking to prioritize their mental health and become the best possible versions of themselves. Now she’s sharing all she’s learned using the tenets of psychology and group therapy to help us foster relationships that are not only positive, but transformative.

    In Sisterhood Heals you will
    • discover the ways in which your present-day relationships with Black women have been influenced by your past
    • identify the recurring role you play in your friend group and how it influences your relationships
    • learn new strategies to grow and sustain healthy, nurturing friendships as well as how to rebuild after a rupture

    Dr. Joy brings the warmth, wisdom, empathy, and levity found in our girlfriends to these pages, and reminds us that during difficult times sisterhood is often a lifeline with the power to help us experience fuller, more satisfying lives.

    ABOUT AUTHOR

    Dr. Joy Harden Bradford is a licensed psychologist and the host of the award-winning mental health podcast Therapy for Black Girls. Her work focuses on making mental health topics and support more relevant and accessible for Black women. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana, a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling from Arkansas State University, and a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from the University of Georgia. Her work has been featured in Essence, Oprah Daily, The New York Times, HuffPost, Black Enterprise, and Women’s Health. Dr. Joy lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two sons.

    ABOUT MODERATOR

    Wale is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples on a weekly basis.

  • IRL Author Talk: My Week with Him with Joya Goffney- July 11
    Sold out

    Celebrate the release of My Week With Him with author, Joya Goffney!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Tuesday, July 11, 2023

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden

    How: RSVP ONLY for a free ticket and RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your seat and book. Books will be available onsite for sale. Only copies of My Week With Him purchased from Kindred Stories are eligible for the signing line. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    From Joya Goffney, author of Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry, comes her third stunning YA novel, a stirring coming-of-age, best friends-to-lovers romance about a girl named Nikki who plans to run away from small-town Texas but ultimately finds that her oldest friend, Mal, just might be the one who’s been there for her all along. Filled with Joya’s signature heart and humor, this book captures complex family dynamics, friendship, and love. For fans of I Wanna Be Where You Are by Kristina Forest and Counting Down with You by Tashie Bhuiyan.

    After a painful betrayal by her sister and a heated argument with their mother, Nikki is kicked out and finds herself homeless over spring break, only two months away from graduation. But instead of relying on anyone, especially someone like Malachai and his rich, overeager, overgenerous parents, to give her a home, and instead of waiting for her dad who isn't actually her birth-dad to talk some sense into her heartless mother again, she decides to jet. She'll drive as far as her car will take her, so long as it's away from that woman. 

    When Malachai catches wind of her plan to flee Texas, he begs her to stay the remainder of spring break with him at his parent-free house. He believes that over the course of a week, he can either convince her to stay in Cactus, Texas, or at least help her come up with a solution that ends with her graduating. All the while, she's dead set on heading to California at the end of the week to get started on her dream music career, no matter how impractical it is. But all their spring break plans are interrupted when Nikki's sister goes missing. Running away isn't something Vae does—it's always been Nikki's thing. 

    Nikki is forced to work alongside her wretched mother, her mother's ex-husband, and Malachai, who may or may not be moving into the boyfriend slot, to find her little sister, all with the uncertainty of what will happen at the end of the week. Will Nikki find a way to stay in Cactus, or will this spring break be the last time she ever sees these people?

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Joya Goffney is the author of the novels Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry and Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl. Joya grew up in New Waverly, a small town in East Texas. In high school, she challenged herself with to-do lists full of risk-taking items, like "hug a random boy" and "eat a cricket," which inspired her debut novel, Excuse Me While I Ugly Cry. With a passion for black social psychology, she moved out of the countryside to attend the University of Texas in Austin, where she still resides. Her second novel, Confessions of an Alleged Good Girl was released in 2022. 
    ABOUT THE MODERATOR
    Liara Tamani holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University. She is the author of the acclaimed young adult novels Calling My Name, a 2018 PEN America Literary Award Finalist and SCBWI Golden Kite Finalist; All the Things We Never Knew, a 2020 Kirkus Best YA Book of the Year; and What She Missed. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets and Comets, production assistant for Girlfriends (TV show), home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She lives in Houston, Texas. www.liaratamani.com
  • Juneteenth Trivia Night - June 18th at 6PM CST
    Sold out

    Grab the homies for our 1st annual Juneteenth Trivia Night! 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, June 18th at 6PM CST

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

    How: Purchase your ticket here TODAY! Each ticket comes with entry and one drink!

    ABOUT THE TRIVIA NIGHT

    We are hosting a pub style trivia night! Each person is a participant. You can bring your friends or family be apart of your team or be prepared to join a team when you get here. There will be five rounds of questions around Juneteenth, Black History, Black music & culture, prominent Black history figures etc. You and your team will work together to correctly answer as many questions as possible. Put prepared for a few twists during the night! 

    This is a great alternative to observe Juneteenth! 

  • Kindred Stories + Murder By The Book Presents All the Sinners Bleed with S.A. Cosby-June 14 at 6:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    We're joining forces with our friends from Murder By The Books to celebrate the release of All the Sinners Bleed with author, S.A. Cosby.
    EVENT DEETS
    When: Wednesday, June 14 at 6:30 PM CST
    Where: Murder By The Book ( 2342 Bissonnet Street, HTX, 77005)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket OR RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy and support our store's programming. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK
    After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus Crown returns home to Charon County, land of moonshine and corn bread, fistfights and honeysuckle. Seeing his hometown struggling with a bigoted police force inspires Titus to run for sheriff. He wins and becomes the first Black sheriff in the history of the county.

    Then, a year to the day after his election, a young Black man is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies.

    Titus pledges to follow the truth wherever it leads. But no one expected he would unearth a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon.

    Now Titus must pull off the impossible: stay true to his instincts, prevent outright panic, and investigate a shocking crime in a small town where everyone knows everyone yet secrets flourish—all while breaking up backroad bar fights and being forced to protect racist Confederate pride marchers.

    For a Black man wearing a police uniform in the American South, that’s no easy feat. But Charon is Titus’s home and his heart, and he won’t let the darkness overtake it. Even as it threatens to consume him.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award–winning writer from southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Razorblade Tears, which won two ITW Thriller Awards and was named to more than thirty Best of the Year lists, and Blacktop Wasteland, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others
  • June 2023 Adult Bookclub: Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun L. Harrison
    from $0.00

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, June 22, 2023, at 7:00 PM CST at KINDRED STORIES. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read).  If you haven't read the book at all, that's ok too.

