Older's career as a writer began in 2014, in the back of the ambulance where he worked as an EMT in New York City.

A collection of stories from the living, the dead, and those in between, Salsa Nocturna serves as an introduction to key characters from his first series, Bone Street Rumba.

Following Older's tradition of inclusive writing, it follows a young Afro-Latina named Sierra who discovers her family's history of supernatural powers and her ability to interact with the spirit world.

Older has also been critical of "the popular surge of YA dystopias that followed in the wake of the Hunger Games trilogy," calling it "wildly undiverse.

[7] Older told The Guardian newspaper by email, "If fantasy as a genre truly wants to embrace all of its fans, and I believe it does, we can't keep lionising a man who used literature as a weapon against entire races.