November 06, 2025

AfterDark gives Milwaukee’s storytellers a place to shine

22 minutes

The driving force behind Uniquely Milwaukee is storytelling. Most of the time, it comes in the form of a news-style piece. But this episode breaks from that while still putting at its center the stories that get to the core of how we as humans connect and better understand one another.

Sharing our experiences helps us be more compassionate and can also inspire others to open up. One of the places that happens is a local platform that Uniquely Milwaukee host Kim Shine helped create — something that gives storytellers of color an opportunity to share their truest selves on stage. It’s an event called AfterDark: For the Culture, a collaboration between HYFIN and Ex Fabula. We’ve got another one coming up Nov. 13 at Radio Milwaukee, and in this episode you’ll hear four stories from past tellers:

Alice’s Garden executive director Venice Williams offers a humorous ode to her five uncles who protected her, were boldly themselves and may have had a few girlfriends.

Matthew Lewis goes a different route. Instead of telling a story from his life, he shares a poem dedicated to his favorite person — his 10-year-old self who was discovering the magic in being a different kind of boy.

Christine Reardon talks about figuring out who she wanted to be at 14 years old after being saved on a train in New York by three women who worked on the TV show A Different World.

Finally, Milwaukee hip-hop artist El Sebas combines a few stories from his life — idolizing his father as a child, translating Spanish into English for his relatives, and meeting the woman of his dreams.

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Episode host: Kim Shine

Uniquely Milwaukee is supported by our Radio Milwaukee members and sponsored by the Milwaukee Public Library.

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