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

    About the Book

    Exploring the intersections of Blackness, gender, fatness, health, and the violence of policing.

    To live in a body both fat and Black is to exist at the margins of a society that creates the conditions for anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Hyper-policed by state and society, passed over for housing and jobs, and derided and misdiagnosed by medical professionals, fat Black people in the United States are subject to sociopolitically sanctioned discrimination, abuse, condescension, and trauma.
     
    Da’Shaun Harrison--a fat, Black, disabled, and nonbinary trans writer--offers an incisive, fresh, and precise exploration of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, foregrounding the state-sanctioned murders of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people in historical analysis. Policing, disenfranchisement, and invisibilizing of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people are pervasive, insidious ways that anti-fat anti-Blackness shows up in everyday life. Fat people can be legally fired in 49 states for being fat; they’re more likely to be houseless. Fat people die at higher rates from misdiagnosis or nontreatment; fat women are more likely to be sexually assaulted. And at the intersections of fatness, Blackness, disability, and gender, these abuses are exacerbated.
     
    Taking on desirability politics, the limitations of gender, the connection between anti-fatness and carcerality, and the incongruity of “health” and “healthiness” for the Black fat, Harrison viscerally and vividly illustrates the myriad harms of anti-fat anti-Blackness. They offer strategies for dismantling denial, unlearning the cultural programming that tells us “fat is bad,” and destroying the world as we know it, so the Black fat can inhabit a place not built on their subjugation.

  • IRL Author Talk-What She Missed with Liara Tamani-June 17 at 3PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the launch of What She Missed with the author, Liara Tamani!
    EVENT DEETS
    WHEN: Saturday, June 17 at 3PM CST
    Where: 3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77003
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your book and support our programming.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Sixteen-year-old Ebony Jones is devastated when both of her parents lose their jobs, and her family moves from Houston to her grandmother’s house in the country. There’s nothing for Ebony in Alula Lake, Texas. So She Thinks. What She Missed is a rich and emotional novel that celebrates change, nature, friendship, growing up, and love, for readers of Sarah Dessen’s The Rest of the Story and Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land. 

    When Ebony and her parents move from Houston to her grandmother’s house in a small lake town, Ebony is sure that her life is doomed. And to make matters worse, the ghost of Ebony’s beloved grandmother—a strong swimmer who tragically drowned in the lake—is everywhere. Alula Lake does offer one perk: reconnecting Ebony with her childhood friend, Jalen.

    But as Ebony settles into life, she finds herself drifting away from Jalen and gravitating to his older sister, Lena. Lena is chaotic, disorderly, and rebellious, yet she offers a reprieve from the anger and sadness Ebony feels over losing so much.

    An ode to nature, art, friendship, history, family, and love, this lyrical coming-of-age story explores one girl’s summer of self-discovery as she reimagines the world and her place in it.

    ABOUT AUTHOR 

    Liara Tamani lives in Houston, Texas. She is the author of the acclaimed young adult novels Calling My Name, All the Things We Never Knew, and What She Missed. Her words have appeared in Time Magazine, NPR, and The New York Times. And her work has been featured by Good Morning America, Buzzfeed, Essence Magazine, Teen Vogue, and more. Before becoming a writer, she attended Harvard Law School and worked as a marketing coordinator for the Houston Rockets & Comets, production assistant for Girlfriends (TV show), home accessories designer, floral designer, and yoga and dance teacher. She holds an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BA from Duke University. www.liaratamani.com

    ABOUT MODERATOR

    J. Elle is the New York Times bestselling author of young adult and middle-grade fantasy fiction and a 2022 NAACP Image Award Nominee for Outstanding Literary Work for Youth and Teens. Her work is being translated and distributed in over fifteen countries. The former educator credits her nomadic lifestyle and humble inner-city beginnings as inspiration for her novels. When she’s not writing, Elle can be found on the hunt for desserts without chocolate, looking for any excuse to get dressed up, and road-tripping her way across the country with her family of six plus four pets in tow.

  • IRL Author Talk: House Woman with Adorah Nworah-June 6 @7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of House Woman with Adorah Nworah! 
    EVENT DEETS
    When: Tuesday, June 6 at 7 PM (It's publication day!)
    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP with book to support the author and our programming! 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    When Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos, Nigeria to Sugar Land, Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion, pizza parlors, and dance classes.

    Desperate to please, she'll happily cater to her family's needs. But Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson grow urgent as her every move comes under scrutiny. As Ikemefuna finds there’s no way out, her new husband grapples with the influence of his parents against his own increasing affection for her.

    As family secrets boil to the surface, Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation: a marriage succumbing to generational cycles of pain and silence. In the end, she may be carrying the greatest secret of all. 

    An unforgettably delicious thriller, House Woman is about a woman trapped in a dangerous web of conflicting desires, melting in the Texas heat. 

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Adorah Nworah is an Igbo writer from South-East Nigeria. Her stories have been published in AFREADA and adda magazine. Her short stories, "The Bride and Broken English" made the shortlist for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the longlist for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize respectively. She lives in Philadelphia, where she practices real estate finance law and is cat mom to her handsome Napoleon cat.
    ABOUT THE MODERATOR
    Wale is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples on a weekly basis.


  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: ONYX with Adrienne Raquel & Nandi Howard-June 9 at 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of Adrienne Raquel: ONYX!

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, June 9 at 7PM CST
    Where: ELDORADO BALLROOM at Project Row Houses  (2310 Elgin Street, Houston, Texas 77004)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket and RSVP WITH BOOK to support this Texas author! 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    NYX pays homage to the heyday of hip-hop music videos of the '90s and early 2000s, adopting their aesthetics and alluding to the seductive power of the video vixen.” –CNN

    In ONYX, photographer Adrienne Raquel explores the intensity and escapism of the strip club experience, documenting performers at Houston’s famed Club Onyx. Raquel’s photography is usually editorial, with high-powered celebrities such as Megan Thee Stallion, Lil Nas X and Travis Scott as subjects. Now, for this project commissioned by Fotografiska New York, she turns her lens toward a community of underrepresented artists in her hometown. At Club Onyx, strippers display their bodies and seductiveness, but there’s a virtue to this particular space: “they don’t get naked” is a common description of the club’s ambiance. Performers there negotiate what “stripper” means to them on their own terms.
    Raquel captures these performers with her signature glossy style. From powerful images of the dancers mid-movement to detailed shots and intimate portraits, Raquel’s photographs place their beauty and energy on full display. She also takes viewers behind the scenes, giving us a window into the community the dancers have built in the privacy of the locker room. ONYX displays the empowerment and inclusivity in strip clubs that society has tended to ignore.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Adrienne Raquel (born 1990) is a Texas-raised photographer and art director working between Houston, New York and Los Angeles. Featured in Aperture's New Black Vanguard, she received her first solo exhibition at Fotografiska New York in 2021. Clients include Apple, Savage x Fenty, Pat McGrath Labs, Dior, Bacardi, Rare Beauty, Bacardi, Nike and Beats By Dre, as well as covers for Vanity Fair, V Magazine, GQ and Interview.


