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Denise Chávez
A true child of La Frontera, Chávez is the author of the novels Loving Pedro Infante, Face of An Angel and a short story collection, The Last of the Menu Girls, and most recently, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture, a memoir in food. She has also published a children’s book, La Mujer Que Sabía El Idioma de Los Animales/The Woman Who Knew the Language of the Animals. The author of many plays, she considers herself a performance writer. Chávez has a B.A. in Drama from New Mexico State University (1971), an M.F.A. in Drama from Trinity University (1974), and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico (1984). A novelist, short story writer, playwright, actress and teacher, Chávez has presented readings and workshops for multi-cultural, multi-generational audiences of all ages including students K-12, college students, the elderly, as well as men and women in prison. She has been a Professor at Northern New Mexico Community College, The College of Santa Fe, The University of Houston and New Mexico State University, eventually leaving academic life for grass roots advocacy and her professional work. Since its inception in 1994, Chávez has served as the Artistic Director of the Border Book Festival, a major national and regional book festival based in Las Cruces and Mesilla, New Mexico. She is also the founder of Sin Fronteras, Writers Without Borders as well as the Cultural Center of Mesilla/El Centro Cultural de Mesilla “C.C.M.,” a multi-cultural arts center based in Mesilla, New Mexico. The C.C.M. is an arts resource center, literary, storytelling, workshop and performance venue and serves as the home of the annual Border Book Festival. Chávez was the 2003 Hispanic Heritage Foundation Award Honoree in Literature. The award is given to Hispanic role models whose professional achievements and contributions have touched national life and culture, as well as given back to their community. The award ceremony took place September 4, 2003 at the Kennedy Center and was televised September 13, 2004 on NBC. Chávez’s recent honors also include the 2004 Distinguished Alumni Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at New Mexico State University, the 2004 Governor’s New Mexico Distinguished Public Service Award as well as the 2004 Literary Award from the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In May 2004, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Letters from the University of New Mexico, where she also gave the Commencement Address. Chávez serves on the National Advisory Board of the National Hispanic Cultural Center. From 2000-2003, Chávez was awarded a Lila Wallace--Reader’s Digest fellowship to present writing workshops in the Las Cruces community. Her project, “The Divine Frontier/La Frontera Divina,” gathered family stories and oral histories from senior citizens in the historic Mesquite Street district, a barrio known as “Chiva Town,” as well as residents from Las Cruces. In May 2002, Chávez was a Senior Specialist in Chicano Literature for the Fulbright Commission and traveled to universities in Málaga, Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. She was also a featured presenter at the International Chicano Literature Conference in Málaga, Spain. In 1999 Chávez received a grant from the Lannan Foundation to complete her novel, Loving Pedro Infante, which was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in April 2001. The book tour featured a series of Pedro Infante film festivals highlighting Infante’s work during La Epoca de Oro, the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema. In 2002, Chávez was a featured presenter at the Festival del Libro del Zócalo in Mexico City and toured with the Editorial Planeta translation of her book. The novel is now translated into Spanish and German. It is also currently being considered for film production. Chávez is the recipient of the 1998 Papen Family Arts Award, given to her by the Dońa Ana Arts Council for her significant contributions to arts in the Las Cruces area through lengthy service and leadership. Chávez was also given the 1996 Woman of Distinction in Education Award from the Soroptimist International of the Americas Club. Also in 1996, Chávez was awarded the Luminaria Award, presented by the New Mexico Community Foundation in Santa Fe to twelve New Mexicans whose philanthropic work and values effect positive change in communities throughout the state. Chávez is the author of the novels Face of An Angel and Loving Pedro Infante. Face of an Angel won the Premio Aztlán in 1995, awarded to an outstanding novel written by a Chicano/Chicana and the 1995 American Book Award. She was also recognized as the 1995 Mesilla Valley Author of the Year. Chávez is the recipient of the 1995 New Mexico Governor’s Award in Literature as well as he 1995 Writers of the Pass, the honorary literary society sponsored by the El Paso Herald Post. Chávez is also the author of The Last of the Menu Girls, a collection of interconnected coming of age stories. The title story, “The Last of the Menu Girls,” is published in the Norton Anthology of American Literature. The collection was re-published in April 2004 in English by Vintage Books and is now being translated into Spanish. Houghton Mifflin published a children’s play, La Mujer Que Sabía El Idioma de Los Animals/The Woman Who Knew the Language of the Animals, in 1993. Her play, The Flying Tortilla Man, has been published extensively in anthologies for young people. Chávez, an actor, tours her one-woman show, Women in the State of Grace, throughout the United States. In October 2004 she will be performing her show throughout the West. An hour and a half theatre piece, it focuses on the lives of nine Latina characters from age 7 to 70. From 2000-2002, Chávez wrote a monthly newspaper column, “La Vecindad/The Neighborhood,” for The Ink, a Las Cruces arts newspaper. Chávez’s essay, “Crossing Bitter Creek,” was published in Writing Down the River (Northland Press), a collection of essays about rafting down the Colorado River. She returned to raft the Colorado in 1999 for a PBS Documentary, “Writing Down the River,” with three other women writers including Linda Ellerbee, Barbara Earl Thomas and Ruth Kirk. A regular contributor to New Mexico Magazine, Latina Magazine as well as other publications, Chávez is currently working on various projects including a novel, The King and Queen of Comezón, a mystery love story set on the border, a collection of essays, Stories From My Third World Backyard, and a screenplay based on her novel, Loving Pedro Infante. Chávez' latest book is A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture which was published in July 2006 by Río Nuevo Publishers. A deeply committed community-based artist, Chávez continues to explore the universal in the regional landscape and support her community through education, empowerment and transformation through the arts.
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Denise Chávez has
her roots in New Mexico, Texas and México. She grew up in Las Cruces, NM with her father’s family and in Far
West Texas with her mother's family and learned to love life, literature
and tacos in both places.