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Three choices to buy from
Twitching Heart. By Matt Mendez. ISBN: 978-1480257023 $17.95
--Manuel Muñoz, author of What You See in the Dark
Méndez’s stories emerge out of the gritty and working-class barrios of El Paso. At times gesturing towards the magical realism south of the border, his characters struggle to carve out a piece of the “American Dream,” but the difficulties they endure often leave them speechless. This is where Méndez’s strength as a writer is most visible. While his characters struggle to find the right words, he does not. His prose is restrained, his metaphors apt, and his details are damn near perfect. The desert might be unforgiving, but Méndez is able to impart a degree of grace into his stories without resorting to sentimentality. One of the sharpest young writers in the Southwest, he gives voice to a region that has remained on the periphery of American literature for far too long. His will be a career to watch closely. --D. Seth Horton, Series Editor, New Stories from the Southwest and Series Co-Editor, Best of the West: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri
El Paso is at the center of the new map of the West. Matt Méndez writes from, and about, Chuco's heart. In a remarkable debut Matt Mendez writes beautifully crafted stories, creating characters with clarity and worlds that are full, rich, and powerful. --Dagoberto Gilb, author of Before the End, After the Beginning
Emerging from a single neighborhood and spanning decades the stories in Twitching Heart expose the moments where lives shift and unravel, where lives intersect and destinies are chosen. From a husband hoping to save his marriage with the help of a mysterious faith healer to an airman’s first time at war, a widower’s deal with a rogue angel and a father’s perilous journey to reconnect with his daughter as the world around them crumbles, these stories reveal the American Southwest as rarely portrayed, as a changing landscape and cultural epicenter of our shared American future.
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This
is exactly how a winning debut should read—fluid and raw, redemptive and
inevitable. Underneath the humor runs a gifted storyteller’s nuanced take on
the paradox of the outsider. A triumphant first swing from one of the new stars
in the next generation of Chicano lit..gif)
Born
in El Paso (Chuco), TX Matt Méndez joined after the Air Force after graduating
high school and after four years of active duty moved to Tucson, AZ where he
works as an aircraft technician. He attended Pima Community College and the
University of Arizona where he graduated magna cum laude with a B.A in Media
Arts. He went on to earn an MFA from the University of Arizona where he has
taught fiction and other writing courses. Matt Méndez has been a speaker for
Pima Community College’s Adelante Program, a program designed to help Chicanos
earn college degrees, a community organizer working with teachers from TUSDs
banned MAS curriculum, and a facilitator of creative writing workshops with
Tucson youth. He also reviews books for the El Paso Times and currently
lives in Tucson with his wife and daughter.