fiction
My fiction writing explores identity, Blackness, mixedness, migration, diasporas and both personal and collective myth-making. Magical realism, fantasy, speculative fiction, afro-futurism, and ancestral legends from the global African diaspora all inform my work. My writing has been recognized by the Loft Literary Center, Minnesota State Arts Board, Givens Foundation for African American Literature and VONA/Voices of Our Nation. I am currently at work on a novel based on Ejagham and Efik mythology from the Cross River region of Cameroon and Nigeria.
short story
published in Joyland
Gargoyle
One summer you came to stay with us for good. Your mom had up and left and you’d shown up at Abuela’s door with one of those Chinatown carts with a janky wheel and Salchichon, your piglet, half-asleep in a beat up caldero you’d tied up on top with a faded green scarf. Your mother used to wear that scarf wrapped around her head like a crown. The long silk strip had once been a bold and noble green circling the pitch black nebula of her hair. But it had long turned the muted color of an aguacate peel turned wrong side out. It was one of only two things of hers you’d bothered to take: the scarf and the fraying red high-tops, slung over the cart handle.
published in The Offing
The Only Ones
Every third Friday of the month, he will buy a lottery ticket from the neon-drenched corner bodega and will wire the better half of his pay to his parents. He will send letters detailing the weather, the strange new food, and sign them “your bushfaller.” He will leave out the jobs he has taken cleaning the toilets of a Chinese buffet and washing dishes at the university cafeteria. He will toss some change to Duke, the homeless bard holding court under the thundering overpass, and ask him for a lucky number.
On her days off, she will draft lengthy rending letters to her sister, tapping a lornful tattoo on a sea-blue typewriter her father had gifted her when she first left home. But she will never send them and only the ink ribbon will commit the words to memory. She will send money like a tithe to her family in a slim white envelope with no note, no greeting, no explanation.
short story
the novel
new work in progress
Drawing on my ancestral roots in Cameroon and myths from the Ejagham, Efik, and Afro-Cuban Abakuá oral traditions, the story follows two young women as they confront a powerful force threatening to destroy their world.
You can follow my progress, send me some love and reminders to hydrate and learn more about the inspiration behind this book project on my blog and the socials.