  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR PANEL: Black & Killer with Johnny Compton, Tananarive Due, Alexis Henderson, Victor LaValle, Brandon Massey-May 26 at 7:30 PM CST
    from $0.00
    We always receive requests for Black Horror recommendations, so we've gathered up some of the best to ever write horror to discuss ALL the things!

    *ZOOM LINK*

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, May 26 at 7:30 PM CST
    Where: Virtual via Zoom
    How: RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot! RSVP WITH BUNDLE to reserve your spot AND get a Black Horror starter pack!

    The OG Bundle includes The Between by Tananarive Due, Dark Corner by Brandon Massey, and The Devil in Silver by Victor Lavalle.

    The New School Bundle includes The Spite House by Johnny Compton and The Year of Witching by Alexis Henderson.

    Be sure to check out our Black Horror Collection! 
    ABOUT THE PANELIST
    Johnny Compton has short stories that have appeared in Pseudopod, Strange Horizons, The No Sleep Podcast, and many other markets. He is an HWA member and creator, and host of the podcast Healthy Fears. Spite House is his debut novel. 
    Tananarive Due is an American Book Award–winning, Essence bestselling author of sixteen books, including the Blood Colony, The Living Blood, The Good House, Joplin’s Ghost, and Devil’s Wake. She was also a contributor to Jonathan Maberry’s middle grade anthology, Don’t Turn Out the Lights. She has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award. She teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Visit her website TananariveDue.com to learn more about her work.
    Alexis Henderson is the author of the Goodreads Choice Awards nominated novels, House of Hunger and The Year of the Witching. When she's not writing, you'll find her tending to an assortment of houseplants or nursing a hot cup of tea
    Victor LaValle  is the author of seven works of fiction: four novels, two novellas, and a collection of short stories. His novels have been included in best-of-the-year lists by The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Nation, and Publishers Weekly, among others. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Book Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Key to Southeast Queens. He lives in the Bronx with his wife and kids and teaches at Columbia University.
    Brandon Massey sold his first short story in 1996 to a speculative fiction magazine. Three years later, he self-published Thunderland, his first novel. After managing to sell a few thousand copies on his own, Kensington Publishing Corp signed him to a publishing contract and republished the novel in 2002. Since then, Massey has published up to three books a year, ranging from thriller novels such as The Landlord and The Other Brother, vampire fiction such as Dark Corner, and short story collections such as Twisted Tales. Massey currently lives with his family near Atlanta, GA.
    Get ready for a killer time! 
  • VIRTUAL AUTHOR TALK: Homebodies with Tembe Denton-Hurst-May 15 at 6 PM CST
    Sold out
    Celebrate Tembe Denton-Hurst's debut novel, Homebodies:A Novel with the Black Bookstore Collective!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: May 15 at 6 PM CST
    Where: Virtual 
    How: RSVP ONLY to get your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our programming! We'll send the link to view the talk 24 hours before the event. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Urgent, propulsive, and deeply insightful, Homebodies is a thrilling debut novel about a young Black writer whose world is turned upside down when she loses her job in media and her searing manifesto about racism in the industry goes viral.

    Mickey Hayward dreams of writing stories that matter. She has a flashy media job that makes her feel successful and a devoted girlfriend who takes care of her when she comes home exhausted and demoralized. It’s not all A-list media parties and steamy romance, but Mickey’s on her way, and it’s far from the messy life she left behind in Maryland. Despite being overlooked and mistreated at work, everything finally seems to be falling into place—until she finds out she’s being replaced.

    Distraught and enraged, Mickey fires back with a detailed letter outlining the racism and sexism she’s endured as a Black woman in media, certain it will change the world for the better. But when her letter is met with overwhelming silence, Mickey is sent into a tailspin of self-doubt. Forced to reckon with just how fragile her life is—including the uncertainty of her relationship—she flees to the last place she ever dreamed she would run to, her hometown, desperate for a break from her troubles.

    Back home, Mickey is seduced by the simplicity of her old life—and the flirtation of a former flame—but the life she left behind in New York refuses to be forgotten. When a media scandal catapults Mickey’s forgotten letter into the public zeitgeist, suddenly everyone wants to hear what Mickey has to say. It’s what she’s always wanted—isn’t it?

    Insightful, funny, and deeply sexy, Homebodies is a testament to those trying to be heard and loved in a world that refuses to make space, and introduces a standout new writer.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Tembe Denton-Hurst is a staff writer at New York magazine’s The Strategist and has written for Nylon magazine, them, and Elle. When she’s not writing, Tembe can be found on her couch in Queens, New York, where she lives with her partner and their two cats, Stella and Dakota.
  • JUNETEENTH Storytime with Van Garrett-May 6 at Noon
    Sold out

    Join us to celebrate the release of Juneteenth with Houston based author, Van Garrett

    EVENT DEETS

    WHEN: Saturday, May 6, 2023

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

    HOW: RSVP ONLY to reserve your littles seats or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our programming and the author. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A lyrical picture book about our newest national holiday, Juneteenth follows the annual celebration in Galveston, Texas—the birthplace of Juneteenth—through the eyes of a child coming to understand their place in Black American history in a story from three Texan creators.

    A young Black child experiences the magic of the Juneteenth parade for the first time with their family as they come to understand the purpose of the party that happens every year—and why they celebrate their African American history!

    The poetic text includes selected lyrics from “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the unofficial Black National Anthem, and the vibrant art illuminates the beauty of this moment of Black joy celebrated across the nation. This vibrant adventure through the city streets invites young readers to make a joyful noise about freedom for all.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Van G. Garrett is the author of Kicks, his debut picture book. An acclaimed poet, he won the Poetry Question National Chapbook Contest for Scrap and the Best Book of African American Poetry from the Texas Association of Authors for 49: Wings and Prayers. He is a musician and visual artist.

