Wikipedia

Daniel Chacón (writer)

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Daniel Chacón
A middle-aged Chicano man with tousled hair speaks into a microphone. He has his right elbow resting on the table in front of him, his right palm facing out towards the audience.
Chacón at AWP 2017
Born1962 (age 61–62)
Fresno, California, U.S.
OccupationWriter, educator
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
EducationCalifornia State University, Fresno (BA)
University of Oregon (MFA)
GenresFiction, Chicano literature
Notable awardsAmerican Book Awards
Hudson Prize
PEN Oakland Award

Daniel Chacón (born 1962) is a Chicano short story writer, novelist, essayist, editor, professor, and radio host based in El Paso, Texas.[1] He chairs the University of Texas at El Paso creative writing graduate program, the country's only bilingual MFA program.[2] He founded the Chicano Writers and Artists Association with Fresno State classmate and close friend Andrés Montoya in 1985.[3][4][5]

Early life

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Chacón was born and raised in Fresno, California; his father was from El Paso, Texas.[1][6] One of his brothers is writer Kenneth Robert Chacón, from whom he was estranged for many years.[7][8] He earned a BA in Political Science from California State University, Fresno and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Oregon.[2][9][10] While at CSU, he wrote for the campus newspaper La Voz de Aztan.[9]

Career

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Chacón joined the MFA program at University of Texas at El Paso as an assistant professor in Creative Writing in 2000[11] and has been the department chair since 2017.[12] Since 2011, he has co-hosted the KTEP show Words on a Wire; his original co-host was Benjamin Alire Sáenz and is now Tim Z. Hernandez.[13][9] Guests include Alison Hawthorne Deming, Francisco Aragón, and Garrett Hongo.[14] He serves at the assistant director of the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation and was appointed chair for the International Association of Burn Camps' Board of Directors in 2018,[15] and is part of the Southwest Festival of the Written Word's advisory board.[16]

He has also edited several books, including A Jury of Trees (a posthumous collection of poetry by Andrés Montoya) (2017), The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: The Selected Work of José Antonio Burciaga (2008; with Mimi Reisel Gladstein) and Colón-ization: The Posthumous Poems of Andrés Montoya (2017).[17][18][19] His writing has also appeared in several anthologies: Caliente: The Best Erotic Writing in Latin American Fiction (2002), Lengua Fresca: Latinos Writing on the Edge (2006), and Best of the West 2009: New Stories from the West Side of the Missouri (2009), among others.[20] Journals that have published his work include ZYZZYVA, Americas Review, Bilingual Review, Colorado Review, New England Review, and Callaloo.[21] He also dabbles in playwrighting, standup, and poetry.[22][23]

Personal life

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Chacón is married and has a step-daughter.[4] His first child was born in 2020.[24] He began speaking Spanish in 1996.[25]

Awards and honors

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Chacón has received a grant from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation[26] and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2019.[27]

Year Book Award Name Award Body Reference
2000 Godoy Lives Peter and Jean de Maine Award for an Emerging Writer in Fiction Clackamas Literary Review [28][17]
2007 Unending Rooms Hudson Prize Black Lawrence Press [17]
2009 The Last Supper of Chicano Heroes: Selected Works of José Antonio Burciaga American Book Awards Before Columbus Foundation [29]
2014 Hotel Juárez PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award PEN Oakland [30]
Tejas Award for Best Book of Fiction National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies [31]

Selected works

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TitlePublisherDateLengthISBN
Chicano ChicaneryArte Público Press1996144 pp (paperback)978-1611920918
From Mexico City to Aztlan Oregon, in bittersweet comic fables and through tales of frightening realism, Daniel Chacon captures the shrewd, furtive, and sometimes torturous ways by which Mexican-Americans manage to survive in intimidating territory.[32]
and the shadows took himWashington Square Press2005352 pp (paperback)978-0743466394
Joey Molina had never been in a fight. The very thought of violence upset him. He only wanted to be an actor, and so he read plays and learned new words with his mother. When he's cast in the lead role in the school play, he's eager to go home and tell his family about it, but his parents have an announcement of their own.[33]
Unending RoomsBlack Lawrence Press2008235 pp (paperback)978-0981589930
The winner of the Hudson Prize, this collection of stories, mainly set in the Southwest, digs deep into the lives of its characters. Daniel Chacon's writing is very lucid and dips into Carveresque plain talk at times, but he isn't afraid to use pretty descriptions as well.[34]
Hotel JuárezArte Público Press2012197 pp (paperback)978-1558857681
In this collection of short and flash fiction, Daniel Chacón examines peoples' interactions with each other, the impact of identity and the importance of literature, art and music.[35]
The Cholo TreePiñata Books2017248 pp (paperback)978-1558858404
Fourteen-year-old Victor has just been released from the hospital after barely surviving being shot. His mother accuses him of being a cholo, something he denies, but she's not the only adult that thinks he's a gangbanger. His sociology teacher sent him to a teach-in on gange violence, and other kids think he's in a gang. The truth is, he loves death metal, reading books, and drawing, but he can't seem to overcome society's expectations of him.[36]
Kafka in a Skirt: Stories from the WallUniversity of Arizona Press2019168 pp (paperback)978-0816539918
These stories explore the concept of a wall that reaches beyond our immediate thoughts of a towering physical structure. While Chacón aims to address the partition along the U.S.-Mexico border, he also uses these stories to work through the intangible walls that divide communities and individuals—particularly those who straddle multiple cultures in their daily lives.[37]

