In this episode  listen to the conversation between host Daniel Chacon and author Melanie Márquez Adams.

Adams is an Ecuadorian American writer and translator who has made her home in Nashville, Tennessee. She holds an MFA in Spanish Creative Writing from the University of Iowa where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her most recent fiction and nonfiction can be found in journals such as The Southern Review, Puerto del Sol, Laurel Review, Spanglish Voces, and Huellas Magazine. While she does write and publish in English, she chooses to write principally in Spanish as an act of resistance. She is the author of a collection of short stories and two essay collections, as well as the editor of the anthology Del sur al norte: Narrativa y poesía de autores andinos, winner of a 2018 International Latino Book Award. A tireless advocate of Spanish-language writers in the US, Melanie serves as Spanish content editor for Latino Book Review, and producer and translator for Tres Cuentos Literary Podcast.

In this episode listen to the conversation between host, Daniel Chacón, and  writer and artist Octavio Quintanilla, author of the poetry collection, If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) as well as Wasted Time (Alabrava Press, 2019). 

 Quintanilla´s poetry, fiction, translations, and photography have appeared, or are forthcoming, in journals such as Salamander, RHINO, Alaska Quarterly Review, Green Mountains Review, and The Texas Observer. His Frontextos (visual poems) have been published in journals such as Poetry Northwest, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, About Place Journal, and The Windward Review, and his visual work has been exhibited in many locations including the Southwest School of Art, Presa House Gallery, Equinox Gallery, and The University of Texas—Rio Grande Valley (Brownsville Campus).

In this episode  listen to the conversation between host Daniel Chacon and author Reyna Grande on her new book A Ballad of Love and Glory (2022)

Reyna Grande is the author of the memoirs The Distance Between Us and A Dream Called Home, and the novels Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing With Butterflies, and A Ballad of Love and Glory. Her books have been adopted as the common read selection by schools, colleges, and cities across the country. 

Reyna has received an American Book Award, the El Premio Aztlán Literary Award, and the International Latino Book Award. Follow her work at: https://reynagrande.com/

In this episode listen to the conversation between host, Tim Z. Hernandez and author Lupe Mendez.

He is the founder of Tintero Projects which works with emerging Latinx writers and other writers of color within the Texas Gulf Coast Region, with Houston as its hub. Lupe earned his Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Texas at El Paso. Mendez’s work can be seen in print and online formats including the Kenyon Review, Gulf Coast Journal, the Texas Review, the L.A. Review of Books, Split This Rock, Poetry Magazine and Poem-A-Day from the Academy of American Poets. Mendez is the 2022 Texas Poet Laureate. Follow Lupe on Twitter, at @thepoetmendez and on Instagram, at @ellupis.

In this episode listen to the conversation between host, Daniel Chacon,  and memorist, Garret Hongo, about his new book The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo (Pantheon, 2022).

Hongo's poetry collections are Yellow Light (1982), The River of Heaven (1988), which received the Lamont Poetry Prize and was a Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and Coral Road (2011).  In non-fiction, he has published The Mirror Diary (2017) and Volcano: A Memoir of Hawaiʻi (1995). His work has been recognized with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Hosts, Tim Z. Hernández and Daniel Chacón get together to talk to award-winning American poet, novelist and writer Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

His first book of poems, Calendar of Dust, won an American Book Award in 1992. His first novel, Carry Me Like Water was a saga that brought together the Victorian novel and the Latin American tradition of magic realism and received much critical attention. His novel Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, a coming-of-age story about two Mexican-American boys growing up in El Paso, Texas, was a Printz Honor Book, the Stonewall Award winner, the Pura Belpré Award winner, the Lambda Literary Award winner, and a finalist for the Amelia Elizabeth Walden Award. Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World (2021) is the well-awaited sequel.  

In this episode, listen to the conversation between host, Daniel Chacon, and author JJ Amaworo Wilson on his second novel "Nazaré". 

Wilson is a German-born Anglo-American-Nigerian novelist and non-fiction writer. His novel "Damnificados" won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction, the Independent Publishers Book Award, the New Mexico-Arizona Book Award, and the Prix Révélation de Traduction (French edition), and was on Oprah’s Top 10 Books to Read Now list. The novel has been translated into several languages. His second novel is "Nazaré" (PM Press, 2021).

In this episode of Words on a Wire, host, Daniel Chacon interviews author Gris Muñoz.
Gris Muñoz is a frontera poet and storyteller. She is the author of the bilingual poetry and short-story collection, Coatlicue Girl (FlowerSong Books, 2020), most recently named a finalist for the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry by the Texas Institute of Letters.

In this episode of Words on a Wire, host Daniel Chacón interviews Estella González about her debut short story collection, Chola Salvation, published in 2021 by Arte Público Press.

 González was born and raised in East Los Angeles which inspires her writing. Her writing has been recognized with a Pushcart Prize “Special Mention” and as a “Reading Notable” for The Best American Non-Required Reading.

n this episode of Words on a Wire, host Daniel Chacón interviews Denis O´Hearn about the 20th anniversary of his compelling book Nothing But an Unfinished Song: The Life and Times of Bobby Sands. 

Denis O'Hearn is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at El Paso. He has written widely in the fields of political economy, mutual aid, isolated imprisonment and Ireland."