Winner: Mexican Teeth: Stories and Assorted Artifacts of an Errant Chicanidad by Tomás Baiza
Tomás Baiza is originally from San José, California, and now finds himself in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of the novel, Delivery: A Pocho’s Accidental Guide to College, Love, and Pizza Delivery (Running Wild Press, 2023), and the mixed-genre collection A Purpose to Our Savagery (RIZE Press, 2023). Delivery was selected as the 2024 Treasure Valley Reads featured novel. His writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net, and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Tomás has fenced in Italy, been rescued by helicopter from the Sierra Nevada, fended off wild dogs while hitchhiking the backroads of Morelos, México, and once delivered a dozen pizzas to a Klingon-themed orgy at a sci-fi convention. When he is not writing, Tomás is running trails, sharpening knives, or obsessing over bonsai trees.
Prize judge, Juanita E. Mantz (“JEM”) writes,
MEXICAN TEETH Stories and Assorted Artifacts of an Errant Chicanidad by Tomás Baiza is the kind of book that will make you swoon from the first story to the last. The writing stays with you and is bold yet tender and completely unique. There is no voice like Baiza’s out there and it cuts through.
His writing spoke to me the same way some of my favorite writers did at first read, writers like Sandra Cisneros and Junot Diaz. His book defies categorization yet contains multitudes and is also deeply personal, culturally specific, and socially conscious. And I won’t give the storyline away, but his piece “Mexican Teeth” will blow you away. This book is a must read, but will especially resonate with all of us pochas and pochos, myself included, who have, as Baiza writes in the chapter “Proud—and Not A Little Sad,” been taught to assimilate and defer:
“You were raised by wolves to live with dogs. Taught to look down, bow your head, to never bare your teeth, lest you be labeled off-putting, combative, intimidating.
To pass—because isn’t that always the point?—you must accept the collar, submit to the ritual grooming, meekly absorb those things called ‘constructive criticisms,’ and never ever tell The Truth, lest you be labeled uppity, contrary, menacing.”
Runner up: Big Hands by Marcus Clayton
Honorable mentions:
Acts of the Apostles by Danny Romero
Scales and Other Stories by Mario Padilla
Blood at the Root by Jesus Mena
Once Upon A Time When I Was Mexican by Gil Arzola