     

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: We are a Haunting with Tyriek White & Kiese Laymon-June 1 @7PM CST
    from $0.00
    Come swoon over We are a Haunting with us! 
    EVENT DEETS
    WHEN: June 1 at 7PM CST
    WHERE: Kindred Stories Reading Garden (2304 Stuart Street, HTX 77004)
    HOW: RSVP to reserve your free ticket or RSVP with book to support our store and programming. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK
    A poignant debut for readers of Jesmyn Ward and Jamel Brinkley, We Are a Haunting follows three generations of a working class family and their inherited ghosts: a story of hope and transformation. 

    In 1980’s Brooklyn, Key is enchanted with her world, glowing with her dreams. A charming and tender doula serving the Black women of her East New York neighborhood, she lives, like her mother, among the departed and learns to speak to and for them. Her untimely death leaves behind her mother Audrey, who is on the verge of losing the public housing apartment they once shared. Colly, Key’s grieving son, soon learns that he too has inherited this sacred gift and begins to slip into the liminal space between the living and the dead on his journey to self-realization.

    In the present, an expulsion from school forces Colly across town where, feeling increasingly detached and disenchanted with the condition of his community, he begins to realize that he must, ultimately, be accountable to the place he is from. After college, having forged an understanding of friendship, kinship, community, and how to foster love in places where it seems impossible, Colly returns to East New York to work toward addressing structural neglect and the crumbling blocks of New York City public housing he was born to; discovering a collective path forward from the wreckages of the past. A supernatural family saga, a searing social critique, and a lyrical and potent account of displaced lives, We Are a Haunting unravels the threads connecting the past, present, and future, and depicts the palpable, breathing essence of the neglected corridors of a pulsing city with pathos and poise.
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR 
    Tyriek Rashawn White is a writer, musician, and educator from Brooklyn, where he served at-risk and marginalized youth, artists, and scholars in the classroom. He is currently the media director of Lampblack Lit, a literary foundation which seeks to provide mutual aid and various resources to Black writers across the diaspora. He has received fellowships from Callaloo Writing Workshop, New York State Writers Institute, and Key West Writers’ Workshop, among other honors. He holds a degree in Creative Writing and Africana Studies from Pitzer College, and most recently earned an MFA from the University of Mississippi. He is the author of the forthcoming novel, WE ARE A HAUNTING (Astra House, 2023).
    ABOUT THE MODERATOR

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University. He is also the  author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, and  Heavy: An American Memoir.  Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.

  • May 2023 Adult Book Club: Zami by Audre Lorde
    Sold out

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at 7:00 PM CST at KINDRED STORIES. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read).  If you haven't read the book at all, that's ok too.

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

    About the Book

    A little black girl opens her eyes in 1930s Harlem. Around her, a heady swirl of passers-by, car horns, kerosene lamps, the stock market falling, fried bananas, tales of her parents' native Grenada. She trudges to public school along snowy sidewalks, and finds she is tongue-tied, legally blind, left behind by her older sisters. On she stumbles through teenage hardships -- suicide, abortion, hunger, a Christmas spent alone -- until she emerges into happiness: an oasis of friendship in Washington Heights, an affair in a dirty factory in Connecticut, and, finally, a journey down to the heat of Mexico, discovering sex, tenderness, and suppers of hot tamales and cold milk. This is Audre Lorde's story. It is a rapturous, life-affirming tale of independence, love, work, strength, sexuality and change, rich with poetry and fierce emotional power.

  • IN PERSON: Houston Reads Alice Walker Meet & Greet-April 30 @1:30 PM CST
    Sold out
    We have been reading the works of Alice Walker for over six months. Gathering and building each other up online through literature. With Spring having just arrived, it feels good to meet each other in person. Come out, have some light bites and commune. 
    *Newbies are welcome*

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Sunday, April 30 at 1:30 PM

    Where: Project Row House Community Gallery (2521 Holman Street, HTX, 77004)

    How: RSVP to let us know you're coming. 

    See you all there! 
  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The Everyday Feminist with Latanya Mapp Frett & Oni Blair-April 28 at 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Welcome Latanya Mapp, author of The Everyday Feminist and President of the Global Fund for Women to Houston! 

    EVENT DEETS
    When: Friday, April 28 at 7PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories HTX (2304 Stuart Street, HTX, 77004)
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our store programming and the author!

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    An invigorating exploration of impactful feminist movements and strategies for replicating their success

    In The Everyday Feminist: The Key to Sustainable Social Impact-Driving Movements We Need Now More than Ever, accomplished feminist activist and executive Latanya Mapp Frett delivers a powerful and practical exploration of the factors that make a feminist social movement impactful in its place and time. In the book, you'll discover popular and not-so-popular social movements and the leaders, art, research, and narratives that drove them.

    The author explains what made these social movements so effective and explains the steps that organizations, nonprofits, and social impact professionals can take to replicate that success on the ground and in the present.

    The book also includes:

    • Discussions of the importance of feminist funds in bankrolling critical feminist movements
    • Explanations of the roles played by men and boys in building a feminist future
    • Actionable and straightforward advice applicable to everyone trying to make a difference for women around the world

    An essential text for feminist advocates who find themselves in an increasingly challenging political and social environment, The Everyday Feminist is the practical blueprint to social change that lawmakers, activists, entrepreneurs, and non-profit professionals have been waiting for.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Latanya Mapp Frett is President and CEO of Global Fund For Women, a nonprofit foundation and leading funder of gender justice movements worldwide. She is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and serves as Board Director for Oxfam and Management Sciences for Health. She is the former Executive Director of Planned Parenthood Global.

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The Blue is Where God Lives with Sharon Sochil Washington-April 25@ 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of The Blue is Where God Lives with debut author, Sharon Sochil Washington!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: April 25 at 7PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or RSVP WITH Book to reserve your seat and book while helping support our programming! 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    A powerful work of Afro-magic realism that interrogates the legacy of slavery and roots of poverty, witnesses the beauty and power in survival, and asks whether belief, magic, and intention can forge new realities

    Blue’s daughter, Tsitra, is dying a horrific death. Thousands of miles away, Blue feels time slowing and hears voices, followed by an 18-month stillness. More than a century before, Blue’s grandparents, Amanda and Palmer, attend a salon party in New Orleans. It’s a veritable array of who’s-who within pre–Civil War social circles. Conversations get heated quickly as Ismay, the hostess who hails from French royalty, antagonizes Palmer, a landowner whose parents had been sold into American slavery and who’s there to seek revenge, and Amanda, a shapeshifter and puzzlemaker who had been enslaved until this very gathering. At this party, Amanda learns of a plot that will doom a line of her—and Palmer’s—family to poverty. She devises her own counter-plot to undo the damage.

