Stay Golden™ is my novella series of true stories for young adults living in a digital age.
You know that moment- when you realize that the algorithmic world isn’t just getting you wrong; your authentic self feels excluded. Your phone assumes it knows what you will like, and every scroll tries to shape you into something more…profitable. Does the real you exist in the data? Whose purpose do you serve, if not your own?
At four, I learned what it meant to be shaped into someone I was not. Algorithms resemble my well-intentioned elders, but without heart, soul, and honor.
Then, like now, the light of truth was cloaked in hate, hypocrisy, and expanding exclusion. Stay Golden is a journey beyond exclusion for something truly worth fighting for: your authentic self, not a curated version of it.
To you and all who seek to know better their authentic selves, I gift my novella series of true stories that include:
• Excluded children that organize and create their own inclusion and joy while defeating their bullies and embracing their authentic selves.
• Little brothers organize to end the ongoing sexual exploitation of their older teenage sisters and discover compassion’s power of immunity and community.
• Facing down a drug lord’s death threat with nothing more than the raw power of compassion’s non-violent demand for dignity.
“Beyond Exclusion: Your Authenticity. Their Dignity. Our Future.”
Rafael Roque /Author