El Paso
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Closing Nazareth: On Shelter
We stood with the open-handed absence which finally allowed for a telling.
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How to Steal a Frozen Burrito
If you ask me why I did it, I can’t give you a proper answer. I was hungry and didn’t have much money, but it wasn’t like I was homeless or went to sleep starving.
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They Prefer People to Die: On Trump, Borders, and Racism
A good man doesn’t leave someone to die in the desert, and when he uses God’s name, he does it to bless, not to kill.
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A Box Of Chocolates
I think that every novelist of the kind of novels that I write has in them maybe one really good book… but the trouble with so many novelists is that they keep on writing novels even when they run out…
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The Rumpus Interview with Leland Cheuk
Leland Cheuk discusses his novel The Misadventures of Sulliver Pong, dark humor, cancer, morally corrupt characters, and his mother.
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The Rumpus Interview with Sara Benincasa
Comedian Sara Benincasa opens up about her latest book Real Artists Have Day Jobs, adjusting to success, Venn-diagramming love, and the loss of Morley Safer.
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Borderland Books That Travel
Veliz Books, a new literary press based out of El Paso, has just begun work delivering contemporary literature to the borderlands. The press has already published three books by talented Latino authors, and each is translated into English, Spanish, and…
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Mexican Enough?
I’m from South Texas. I’ve taken Chicano literature courses. I’ve helped organize symposiums featuring Mexican and Mexican-American authors. But I had never heard of Amado Muro.
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Nuestra Señora de Las Nieves: Seeking a Saint in the Heart of a War Zone
I have so many questions for Cruz. Does she know the whole story about this painting? Did she attend catechism and Mass at Tía Zenaida’s house? Does she know why we took the painting from Las Nieves?
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Belly Ripley and the Weirdest Parole Terms Ever
We’ve all been there. You go to Harvard, then to law school in Colorado. You own property in central Texas. You get caught trafficking drugs, and the court makes you study creative writing in El Paso as part of your…
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Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life #3
How I Became a Music Critic: At age 19, I was assigned to review Bob Dylan in concert, despite the fact that I had very little sense of who Bob Dylan was. I was doing a summer internship at my…
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Where God and the Devil Wheel Like Vultures: Report from El Paso
There’s a story here, but it exists in illogical fragments, chaotic subtexts, and poverty economics cured in the meth-soaked algebra of need, greed and corruption. And eventually it all plays out in song. Folk songs, cowboy ballads and Narco-corridos. What…