SAN ANGELO, Texas — Award-winning novelist and short-story writer Manuel Munoz will be the featured speaker for the 27th ASU Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton Feb. 29 - March 1 at Angelo State University.
Munoz will give two free public presentations Thursday, Feb. 29, in the C.J. Davidson Conference Center inside the Houston Harte University Center at 1910 Rosemont Drive:
- 9:30 a.m. - "A Conversation with Manuel Munoz"
- 7 p.m. - "Reading and Presentation by Manuel Munoz"
The two-day conference will also include seven free public sessions featuring readings and presentations by 21 guest authors and poets. All sessions will be inside ASU's Carr Education-Fine Arts Building in the Eldon Black Recital Hall, 2602 Dena Drive. Profiles of the guest writers and the complete conference schedule are available at angelo.edu/writers-conference.
A professor in the University of Arizona Department of English, Munoz is the author of a novel, "What You See in the Dark," and the short-story collections, "Zigzagger" and "The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue," which was shortlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award. His most recent short-story collection, "The Consequences," was published in the U.S. by Graywolf Press and in the United Kingdom by Indigo Press, with upcoming translations into Italian and Turkish. It was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.
Many of his short stories have appeared in the New York Times, Epoch, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, ZYZZYVA and Electric Literature, as well as "The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature" and "The Heath Anthology of American Literature." More details on his publications are available at manuel-munoz.com.
Among his many honors and awards, Munoz has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He has also been recognized with a Whiting Writers Award, three O. Henry Awards and two selections in Best American Short Stories, as well as the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. In October 2023, he was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship for "depicting with empathy and nuance the Mexican-American communities of California's Central Valley."
A native of Dinuba, California, and first-generation college graduate, Munoz holds a bachelor's degree in English and American literature and language from Harvard University and a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing from Cornell University.
The ASU Writers Conference is dedicated to San Angelo's own best-selling western author, Elmer Kelton, who died in 2009. The author of more than 40 books, Kelton was a seven-time winner of the Western Writers of America's Spur Award and was the first Distinguished Visiting Professor at ASU.
The conference is hosted by the Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English and Modern Languages and sponsored by the university with support from the ASU Alumni Association, College of Arts and Humanities and Guy and Eva Choate.
