How Readers Search When They Search

For more than two decades now, I've been guided by Jerry W. Ward, Jr.'s  question: "why do Black readers read what they read when they read?" Inspired by that challenge, I began routinely surveying students in my African American literature courses about their reading interests and habits.

These days, in collaboration with Meg Smith, director of our university’s Digital Humanities Center, and Dan Schreiber, the center’s web developer, I’ve been inclined to ask a related but different question: How do readers interested in Black authors and literary works search when they search?

Questions about search behaviors and reading discovery now drive our ongoing conversations about improving the Literary Navigator Device, an online portal designed to help users explore a wide range of publications—novels, short stories, poems, graphic novels, essays, and autobiographies.

As we continue building the project, we’re constantly asking how people seek out materials and what features can make their searches more meaningful. We also want to create opportunities for readers to encounter something valuable they weren’t necessarily looking for.

The goal is to make the act of searching itself a form of discovery, deepening how readers engage with Black literature.

Related:

• Developing the Black Lit Network

A Reluctant DH Scholar

I have a long-running joke with Meg Smith, the director of our DH Center, that I’m not into DH. I initially thought of it as a conversation, but the way Meg laughs when I say it, it’s somehow become a joke.

I say I’m reluctant mostly because data work and digital design pull me into the field, while my grounding in African American literature sometimes places me at a distance. And some what I witness from some DH communities seems exclusionary with respect to Black people and ideas. Meg counters that I perhaps focus too much on the wrong communities of DH to make my assessments of the overall field. Fair enough.

The other reason my DH ambivalence gets only so far with Meg is because we both know the many projects we’ve worked on together: The Black Panther Digital Project, The Poetry Tracker, The Novel Generator Machine (now The Literary Navigator Device), The Literary Data Gallery, and the overall Black Lit Network. So saying I’m a reluctant DH scholar sounds humorous in light of those projects.

One benefit of my reluctance, though, is that it prompts Meg to answer all kinds of questions and offer multiple alternative examples. It’s a reminder that a certain reluctance or skepticism can be good for intellectual exchange and collaboration, pushing both sides to clarify ideas and sharpen their sense of purpose.

Related:

• Developing the Black Lit Network

The Invisible Work Behind Building the Black Lit Network

People will visit the Literary Navigator Device or the Remarkable Receptions podcast page and have a easy time perusing, making selections, and finding information.  If all goes well, if all goes according to the plans of Meg Smith, director of our university DH Center, and Dan Schreiber, the web developer for the center, that's how it'll be: uneventful and incredibly useful. 

Meg and Dan took on full-time duties of the site in January 2025. Over the last few months, we've met to discuss plans and possibilities. It's been instructive working with them on the development of Black Lit Network. 

Most importantly, I've become much more aware of the extensive thinking, labor, and creativity that goes into making a top-level site. 

We have a general meeting together. Dan and Meg then meet to discuss some more specialized details, and Dan takes the lead, applying his technical expertise to make the major changes, which really means making dozens of minor, detailed adjustments. 

Here's a list of 15 subtle, behind-the-scenes changes Dan made to the site in August.

• Renamed Novel Generator to Literary Navigator 

• Added for poems, essays, short stories, autobiographies, and comics 

• Renamed Data Viz portal in the related content section of each page 

• Figured out which filter buttons to remove on which pages 

• Changed default podcast to 200th episode 

• Changed cursor to indicate link 

• Fixed the navigation issue 

• Updated “About” page 

• Removed “How to Use” section 

• Reorganized navigation menu. 

• Added “Glossary” 

• Ensured the slider at top links to correct pages 

• Made adjustments to the Homepage 

• Changed “Find your next novel” to "Find what to read next." 

• Changed “Podcast” to “Podcasts” on various pages

He did twice as much in September and at the beginning of October. 

Watching all these intricate updates unfold deepened my appreciation for the invisible work that makes a digital project happen. 

Related:

• Developing the Black Lit Network

Advancing African American Literary Studies through a Dynamic Digital Project

One of my goals is to strengthen and advance African American literary studies by building a dynamic, data-rich, and publicly accessible digital network that deepens understanding, visibility, and engagement with Black writing and culture.

Achieving that goal has meant regularly meeting with Meg Smith, director of our DH Center, and Dan Schreiber, the web developer for the center. I feel fairly confident that the capabilities of the Black Lit Network site, particularly our Literary Navigator portal, makes it one of the more powerful sites to emerge in African American literary studies. 

Meg and I have been collaborating since she arrived at SIUE in 2021, and now with Dan on board, we have opportunities to extend the work that we do. I don't take it lightly that such collaborations are rare in African American literary studies. Numerous barriers make it unlikely for a scholar of African American literature to have access and the expertise of a DH scholar and web developer on a project in the field. 

