SALTED WITH FIRE

In the fading heat of a Mississippi September, fourteen-year-old Ann sits on her grandmother’s porch, watching a circle of women shell beans, swap stories, and stitch together the history of a family—and a town—that refuses to reckon with the truth.

But when news breaks of a bombing in Birmingham that leaves four Black girls dead, the porch becomes a crucible. Old wounds resurface. Loyalties fracture. And Ann, caught between silence and awakening, must decide what kind of woman she will become.

Told in the tender, unflinching voice of a girl standing on the edge of becoming, Salted with Fire is a powerful portrait of Southern womanhood, quiet rebellion, and the fire that refines but does not destroy. In a world divided by custom and cowardice, one girl learns that righteousness doesn’t whisper—it burns.

ISBN: 979-8-9897952-0-8, 114 pages (novella)