On episode four of Milwaukee Based, local book influencer and "All Ways Black" curator Cree Myles stopped by WUWM's podcast studio to discuss her influencer journey, the power of literature in today's attention economy — and what she's been reading lately.
Since 2018, Myles has been spotlighting Black literary voices with book reviews, recommendations and author interviews on social media. From the start, she hoped to fill a gap in a #bookstagram scene that skewed far too white, escapist and apolitical for her Black feminist sensibilities.
"I just felt like we needed other options in the digital book space," she says. "Yes, you can read and like cozy up and stuff, but also you can read and then act differently, you know?"
In 2021, during the height of COVID and George Floyd Protests, Myles linked up with Penguin Random House for a Toni Morrison read-a-thon and later "All Ways Black" — a year-round campaign spotlighting Black authors in Penguin's collection.
"There were just geniuses at the helm at Penguin Random House — people who really wanted to push the envelope of how publishing showed up digitally ... and they just saw me as a co-conspirator in that movement," she says.
Myles is a strong believer in the power of literature to expand the imagination and foster critical thinking.In the face of literacy crisis and a media landscape increasingly dominated by bite-sized content, sharing good books takes on even greater urgency.
"I think we have distracted and escaped ourselves to the point of ignorance," she says.
You can listen to Cree Myles' full conversation with WUWM digital producer Graham Thomas and social media producer Samia Saeed.
For now, Cree leaves us with a few of her favorite reads from the past year:
Fiction
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor
Trick Mirrors: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
Non-Fiction
King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild
Medgar and Myrllie by Joy-Ann Reid
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley
Angela Davis: An Autobiography by Angela Davis
Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur
Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South by Marie Jenkins Schwartz
How the Word is Passed: Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
Credits
Audio editing by Graham Thomas.
Video editing by Samia Saeed.
Songs featured:
"The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron
"Folded" by Kehlani
SFX: "Page turn sound effect" by Lucas Nitschneider