    Meanwhile, Blue comes out of her stillness, broke and devoid of inspiration. In profound grief and consumed by guilt, Blue travels to The Ranch where the voices grow louder and she has visions of two women from the distant past. As time collapses and Blue and Amanda meet in the space of possibility, Blue feels the spark of a power and creative energy she has only glimpsed. A novel of invention but grounded in the real, The Blue Is Where God Lives is a dual-timeline, time-bending novel of undeniable beauty, magic, and possibility

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Sharon Sochil Washington, a cultural anthropologist and creator of White Space, a newsletter on Substack that explores the meaning between the words we use, has written for the Dallas Times Herald, New York Newsday, and the Akron Beacon Journal. She received degrees from Columbia University and The New School in New York City, and speaks regularly at universities and conferences on issues of social justice, race, economic insecurity, education, and media influences. The Blue Is Where God Lives is her debut novel. She lives in Houston

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER
    Wale is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples on a weekly basis.

  • IN PERSON AUTHOR TALK: The House of Eve with Sadeqa Johnson-April 23 @5PM CST
    Sold out
    Come meet Sadeqa Johnson, author of Yellow Wife and The House of Eve! 

    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

    “A triumph of historical fiction” (The Washington Post) set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

    1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

    Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

    With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.

    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.


  • IRL Author Talk: The Blood Gift with N.E Daveport & Ehigbor Okosun-April 19 @ 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Come celebrate the release of The Blood Gift, the follow up to The Blood Trials!

    EVENT DEETS: 

    When: Wednesday, April 19 at 7PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories (2304 Stuart Street, Houston, Texas, 77004)

    How: RSVP ONLY for your free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support our store programming and the author. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    In this stunning conclusion to N. E. Davenport’s fast-paced, action-packed sci-fantasy duology, elite warrior Ikenna and her rogue cohort must outrun bounty hunters, their former comrades, and a megalomaniacal demi-god, all in the hopes of saving their friends and enemies from the racist and misogynistic oppression that threatens the continents from all sides.

    After discovering the depth of betrayal, treachery, and violence perpetrated against her by Mareen’s Tribunal Council and exposing her illegal blood-gift to save her Praetorian squad, Ikenna becomes a fugitive with a colossal bounty on her head.

    Yet, somehow, that’s the least of her worries.

    Her grandfather’s longtime allies refuse to offer help, and the Blood Emperor’s Warlord is tracking her. She’s also struggling to control the enormous power she was granted by the Goddess of Blood Rites…and come to terms with the promises she made to get such power.

    Amidst all of this, the Blood Emperor wages a full-scale invasion against Mareen and leaves a trail of decimated cities, war crimes, and untold death in his wake. As the horrors increase, Ikenna and her team realize they must assassinate the Blood Emperor and quickly end the war. But the price to do so is steep and has planet-shattering consequences.

    The price to do nothing, though, is annihilation.

    War has erupted. Alliances are fracturing. And Ikenna is torn between her loyalties, her desires for revenge, and the power threatening to consume her. With the world aflame, only one thing is certain: blood will be spilled.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Nia "N. E." Davenport is the science fiction/fantasy author of The Blood Trials and its sequel. She attended the University of Southern California and studied biological sciences and theatre arts. She also has an M.A. in secondary education. She teaches English and biology to amazing students. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie. She’s an advocate for diverse perspectives and protagonists in literature. You can find her on Twitter or on Instagram, where she talks about bingeworthy TV, killer movies, and great books. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Ehigbor Okosun (Eh-hee-bor Oh-koh-soon), or just Ehi, is an Austin-based author who writes speculative fiction, mystery thrillers, and contemporary novels for adult and YA audiences. A British private school survivor turned Nigerian-American immigrant, she hopes to do justice to the myths and traditions she grew up steeped in, and to honor her large, multiracial and multiethnic family. She is a graduate of the University of Texas with degrees in Plan II Honors, Neurolinguistics, and English, as well as Chemistry and Pre-Medical studies and is a Cynthia Leitich Smith Mentorship Award finalist. When she’s not reading, you can catch her bullet journalling, gaming, baking, and spending time with her loved ones.
  • April 2023 Book Club-Best Barbarian by Roger Reeves-April 27 @7PM CST
    Sold out

    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). 

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Into the Light with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport-April 22 at 6 PM CST
    Sold out
    Come talk mystery and fantasy with Mark Oshiro & N.E. Davenport!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: April 22 at 6PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden
    How: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to support store programming and that author

    ABOUT THE BOOK
    KEEP YOUR SECRETS CLOSE TO HOME
    It’s been one year since Manny was cast out of his family and driven into the wilderness of the American Southwest. Since then, Manny lives by self-taught rules that keep him moving—and keep him alive. Now, he’s taking a chance on a traveling situation with the Varela family, whose attractive but surly son, Carlos, seems to promise a new future.

    Eli abides by the rules of his family, living in a secluded community that raised him to believe his obedience will be rewarded. But an unsettling question slowly eats away at Eli’s once unwavering faith in Reconciliation: Why can’t he remember his past?

    But the reported discovery of an unidentified body found in the hills of Idyllwild, California, will draw both of these young men into facing their biggest fears and confronting their own identity—and who they are allowed to be.

    For fans of Courtney Summers and Tiffany D. Jackson, Into the Light is a ripped-from-the-headlines story with Oshiro's signature mix of raw emotions and visceral prose—but with a startling twist you’ll have to read to believe.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    MARK OSHIRO is the award-winning Latinx queer author of Anger Is a Gift, Each of Us a Desert, as well as their middle grade books The Insiders and You Only Live Once, David Bravo. They are the coauthor (with Rick Riordan) of the upcoming Nico di Angelo adventure book. When not writing, they are trying to pet every dog in the world.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    N. E. Davenport is the Science Fiction/Fantasy author of the Blood Gift duology. She attended the University of Southern California and studied Biological Sciences and Theatre Arts. She also has an M.A. in Secondary Education. She teaches English and Biology to amazing students. When she isn’t writing, she enjoys vacationing with her family, skiing, and being a huge foodie. She’s an advocate for diverse perspectives and protagonists in literature. You can find her on Twitter @nia_davenport, or on Instagram @nia.davenport, where she talks about binge-worthy TV, killer movies, and great books. She lives in Texas with her husband and kids

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: The Little Mermaid with J.Elle-April 11 at 7PM CST
    Sold out

    EVENT DEETS

    When: April 11 at 7PM CST

    Where: LRT Gallery (3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX, 77003)

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

    ABOUT THE BOOK 

    An original novel written by New York Times best-selling author J. Elle inspired by Disney upcoming live action reimagining of The Little Mermaid.

