I write to educate, inspire, uplift, and empower my readers. And, I create characters that people can relate to who live in communities people care about.
If you don't open yourself up to the raw emotions this story is capable of developing within you, if you don't spend time evaluating your responses and their causes, if you don't look at your own societal lens, you are not doing Salmon Croquettes justice. It is not simply a great read, but a catalyst for understanding, change, and greater love.
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Mark Demler, Reader's Review
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What's it about?
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In 1965, "The Circle" in Watts, Los Angeles, was filled with its own particular joys and troubles. This vibrant neighborhood comes alive in Salmon Croquettes, a heartwarming, humorous, and sometimes heartbreaking, historical fiction that brilliantly exposes the strength, resilience, and interconnectedness of the Black community.
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Zayla Lucille McKinney grapples with the confusion of feeling like a boy trapped in a girl's body. Is she what the other girls call her, a "bulldagger"? And what does that even mean? In the midst of her transformation from 12-year-old tomboy to young woman, the community she loves explodes in a racial uprising.
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The Watts Riots teach Zayla the fragility of life and the importance of friendship. As the embers die down
​and the smoke clears, Zayla also learns something else, a family secret.
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Salmon Croquettes is a sensitive exploration of Zayla's transition from childhood incomprehension - why do adults expect children to magically understand what is not acceptable? - to an acceptance of who she is and the truth of who her parents really are.
Nathaniel "Magnificent Montague" Montague
Former KGFJ Los Angeles Radio DJ and author of "Burn Baby Burn"