Interview to Daniel Chacon. Short story writer, novelist, essayist, editor, professor, and radio host (Words on a wire. NPR). By Juan Pablo Plata.

Juan Pablo Plata Figueroa · Interview to Daniel Chacon. Short story writer, novelist, essayist, editor, professor, and radio host

Daniel Chacón is a Chicano writer, professor, and radio host based in El Paso, Texas. Heearned a BA in Political Science from California State University, Fresno, and an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Oregon. Chacón chairs the bilingual MFA program at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he teaches courses on fiction, Kafka, and Latino/a literature. He is the author of seven books of fiction, including The last philosopher in Texas: fictions and superstitions (2024), Hotel Juárez: stories, rooms and loops (2013), which won the 2014 Pen Oakland Award and Tejas NACCS Award, and The Cholo tree (2017). His short story collection Unending rooms (2008) earned the Hudson Prize. Chacón’s work, often described as Nepantla Realism, blends magical realism with Chicanx identity and has appeared in anthologies like Latino Boom and Best of the West 2009. He co-founded the Chicano Writers and Artists Association and hosts the podcast The Writer and the Brain.