    After the death of Ariel’s mother, the queen of the sea, the seven daughters of King Triton have grown estranged at best. It’s been years since Ariel’s older sisters have visited home. But this year’s Coral Moon is fast approaching, and it’s a special one for Ariel. Finally fifteen, she will be dubbed the Protector of her very own ocean territory as is tradition, and her sisters have agreed to visit for the celebration.

    But the ceremony is halted when Mala, one of the most renowned daughters of Triton, is abducted. The only clue to where she might have been taken is a hastily scribbled seaweed note, which says, “What could have saved Mother could save me, too.” To rescue Mala, Ariel must work together with her siblings, traveling to various seas, outsmarting dangerous ocean creatures, and delving into forbidden waters to find the truth of what happened to their mother. But as Ariel and her sisters begin uncovering new secrets about their family and their kingdom, Ariel will have to face the loss of a mother she never had a chance to know and discover what it means to be both a good sister and a strong leader.

    And the clock is ticking, because on the day of the festival, when the moon turns a true shade of coral, her sister will be lost, like her mother, forever.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    J.Elle is the author of the instant New York Times and Indie bestseller Wings of Ebony, a YA novel about a Black teen who must lean into her ancestor's magic to protect her inner-city community from drugs, violence, and crime. Ms. Magazine calls it "the debut fantasy we need right now." Elle is a former educator and first-generation college student with a bachelor's degree in Journalism and a Master's in Educational Administration and Human Development. When she's not writing, Elle can be found mentoring aspiring writers, binging reality TV, loving on her three littles, or cooking up something true to her Louisiana roots.

  • IRL Poetry Reading: No Sweet Without Brine with Cynthia Manick and Kendra Allen-May 11 at 7PM CST
    Sold out
    Join us for a live poetry reading with Cynthia Manick and Kendra Allen!
    EVENT DEETS
    When: May 11 at 7PM CST
    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden 
    How: Select RSVP ONLY to reserve your spot for this free reading or RSVP with book to support our store programming and the author. 
    ABOUT THE BOOK

    No Sweet Without Brine is both a soulful and celebratory collection that summons sticky sweet memories with an acrid aftertaste of deep thought. Satisfying moments are captured in odes to Idris Elba’s dulcet tones on a meditation app and the satisfaction of half-priced Entenmann’s poundcake; in childlike observations of parental Black love, the coveted female form on Jet Magazine covers, and the desire for Zamunda to be a real place full of Black joy. The sour taps into an analysis of reclusiveness, silencing catcalls from men on the street, and detailed recipes and advice to the Black girls forced to endow themselves with armor against the world.

    Cynthia Manick’s latest is a playlist of everyday life, introverted thoughts, familial bonds, and social commentary. In piercing language, she traces the circle of life for a narrator who dares to exist between youthful remembrances and adulthood realities. Each poem in No Sweet Without Brine is a reminder that a hint of sorrow makes the celebration and recognition of the glory of Blackness in all ways, and through all people, that much sweeter.

    ABOUT POET
    Cynthia Manick is the winner of the Lascaux Prize in Collected Poetry, editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Hedgebrook, MacDowell Colony, and Château de la Napoule among other foundations. Manick is the creator of the Soul Sister Revue reading series and her poem “Things I Carry into the World” was made into a film by Motionpoems and debuted on Tidal for National Poetry Month. A storyteller and performer at literary festivals, libraries, universities, and most recently the Brooklyn and Frye museums, Manick and her work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, Callaloo, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets. She currently serves on the board of the International Women’s Writing Guild and the editorial board of Alice James Books. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. 
    ABOUT THE READING PARTNER

    Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She's the author of poetry collection The Collection Plate and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now. 

  • Igbo Mythology Storytime with Chinelo Anyadiegwu-April 8 at 2:30 PM
    Sold out

    EVENT DEET

    When: April 8 at 2:30 PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden

    How: RSVP to reserve your spot for you and your littles. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    The first definitive collection of Igbo legends and traditions for kids, this book explores the mythological origins of the Igbo people, the ancient Nri Kingdom, and Igbo cosmology before delving into the Alusi, or the core Igbo deities. Following this introduction to the pantheon of gods and goddesses, a collection of the most popular Igbo myths, folktales, and legends will immerse kids in exciting stories of tricksters, shapeshifters, and heroes, including:

    • The Wrestler Whose Back Never Touched the Ground
    • Ojiugo, the Rare Gem
    • The Tortoise and the Birds, or The Origin Story of Sea Turtles
    • Ngwele Aghuli, Why the Crocodile Lives Alone
    • How Death Came to Be
    • And more!


    The perfect book for kids who are fascinated by Greek mythology or love the Rick Riordan series, Introduction to Igbo Mythology for Kids offers a fun look into the stories, history, and figures that characterize Igbo culture.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Chinelo is Igbo, a beginning dibia, and has a BA in English. When they aren't writing stories about fantasy realms or mythology, they are writing grants. In their free time, they play video games of all sorts, from Tabletops and MMOs to Sandbox RPGs.
  • IRL Author Talk: Sensual Faith with Lyvonne Briggs & Wale-April 5 @7PM CST
    Sold out

    Learn about the art of coming home to your body with Lyvonne Briggs!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: April 5 @ 7PM CST

    Where: 3719 Navigation Blvd, HTX 77003 (Holy Family HTX)

    How: RSVP ONLY to grab your free ticket or support our programming, author, and store by RSVP WITH BOOK. 

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    An invitation for women to discover a healthier approach to spirituality and sexuality that centers pleasure rather than shame, from body- and sex-positive preacher and author Lyvonne Briggs

    “Home is not an address. Home is where you feel safe. And your body is aching to be your home.”

    How you view your body and your sexuality is informed and strengthened by spiritual practices, but how many of us can say that religion has drawn us closer to our bodies? That’s because worship spaces that are intended to be spiritual safe houses have not historically been welcoming to our bodies, forcing us to leave our flesh at the door. This ideological amputation is at best a disservice and at worst a sin. The remedy? Radical self-hospitality.

