Novels

From This Wicked Patch of Dust: Pilar and Cuauhtemoc Martinez and their four children begin life in the shantytown of Ysleta on the United States-Mexico border. They struggle to stay together despite cultural clashes, different religions, and politics after September 11, 2001. Download PDF of First Chapter.

The Nature of Truth: Helmut Sanchez is a young researcher in the employ of renowned Yale professor Werner Hopfgartner. By chance, Helmut discovers a letter written decades ago by his boss mocking guilt over the Holocaust. Appalled, Helmut digs into the scholar's life and travels to Austria and Italy to uncover evidence of Hopfgartner’s hateful past. Read online excerpt from revised 2014 edition.

Short Stories

“Rosary on the Border” (excerpt), Literary Hub, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son.

“Eternal Return”, Yale Review, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son.

“Library Island”, Michigan Quarterly Review, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son.

“A Rock Trying To Be a Stone” (PDF), The Last Tortilla and Other Stories. “Una Piedra Tratando de Volverse Roca”, Spanish translation published in Tierra Adentro: Cuentario.

Day of the Dead” (PDF), The Last Tortilla and Other Stories.

“Angie Luna” (PDF), The Last Tortilla and Other Stories. “Angie Luna,” Spanish translation.

“The Snake”, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories.

“Espiritu Santo,” The Last Tortilla and Other Stories.

News Columns (most recent first)

Presidential Debate: Are we a society of superficiality or substance?

Predicting the Pandemic in Nobody’s Pilgrims

Cinco Puntos Press Celebrates 35th Anniversary

Sergio Troncoso Remembers Rudolfo Anaya

Five Fresh Looks at Tejano/Mexicano Experience

Book review: Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

Book review: Domingo Martinez’s My Heart Is a Drunken Compass

Book review: Denise Chávez’s The King and Queen of Comezón

Book review: Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis’s Dallas 1963

Book review: Daniel Chacon’s Hotel Juarez

Book review: Rigoberto Gonzalez’s Red-Inked Retablos

Book review: Matt Mendez’s Twitching Heart

Book review: Joy Castro’s Hell or High Water

A Patriot’s Right to Disagree

Book review: Daniel A. Olivas's Anywhere But L.A.

Book review: Latinos in Lotusland, editor Daniel A. Olivas

Book review: Ana Castillo's The Guardians

Book review: Eileen Welsome's The General and the Jaguar

Downtown revitalization proponents don't understand El Segundo Barrio

Book review: Rudolfo Anaya's The Man Who Could Fly and Other Stories

Book review: David Dorado Romo's Ringside Seat to a Revolution: El Paso and Juarez, 1893-1923

Book review: Luis Alberto Urrea's The Hummingbird's Daughter

Book review: Ernesto Quinonez's Chango's Fire

Latinos do not want to be categorized

Believable unbelievable stories for children

Book review: Dagoberto Gilb's Gritos

My trip to the El Paso Public Library

Why is literature not necessarily elitist?

How can our children become early readers?

What should Latino literature be?