References

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  1. ^ a b Contreras, Russell (2020-02-14). "Focus on Latino authors amid 'American Dirt' debate El Paso's Chacón, Troncoso among suggested reads". El Paso Inc. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  2. ^ a b Maszewska, Jadwiga (2004). ""Nobody knows where Aztlan is": An interview with Daniel Chacón" (PDF). American Studies Association. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  3. ^ "ANDRÉS MONTOYA (1968-1999)". Andrés Montoya Poetry. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  4. ^ a b Silva, Ire'ne Lara (2020-04-10). "OPENING NEW DOORS AND WINDOWS: TALKING WITH DANIEL CHACÓN". The Rumpus. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  5. ^ Cucurella, Paula (2020). ""Fuck Shakespeare" and MEChA in the '80s: An interview with Daniel Chacón". Latino Studies. 18 (1): 122–128. doi:10.1057/s41276-019-00232-9. S2CID 214273696. ProQuest 2358996295. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  6. ^ Contreras, Russell; Mone, John L. (2019-08-07). "El Paso, with deep Mexican American past, rallies amid pain after mass shooting". The OCR. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  7. ^ "WORDS ON A WIRE: Kenneth Robert Chacón". KTEP. 2017-04-16. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  8. ^ Vasquez, Christian (2017-09-25). "A tale of two cholos". The Prospector Daily. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  9. ^ a b c Yip, Helen (2014-11-13). "Award-winning writers team up in Texas to broadcast unique national showcase for creative writing". Borderzine. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  10. ^ "LETRAS LATINAS BLOG: "Fresno State's first Chicano student body president."". Archived from the original on 2012-07-10. Retrieved 2012-05-07.
  11. ^ "The Selected Works of Daniel Chacón". UTEP. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  12. ^ "Author Professor Daniel Chacón – The Crazy Artist: How to create". Downtown El Paso. 2017-09-05. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  13. ^ "Words on a Wire". KTEP. 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-01-26. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  14. ^ "El Paso NPR - KTEP 88.5 : National Public Radio for the Southwest". Archived from the original on 2011-12-17. Retrieved 2012-05-07.
  15. ^ "Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation Annual Report 2018" (PDF). Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation. 2018. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  16. ^ "Advisory Board". SW Word Fiesta. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  17. ^ a b c Dreyer, Thorne (2013-12-06). "Rag Radio 2013-12-06 - Award-Winning Fiction Writer Daniel Chacón, Author of 'Hotel Juarez'". Rag Radio. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  18. ^ "Faculty". Retrieved 2012-05-07.
  19. ^ "Daniel Chacón (Professor)". University of Texas, El Paso. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  20. ^ Ladau, Eric (2013-05-21). "Classical 91.7-Arte Público Author of the Month: Daniel Chacón". Houston Public Media. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  21. ^ Dugan, Lori (2007-03-16). "EAC's Visiting Writers Series continues with Daniel Chacón". Eastern Arizona College. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  22. ^ Hoppenthaler, John (2014). "Daniel Chacón - Poetry". Connotation Press. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  23. ^ "Unending Rooms". Bookshop.org. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  24. ^ "BOOKCHAT: An interview with Daniel Chacón". SW Word Fiesta. 2020-09-15. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  25. ^ Villalba, Tabitha (2006-08-31). "INTERVIEW: Daniel Chacon".
  26. ^ Cederlof, Calley (2016-04-13). "Author to speak at COS". Visalia Times Delta. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  27. ^ Ramos Pachecho, Maria (2019-02-19). "Creative writing professors inducted to TIL". The Prospector Daily. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  28. ^ "CLR Writing Contests". Clackamas Literary Review. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  29. ^ "The American Book Awards". Minnesota State, Moorhead. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  30. ^ "PEN Oakland Awards & Winners". PEN Oakland. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  31. ^ "Writers' Series". Lake Tahoe Community College. n.d. Retrieved 2021-08-03.
  32. ^ Chicano Chicanery.
  33. ^ and the shadows took him.
  34. ^ Unending Rooms.
  35. ^ Hotel Juárez.
  36. ^ The Cholo Tree.
  37. ^ Kafka in a Skirt: Stories from the Wall.
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