    In Sensual Faith, Lyvonne Briggs charts a path for us to practice spiritual wellness that aligns and harmonizes our bodies with pleasure and sexuality. By centering the rich traditions of ancient West African spirituality, Sensual Faith offers a radically inclusive model of companioning one’s self. Filled with wellness rituals, journal prompts, affirmations, and practices, Sensual Faith shows us how to celebrate our bodies as our very homes.

    “Pleasure is your birthright,” writes Briggs, so whether it’s accepting your flesh, nurturing your intuition, learning the language of consent, or sumptuous self-care, let radical self-hospitality guide you to healthy sexuality.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Lyvonne Briggs, MDiv, ThM, an Emmy Award winner, is a body- and sex-positive womanist preacher, speaker, coach, and creator. Briggs is the host of the Sensual Faith podcast and the founder of beautiful scars, a healing- centered storytelling
    agency focused on fostering pleasure and resiliency; visionary of The Proverbial Experience; and now curator of Sensual Faith Sunday, a series of virtual spiritual gatherings to nourish your soul. She has been featured in Essence, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, and The Washington Post, and Sojourners named her one of “11 Women Shaping the Church.” Briggs, a New York City native and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, is currently based in New Orleans, Louisiana.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Wale (@theehotgirlbooks)is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor working with folks in New York and Texas. She has a double masters degree in mental health counseling from Teachers College Columbia University. After practicing in New York for a few years, Wale moved back to her hometown Houston and started her own therapy practice in 2020. Wale currently works with individuals and couples on a weekly basis.

  • IRL Author Talk: Sink with Joseph Earl Thomas & Kiese Laymon-March 22 at 7PM CST
    Sold out

    Come out and welcome author, Joseph Earl Thomas to Houston as he celebrates the release of his book, Sink: A Memoir.

    EVENT DEETS

    When: March 22 at 7 PM CST

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

    How: RSVP ONLY to grab a free ticket or RSVP WITH BOOK to reserve your copy of Sink and support this Black owned bookstore and its programming. 

    About the Book

    "A brilliant and brilliantly different" (Kiese Laymon), wrenching and redemptive coming-of-age memoir about the difficulty of growing up in a hazardous home and the glory of finding salvation in geek culture.

    Stranded within an ever-shifting family’s desperate but volatile attempts to love, saddled with a mercurial mother mired in crack addiction, and demeaned daily for his perceived weakness, Joseph Earl Thomas grew up feeling he was under constant threat. Roaches fell from the ceiling, colonizing bowls of noodles and cereal boxes. Fists and palms pounded down at school and at home, leaving welts that ached long after they disappeared. An inescapable hunger gnawed at his frequently empty stomach, and requests for food were often met with indifference if not open hostility. Deemed too unlike the other boys to ever gain the acceptance he so desperately desired, he began to escape into fantasy and virtual worlds, wells of happiness in a childhood assailed on all sides.

    In a series of exacting and fierce vignettes, Thomas guides readers through the unceasing cruelty that defined his circumstances, laying bare the depths of his loneliness and illuminating the vital reprieve geek culture offered him. With remarkable tenderness and devastating clarity, he explores how lessons of toxic masculinity were drilled into his body and the way the cycle of violence permeated the very fabric of his environment. Even in the depths of isolation, there were unexpected moments of joy carved out, from summers where he was freed from the injurious structures of his surroundings to the first glimpses of kinship he caught on his journey to becoming a Pokémon master. SINK follows Thomas's coming-of-age towards an understanding of what it means to lose the desire to fit in—with his immediate peers, turbulent family, or the world—and how good it feels to build community, love, and salvation on your own terms.

    About the Author

    Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer from Frankford whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in VQR, N+1, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and The Kenyon Review. He has an MFA in prose from The University of Notre Dame and is a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. An excerpt of his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize and he has received fellowships from Fulbright, VONA, Tin House, Kimbilio, & Breadloaf, though he is now the Anisfield-Wolf Fellow at the CSU Poetry Center. He’s writing the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer, and a collection of stories: Leviathan Beach, among other oddities. He is also an associate faculty member at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research, as well as Director of Programs at Blue Stoop, a literary hub for Philly writers.

    About Conversation Partner

    Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby 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. Laymon is the recipient of 2020-2021 Radcliffe Fellowship at Harvard. LaHe 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. Kiese Laymon was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2022.


  • March 2023 Adult Book Club- Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie
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    Join us for our monthly book club meeting. Our March book club read is Olive Grove in Ends by Moses McKenzie.

    Please support the space and opportunities we create by buying your book from Kindred Stories. 

    Our meeting will be on Thursday, March 23 at 7:00 PM in the Kindred Stories Reading Garden. Be sure to RSVP and show up with the book read (or mostly read).

    About the Book

    One of The Guardian’s Top 10 Debuts of the Year
    One of Entertainment Weekly’s Most Anticipated Books of the Summer

    Sayon Hughes longs to escape the volatile Bris­tol neighborhood known as Ends, the tight-knit but sometimes lawless world in which he was raised, and forge a better life with Shona, the girl he’s loved since grade school. With few paths out, he is drawn into dealing drugs along­side his cousin, the unpredictable but fiercely loyal Cuba. Sayon is on the cusp of making a clean break when an altercation with a rival dealer turns deadly and an expected witness threatens blackmail, upending his plans.

    Sayon’s loyalties are torn. If Shona learns the secret of his crime, he will lose her forever. But if he doesn’t escape Ends now, he may never get another chance. Is it possible to break free of the bookies’ tickets, burnt spoons, and crook­ed solutions, and still keep the love of his life?

    Rippling with authenticity and power, Mo­ses McKenzie’s dazzling debut brings to life a vi­brant and teeming world we have read too little about. In its sheer lyrical power, An Olive Grove in Ends recalls the work of James Baldwin and marks the arrival of an exciting and formidable new voice. 

    Only books purchased from 

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood & Myth with Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton & Delita Martin- March 7@ 7PM CST
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    Join us for the official launch event of Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood & Myth with author, Deborah D.E.E.P Mouton and artist, Delita Martin. 

    Event DEETS

    When: March 7, 2023 at 7PM CST

    Where: Project Row House Community Gallery (2521 Holman Street, HTX 77004)

    How: Please RSVP reserve your spot. Checkout for RSVP with Book to support our store and the author/artists. 

    About Black Chameleon

    In the literary tradition of Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House, Maxine Hong Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesmyn Ward’s Men We Reaped, this debut memoir confronts both the challenges and joys of growing up Black and making your own truth.

