"I want to bring more of the literary world to South LA, to help other writers who are as Frank O'Connor might suggest, submerged. I want to encourage them to write the same way EV has encouraged me to write; unencumbered, uncensored, unstifled."
Mention “California,” and most people think of sun-kissed beaches, star-studded glamour, Hollywood success, or Silicon Valley. However, the stories in Crooked Out of Compton expand the narrative to include stories about othered Californians—each story reveals a different facet of the South [Central] Los Angeles community and its inhabitants.
Early morning shift begins at 10 pm Saturday when Cowboy rolls the Vic onto Willowbrook Avenue. At 10:05, we stop well-dressed Latina millennials in a brand new Beamer, front plate missing...short story fiction
The N-word had been programmed into artificial intelligence even though people received assistance from a Black man’s poop. He’d spent years living in Sanctuary, inhabited by so many different ethnicities, genders, and skin shades, the N-word had lost some, but not all, of its sting. To the folks living there, everyone was a nigger to many outsiders.
Cockroaches scurried across the ceiling and down the wall, disappearing into crevices and cracks like demigods. Jubilee Washington lay on his side, then turned onto his back, breathing fast.
You're on Compton City Hall’s chambers steps, Black Lives Matter button in plain view, your belly distends and nearly blocks out Herrera. It stretches Elizabeth Eckford's 1957 photo that’s on your t-shirt... short story fiction
The above stories are samples of what you'll read in my short story collection, "Crooked Out of Compton," that's coming soon. The collection was a finalist for the 2020 Big Moose Prize and was a Chestnut Review Stubborn Artist Contest semi-finalist. "Bruised," a story from the collection, is the 2020 Tulip Tree Merit Prize winner.
