THE AVES

A Novel by Kimbilio Fellow Ryane Nicole Granados

Plenty of things in Zora’s youth would seem strange to others, but they’re perfectly normal to her. Her mother’s fixation with germs, and parties, and the power of names. Her father, who Zora rarely sees, disappearing among the stars as his biggest claim to fame. Her role in explaining things to her younger sister, even as Zora works to discover her own philosophies of life. And her neighborhood, a one-way street with an entrance but no exit called “the Aves.”

Zora wants more. More than an honorable name. More than glimpses of glory captured in window frames. Surviving childhood can be as intricate as the intertwined streets of Los Angeles. But as Zora grows, so does her story. And in the process, her desire for more is transformed into a tribute of the magnificent people who live alongside her.

Ryane Nicole Granados

KIMBILIO FELLOW AND AUTHOR

Ryane Nicole Granados has always called Los Angeles her home and her writing finds its roots in her love of her community. She is inspired to write stories of survival that magnify the marginalized while also unearthing the splendor of second chances. Named the 2021 California Arts Council Established Writer Individual Arts Fellow, her work has been featured in various publications including Pangyrus, The Manifest-Station, The Nervous Breakdown and The Atticus Review. Her storytelling has also been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and showcased in KPCC’s live series Unheard LA. As the winner of the 2023 Leapfrog Press Global Fiction Prize, her novella, The Aves, was published in late 2024.

Ryane’s WEBSITE

Five Questions for Ryane Nicole Granados

My earliest memory is sitting on my kitchen floor eating cereal out of the box. I imagine I was around 4 or 5. I remember the linoleum felt cold against my leg, but the nape of my neck was warm from the sun coming through the kitchen window. I remember feeling proud of myself because I got my own cereal, and I also remember a tinge of adrenaline at what I perceived to be a rebellious act. The entire scene is cloaked in yellow. The sense of happiness paired with slight caution is personified by my yellow nightgown, the LA sun and Cheerios.

These memories from my childhood growing up in South Central Los Angeles inspired me to write THE AVES. While the neighborhood in this novella is a fictionalized account of a bunch of neighborhoods that stretch between the boundaries of Crenshaw, Slauson, Central Ave, Florence, West Adams, Vermont, Van Ness and Inglewood, at its core, THE AVES is a mapping project of a magnificent people. THE AVES is a tribute to those we love and those we lost in a neighborhood where the concrete is always hot, and the sun bounces like a rubber ball off liquor stores, church doors, and laundromats into kitchen windows where little kids eat Cheerios.

THE AVES is also dedicated in honor of my young cousin who was killed by a hit and run driver when I was 8 year’s old and he was 4. The death of child greatly shaped my own childhood which adds to my desire to protect and preserve the life and dreams of young people though stories like THE AVES.

The first thing that came to me when writing the story was the setting. I wanted to capture the smallness of Los Angeles and the fragility of it too. Los Angeles is often depicted as this expansive place that stretches from the coastline to the Santa Monica mountains and requires a car that takes you an hour to get 10 blocks. But LA is more than gridlock. It’s tiny flowers breaking through hard cement, it’s ice cream trucks in November, and it’s neighborhoods like the Aves that more closely resemble small towns made up of dynamic characters. I feel like Los Angeles is often defined by media stereotypes and the heartache of those coming here to make their cinematic dreams come true. The parts of LA that are often overlooked are the simpler narratives happening on numbered streets where the Hollywood sign is nothing more than distant lettering in the sky.

The three elements of my childhood/teenage years that shaped who I am as a writer today are the stories that were shown to me by my mother, grandmother, and teachers. I am most influenced by the transcendence and other worldliness of Octavia Butler’s Kindred and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the lyrical stylings of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf and the groundbreaking story telling of Mildred D Taylor’s Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. Taylor’s classic was the first book I had ever seen with a Black girl on the cover who looked like me. I would also add novelist Terry McMillan to my list of influences because her book Waiting to Exhale was the foremost novel that allowed me to witness women huddled together in a beauty shop sharing chapter excerpts and exultations all because a writer set out to defy market trends and center a novel around the experiences of Black women in the United States. Taken together these influences shaped my aspirational goals as a young writer and helped me imagine the possibilities of THE AVES.

The three words that best describe my writing process for The Aves are Plunge, Longing and Feverish

Plunge, because reconciling the struggles of parenting, race, gender and publishing often result in me feeling like I am plunging into the page each time I approach my writing. I’m diving into the deep end and when I finally get a sentence just write I feel like I am floating.

Longing, because I have imagined this story for a long while but there have been starts and stops in its creation. While fiction is my first love, my career publications have often focused on non-fiction and academic work.

Feverish, because my writing process most resembles one of those cartoon bombs from the 19th century. I have a slow burning match cord filled with ideas that I tuck away during various times of the day. On my work commute, while waiting at a sports or music practice for a child, or even in my dreams, the fuse continues to burn. Eventually, it reaches the gunpowder, and it explodes. It’s at that time that I write feverishly. Sometimes I write in the early morning and other times I write over a summer break from teaching.

While I don’t have a publication dinner menu curated yet, I would welcome the nostalgia of my favorite childhood snacks: pizza, pixie sticks, and a cup of warm chili with Fritos sprinkled on top. In place of refinement, I’ll take a palate of fond memories and an unexpected ice cream truck in October.