    Growing up as a Black girl in America, Deborah Mouton felt alienated from the stories she learned in class. She yearned for stories she felt connected to—true ones of course—but also fables and mythologies that could help explain both the world and her place in it. What she encountered was almost always written by white writers who prospered in a time when human beings were treated as chattel, such as the Greek and Roman myths, which felt as dusty and foreign as ancient ruins. When she sought myths written by Black authors, they were rooted too far in the past, a continent away.

    Mouton writes, “The phrases of my mother and grandmother began to seem less colloquial and more tied to stories that had been lost along the way. . . . Mythmaking isn’t a lie. It is our moment to take the privilege of our own creativity to fill in the gaps that colonization has stolen from us. It is us choosing to write the tales that our children pull strength from. It is hijacking history for the ignorance in its closets. This, a truth that must start with the women.”

    Mouton’s memoir is a song of praise and an elegy for Black womanhood. With a poet’s gift for lyricism and poignancy, Mouton reflects on her childhood as the daughter of a preacher and a harsh but loving mother, living in the world as a Black woman whose love is all too often coupled with danger, and finally learning to be a mother to another Black girl in America. Of the moment yet timeless, playful but incendiary, Mouton has staked out new territory in the memoir form.

    About Deborah DEEP Mouton

    Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton is an internationally known writer, educator, activist, and performer and the first Black poet laureate of Houston, Texas. She was formerly ranked the #2 Best Female Performance Poet in the World (PSI). Her recent poetry collection, Newsworthy, garnered her a Pushcart nomination, was named a finalist for the 2019 Writers’ League of Texas Book Award, and received an honorable mention for the Summerlee Book Prize. Its German translation, under the title Berichtenswert, was released in Summer 2021 by Elif Verlag. The opera Marian’s Song, for which she wrote the libretto, debuted in 2020. 

    About Delita Martin

    Delita Martin is an artist currently based in Huffman, Texas. She received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and an MFA in printmaking from Purdue University. Formerly a member of the fine arts faculty at UA Little Rock in Arkansas, Martin currently works as a full-time artist in her studio, Black Box Press. Martin’s work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. Most recently Martin’s work was included in the State of the Arts: Discovering American Art Now, an exhibition that included 101 artists from around the United States. Her work is in numerous portfolios and collections.

  • IRL AUTHOR TALK: Time's Undoing with Cheryl A. Head & Jennifer Maritza McCauley-March 9 at 6:30 PM
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    Come out and celebrate the release of Time's Undoing with author, Cheryl A. Head. 

    EVENT DEETS

    When: March 9 at 6:30 PM CST

    Where: Kindred Stories Reading Garden(2304 Stuart Street, Houston, Texas 77004)

    How: RSVP for free or with book to support the author and bookstore. 

    About the Book

    A searing and tender novel about a young Black journalist’s search for answers in the unsolved murder of her great-grandfather in segregated Birmingham, Alabama decades ago – inspired by the author’s own family history.

    Birmingham, 1929: Robert Lee Harrington, a master carpenter, has just moved to Alabama to pursue a job opportunity, bringing along his pregnant wife and young daughter. Birmingham is in its heyday, known as the “Magic City” for its booming steel industry, and while Robert and his family find much to enjoy in the city’s busy markets and vibrant night life – it’s also a stronghold for the Klan. And with his beautiful, light-skinned wife and snazzy car, Robert begins to worry that he might be drawing the wrong kind of attention. 

    2019: Meghan Mackenzie, the youngest reporter at the Detroit Free Press, has grown up hearing family lore about her great-grandfather’s murder—but no one knows the full story of what really happened back then, and his body was never found. Determined to find answers to her family’s long-buried tragedy, and spurred by the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, Meghan travels to Birmingham. But as her investigation begins to uncover dark secrets that spider across both the city and time, her life may be in danger.  

    Inspired by true events, Time’s Undoing is both a passionate tale of one woman’s quest for the truth behind the racially motivated trauma that has haunted her family for generations, and, as newfound friends and supporters in Birmingham rally around Meghan’s search, the uplifting story of a community coming together to fight for change.

    About the Author 

    Cheryl A. Head is a writer, television producer, filmmaker, broadcast executive and media funder. When not writing fiction, Head consults on a wide range of diversity issues. She is a Senior Associate at Livingston Associates, a member of Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and a member of the Bouchercon Board of Directors. 

    About the Conversation Partner

    Jennifer Maritza McCauley is a writer, poet, and university professor. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio, CantoMundo and the Sundress Academy for the Arts. She holds an MFA from Florida International University and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Missouri. The author of the cross-genre collection SCAR ON/SCAR OFF, she is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.

  • IRL Author Talk: An Autobiography of Skin with LaKiesha Carr - March 1 at 6:30 PM CST
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    Join us as we celebrate The Autobiography of Skin with debut author, LaKiesha Carr!

    EVENT DEETS

    When: Wednesday, March 1 at 6:30 PM CST

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

    How: RSVP to secure your seat or RSVP with book to support the author and Kindred Stories. Only books purchased from Kindred Stories will be eligible for the signing line.

    ABOUT THE BOOK

    Heat. Fire. Rain so blue. The blackness. The color of our hue.

    A magisterial, intimate look at Black womanhood: the grief that is carried within the body and the bonds of love that grant strength

    A middle-aged woman feed slots at a secret, back-room parlor. A new mother descends into a devastating postpartum depression, wracked with the fear that she is unable to protect her children. A daughter returns home to join the other women in her family waging spiritual combat with the ghosts of their past.

    An Autobiography of Skin is a dazzling and masterful portrait of interconnected generations in the South from a singular new voice, offering a raw and tender view into the interior lives of Black women. It is at once a powerful look at how experiences are carried inside the body, inside the flesh and skin, and a joyous testament to how healing can be found within—in love, mercy, gratitude, and freedom.

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

    LAKIESHA CARR graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and received her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded a Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction and a Jeff and Vicki Edwards Post-graduate Fellowship in Fiction. A journalist and writer from East Texas, she has held various editorial and production positions with CNN, The New York Times, and other media.

    ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

    Kendra Allen was born and raised in Dallas, Tx. She loves laughing, leaving, and writing. Some of her other work can be found in, or on, The Paris Review, High Times, The Rumpus, and more. She's the author of poetry collection The Collection Plate and essay collection When You Learn the Alphabet, which won the 2018 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction. Fruit Punch, her memoir, is out now. 

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