In a lot of cases when it comes to web-based projects, African American literature scholars prepare content and have it uploaded by someone with technical knowledge. The process with Meg and Dan, though, has been far more interactive. We spend considerable time talking through vision, earning out details, and then developing, testing, and refining the site.   

This project reminds me that innovation in African American literary studies depends on partnership within and beyond the field. 

Related:

• Developing the Black Lit Network

The Literary Navigator Device

A brief take on the Literary Navigator, a digital platform offering personalized recommendations across Black literature—connecting novels, poems, essays, and comics for curious readers.

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Related:

• Episodes of Remarkable Receptions

Blogging about Poetry in September 2025

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• September 29: Anthologizing Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks

• September 17: Anthologizing Langston Hughes 

• September 1: Blogging about Poetry in August 2025

Anthologizing Margaret Walker and Gwendolyn Brooks

Across the twentieth century, few poems by African American writers have been anthologized as frequently as Margaret Walker’s “For My People” and Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool.” These two powerful compositions became signature poems for their authors and staples in literature collections and classrooms. 

In November 1937, Poetry magazine published “For My People” by a 22-year-old poet named Margaret Walker. The poem gave voice to the pain, strength, and resilience of African Americans, or as Walker wrote, “my people.” It became her signature piece and a defining work of her literary career.

Five years later, in 1942, Walker’s collection For My People won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets. The title poem stood out as the most recognizable work in the volume. Its themes of collective struggle and hope resonated across generations.

Walker’s national profile expanded when she appeared on the 1954 Anthology of Negro Poetry album, alongside Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others. Her reading of “For My People” gave the poem an added dimension through her own powerful voice. This audio exposure helped solidify the poem’s cultural importance.

From the late 1960s through the 1970s, editors of African American literature anthologies repeatedly selected “For My People.” Between 1967 and 1974 alone, the poem was featured in over 20 different collections. It quickly became one of the most frequently anthologized poems in Black literary history.

In 1975, the Smithsonian released The Poetry of Margaret Walker, a full album of her readings. Again, “For My People” took center stage. As Walker later remarked, the poem became so iconic that saying it was akin to saying her name.

Similarly, in September 1959, Poetry magazine published “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks, then 42 years old. The short, striking poem captured the boldness and vulnerability of young Black boys chilling at a pool hall. Told in their collective voice, this persona poem became an enduring cultural touchstone.

By then, Brooks had already won the Pulitzer Prize and published several books. Yet “We Real Cool” would become her most anthologized and widely taught poem. Like Walker’s signature piece, it found a home in dozens of literature collections over the decades.

Although Brooks appreciated the poem’s popularity, she expressed concern that it overshadowed the breadth of her body of work. She noted that readers often focused on “We Real Cool” while overlooking her many other rich and complex poems. Nonetheless, the repeated anthologizing of the poem ensured its place in the canon—and reaffirmed the power of a short, resonant piece to shape a poet’s legacy.

Audiences most often come to know these two powerful poets, Walker and Brooks, through their most published poems. For readers of African American literature who are hungry for more African American literature, “For My People” and “We Real Cool” have also often been the door into these poets’ worlds, a starting point and a portal to their extensive creative works.

Sheree Renée Thomas and Suyi Davies Okungbowa at the New York Black and African Literature Festival

We somehow managed to pull off an unlikely, yet long overdue, conversation between an African American author who novelized a comic book about Wakanda and a Nigerian author who novelized a comic book about the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda. This exchange took place at the New York Black and African Literature Festival in New York City. 

On September 7, I moderated a conversation between Sheree Renée Thomas, author of Black Panther: Panther's Rage (2025) and Suyi Davies Okungbowa who wrote Marvel: Black Panther: The Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda (2025). Both writers also contributed to Black Panther: Tales of Wakanda (2022), edited by Jesse J. Holland.

I’m especially grateful to Efe Paul-Azino, the festival’s director, for making this conversation possible by inviting Thomas and Okungbowa. I had suggested to him that Black Panther represents a vital site of African American and African creativity and aesthetics. I floated the idea of a panel and panelists in a hopeful, open-ended way, citing the recent novelizations of Black Panther comics as a model. I was pleased when he secured commitments from both authors.

Our discussion covered wide-ranging territory. We explored how each writer incorporated cultural signifiers into their work and how they extended and reimagined aspects of the Black Panther storylines. They spoke openly about the experience of working on a Marvel property.

They also reflected on their career trajectories and highlighted a range of speculative writers across the Black diaspora, situating their own contributions within a much larger continuum of creativity.

The conversation flowed so well that at one point I asked why we haven’t seen more of these exchanges such as African American and Nigerian authors discussing the intersections of their work in public forums.

They cited a range of challenges, including language, geography, cultural distance, and more. Yet gatherings like this festival show that we have genuine opportunities to bring seemingly far-flung people and ideas together.

Related:

• Notes on the New York Black and African Literature Festival