Creative practice isn't separate from operational practice. What I read and who I photograph is where a lot of the thinking about systems, power, and care actually starts.
I read mostly fiction, and whatever my book club tells me to. Some nonfiction, when something pulls me in. My absolute favorite genre is speculative fiction. I like watching someone build a whole society and then account for what it costs to live in it. That is roughly my job, with fewer spaceships.
Reading Busy Woman's Book Club
A road trip toward a long-buried truth, and the family that buried it. Akil's debut novel, published June 2026, after decades of writing for television — she created Girlfriends and Being Mary Jane, so she has spent a long time on how Black women talk to each other when no one is watching.
Reading Solo
Jessie Redmon Fauset arrives in Harlem in 1919 as literary editor of The Crisis — the first Black woman in the role, and the person who put much of the Harlem Renaissance into print. She published Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Jean Toomer, and Nella Larsen before most readers knew the names. A novel about the person doing the work behind the movement, which is not usually who gets the credit. It's the same work I pay the most attention to in organizations: the coordination that holds everything together and rarely gets named.
I make portraits of people in my community. Mostly in studio, mostly people I know, but sometimes people I don't. During the session, we share stories and experiences, and sometimes challenge each other. I learn from every single person.
Brooklyn, New York
Chicago, Illinois
Collaborations, conversations, and good questions are all welcome.