Bry Reed

april 2026: loving dewy skin, blush that aliens can see from space, and new beginnings. one day i was a baby child watching jeopardy and 60 Minutes with my pop-pop, the next i’m 27 interviewing the icon Michaela angela Davis about fashion, identity, and editorial. the through lines of storytelling, news, and knowledge guide me in all things. all that to say i’m continuing to grow. i’m joining a team already doing monumental work with @afrocharities . never announced a job on socials before so 🤭 (no like everybody be so chill and so cool and celebratory 🧿). cheers to years of skill building leading to this new role and stewarding one of the largest Black archival collections in the world.

📘✨ Thank you to BmoreArt Magazine @bmoreart for the feature with @michaelaangelad ! We’re in store for a great conversation between Michaela Angela Davis and @thebryreed Bry Reed - “Tenderheaded” - THIS Saturday at the CityLit Festival!

✨💆🏾‍♀️CityLit welcomes fashion editor, image activist and writer Michaela angela Davis to discuss her latest work Tenderheaded, both a celebration of Black media’s vibrant history and a critical examination of its challenges and identity politics. Deemed a “a cultural manifesto that reckons with the role media and American history play in the fascinating and chaotic shaping of a collective identity,” this memoir examines life as a Black women with light skin, light eyes, and light hair in service to Black women alway. It is a tribute to Black girls and women, navigating a New York City cultural scene, hip-hop, and reckoning with the media industry while coming of age in the ‘80s, ‘90s and the “post-racial” Obama years. “Keenly observant and with exceptional taste, she spent most of her career putting her talents to use in the world of Black women’s fashion magazines, a small but influential (if grossly underappreciated) sector of New York’s publishing industry…Though Davis’ anecdotes of close encounters with the great and famous are certainly entertaining (and occasionally juicy), it’s the power and energy of her writing that makes her book such a pleasurable read,” states Kirkus Reviews. Michaela angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer, and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. Bry Reed (she/they) is a Baltimore-born and based writer committed to the legacy of “The City That Reads.” She’s a regular contributor to the Baltimore Beat and a 2026 Baker Artist Literary Finalist. ••••• 📝 TO REGISTER PLEASE VISIT THE LINK IN OUR BIO ✅ •••••

we’re living in a new spring season of growth. hopefully, the soil i’ve tended and seeds i’ve sown blossom this year. feeling endless gratitude for friendship, family, and faith in the almighty power of being my mother’s daughter. for the past few months @niand3rthal has invited me in as a producer on The Labor, The Luxury. we’re having a panel with some of the magnificent stars of our film on April 4. will you join us as we sharpen our oyster knives? anddddd people say print media—the news!—is dead. i must live in a world beyond because Baltimore is spoiling us with print news! hooray for the Baltimore media and literary ecosystem. honored to collaborate and learn from so many pillars of industry.

Pilate and Sula are two of my favorite characters in fiction, ever. they are bitter, murderous, brash, loving, tender, and clear as a blue sky under the shining sun. they are two characters, along with Wilson’s ma rainey and rose maxson, that i’m thinking about on repeat this month. Sula because i’m wondering what to make of the world and all the messaging urging young people to get married, stay married, and that marriage is the story. Sula knew lonely and knew marriage and she made her choice. and for Pilate, she’s my favorite character in fiction. she’s the rough edge i measure all other characters against. anyway! here’s peeks into february from my view. featuring my art study circle and a painting i made on a random tuesday. and question: have you ever been in love? <3

reading clarifies so much for me. it buoys and steels me. steadies me. starting 2026 reading ‘black-eyed susans’ and grateful for it. thank you Mary Helen Washington. thank you Paule Marshall and Alice Walker. what are you reading? what book or story or poem is steeling you?

nearly a year ago, in march 2025, i saw Zeinabu irene Davis’ Compensation (1999) for the first time. the theatre was full of friends and strangers delighting in the rejuvenation of Davis’ work. she joined us on the balcony and her laugh carried across the theatre. days later, we talked about independent film, African literature, and our shared admiration for Toni Cade Bambara. you can read on substack—bryreed.substack.com 🖤

i am running into a new year and i beg what i love and i leave to forgive me - lucille clifton, good woman: poems and a memoir 1969-1980.

📣 Bitter Kalli presents "Mounted: On Horses, Blackness, and Liberation" in conversation w/ Bry Reed- Weds Nov 19, 7 pm 📣 Masks required 😷 Drawing on their personal history as a former urban equestrian, Black queer person, and child of Jamaican and Filipino immigrants, essayist and art critic Bitter Kalli contends that horse should be regarded as a critical source of power and identity in Black life. In a series of astute essays, Kalli explores the work of Black artists and influencers from Beyoncé to filmmakers Tiona Nekkia-McClodden and Jeymes Samuel and explores their own life-long relationship to equines. Alternatively playful and critical, meditative and biting, these essays navigate time and place—from the shadows of racetracks where jockey culture and the ubiquity of “equestrian chic” was born, to the reclamation—or, in Lil Nas X’s word, yeehawification—of the image of the cowboy, to the fraught connections of equestrian sport to slavery, US militarization, and European colonial domination. At heart, Kalli probes a central question: What does it mean for Black people to ride and tend horses in the context of a culture that has also used horses against them? . #BookTalk #Horses #Blackness #Liberation

JOIN US ‼️Friday, July 18 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM Letter Writing as an Archival Tool w/ @thebryreed We will explore the radical, intimate power of letter writing through Sister Love by Pat Parker and Audre Lorde. This Open Classroom session traces how Black Feminist correspondence becomes both memory and archive. Whether you’ve been in our programs before or you’re just finding us you’re invited to participate and pour into a space of joy, expression, and liberation. LINK IN BIO TO REGISTER‼️ ADULT + YOUTH 14+

been glowing, walking, writing, and watching incredible hoops. happy spring to all who celebrate 🧚‍♀️

Join us in congratulating Jamesha Caldwell on her graduation from Penn State Dickinson Law! Jamesha (@elle.queen ) graduated as @pennstatedickinsonlaw 's Miller Center Pro Bono Advocate of the Year and will serve as an Interest on Lawyer Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Fellow this coming year. Since joining WBS as a high school writer (Class of 2017), Jamesha has returned to work as a counselor at our Writers Studio and start a Writing Club at her elementary school. We're so proud of you, Jamesha!