El Paso Times Interviews Sergio Troncoso on Texas Literary Hall of Fame

Thank you to my friends in El Paso who alerted me about this video and article on the Texas Literary Hall of Fame for the front page of The El Paso Times! I'm grateful. I'm working on another novel right now, actually struggling with another chapter. Siempre trabajando, wherever I am! I always remember my parents and family during good moments like these, because I know I wouldn't be anywhere without their values, without their love, without their many lessons I learned in Ysleta.

Article in The El Paso Times:

https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/life/arts/2024/09/29/award-winning-author-sergio-troncoso-joins-texas-literary-hall-of-fame/74691128007/ 

Q&A with El Paso Matters Book Club on Nobody's Pilgrims

Q&A with the El Paso Matters Book Club. I'll be at the Troncoso Branch Library on Saturday, July 29th, 4 PM to discuss NOBODY'S PILGRIMS and to sign books. Buy your books at Literarity Bookshop on North Mesa!

"One important theme in “Nobody’s Pilgrims” is “the border beyond the border.” How does the border and its issues travel beyond the geography of El Paso and Ysleta, and how does the border and its sensibilities reside within the characters who travel beyond the border? Another theme is about community and outsiders. The three protagonists, Turi, Molly and Arnulfo, don’t belong anywhere, not even with their families. Yet they create a community of outsiders by believing in each other, listening to each other, and sacrificing themselves for each other. A final theme is about how character is revealed when you are in difficult, even violent or dangerous situations. Character is revealed by action."

https://elpasomatters.org/2023/06/14/el-paso-matters-book-club-qa-sergio-troncoso-nobodys-pilgrims/

Sergio Troncoso and Willie Velasquez

I am writing a series of essays about my experiences as a Mexican American student at Harvard. I found the letter below in my papers, a recommendation from the great Willie Velasquez of the Southwest Voters Registration Education Project, whom I met at the John F. Kennedy School's Institute of Politics while I was an undergraduate. He was an IOP Fellow and probably the most inspiring person I met up to that point. His commitment to the Mexican American community, his political intelligence and savvy, and his character, all were guides for me as I became a writer who also cared about our community, how it was represented, why our voices and stories mattered, why I wanted to focus on los de abajo.

Recently, the Texas Institute of Letters made me a Fellow of the TIL, one of only eighteen fellows chosen since 1936 and the first Mexican American to be selected for this distinction. I thought about Willie's commitment and drive, and how the awards are not really what matter. What matters is what you do, and what you continue to do, because you give a damn and you are not ever satisfied. I'm proud to be a Fellow of the TIL, but I also feel that I need to get to work to keep fighting for not just the political but also the cultural empowerment of Mexicans Americans and those who are underdogs. Stay tuned. Descanse en paz, Willie Velasquez.

 

 

Texas Monthly's Profile of Sergio Troncoso

In the August 2022 issue of Texas Monthly: 

"The ‘Nobody’ in the title is there because they’re outsiders,' Troncoso says. 'They don’t belong anywhere, even within their own families. They’re orphans—or are for all practical purposes.' Over the course of their drive across the country, Turi and Arnulfo are treated with suspicion and even outright hostility from complete strangers. The novel reflects Troncoso’s perspective that 'Mexicanos and undocumented immigrants are much more akin to the original Pilgrims.'

Nobody’s Pilgrims celebrates outsiders in general and immigrants in particular, an ethos that was central to Troncoso’s recent two-year tenure as president of the Texas Institute of Letters. 'I threw my heart and soul into the TIL,' he says. 'That meant representing all of Texas. We inducted more African Americans than ever before. During my tenure, we gave the Lifetime Achievement Award to Benjamin Alire Sáenz, who probably should have won it ten years ago. And this year we gave it to Celeste Bedford Walker, the first African American to ever win the award. It’s long overdue, in my opinion; she’s a great playwright. The organization truly is morphing into something beyond white guys from Dallas and Austin.'"

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/sergio-troncoso-making-texas-literature-representative/

Sergio Troncoso Donates Archive to The Wittliff Collections

“Sergio Troncoso is one of the leading lights of Texas letters,” said Wittliff Collections Director Dr. David Coleman. “His brilliant and unique voice, in both fiction and nonfiction, has brought a rigorous, authentic borderlands perspective to our national literature. We are honored to add his important archive to this collection, and for him to take his place alongside so many other literary luminaries.”

https://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/about/news/Dec-2020-Sergio-Troncoso-donaes-archive-to-The-Wittliff.html

TIL Award Winners Panel at 2020 Texas Book Festival

As president of the Texas Institute of Letters, Sergio Troncoso moderates a panel of three TIL Award Winners at the 2020 Virtual Texas Book Festival: Ruben Degollado, Lupe Mendez, and Naomi Shihab Nye. All three read from their award-winning books and discuss important literary questions as well as questions about their work and life during COVID-19. 

https://youtu.be/zvN591OYRf0

 

 

Houston Chronicle Op-Ed: Los Viejitos, our Heritage, and the Pandemic

Sergio Troncoso: “My mother is the storyteller now, the one with great stories of grit and perseverance that give me a glimpse of how I became who I am today. Just like my grandmother. Their history is our history. Our present becomes more meaningful when we have our viejitos to tell us their stories. If this presidential election is about anything, it should be about why they should always matter to us.”

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/outlook/article/Essay-Protect-los-viejitos-our-oldsters-and-15651571.php

Albuquerque Journal Review: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

"Sergio Troncoso demonstrates in the short-story collection A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son that he’s a master storyteller but with a special bent."

Thank you, Albuquerque Journal and David Steinberg.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1477173/two-story-collections-reflect-the-impact-of-living-and-working-in-the-southwest.html

Sergio Troncoso Wins Silver Award from Foreword Reviews

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son (Cinco Puntos Press) wins the Silver Award for Multicultural Adult Fiction in ForeWord Reviews' Book of the Year Awards.

"This is a world-class collection." ---Luis Alberto Urrea

"The El Paso author's newest collection depicts contemporary Mexican American life with a characteristic blend of sorrow and humor. It's his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon." ---The Texas Observer

"Chicano literature began with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when a sizable Latino population was separated from its land and heritage. Sergio Troncoso has written brilliantly of this disruption and its pull." ---Journal of Alta California

https://www.forewordreviews.com/awards/books/a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son/

Best of Texas: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son (Cinco Puntos Press) makes the Best of Texas 2019 list from Lone Star Literary Life. Thank you Michelle Newby Lancaster and Si Dunn.

“A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son, an outstanding collection of connected short stories uniquely reflecting life along the troubled Texas-Mexico border, proves the continued vitality of short fiction as a form. Troncoso tells skillfully nuanced stories from the perspective of a poor immigrant’s son who has found success within the world of America’s elite universities and financial power, yet still feels adrift and alienated, seeking deeper meanings.”

https://www.lonestarliterary.com/content/best-texas-2019

Texas Observer: A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son

From the Texas Observer on A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son:

"From the start, this book takes place not so much at the border of things as on their edge: the contact zones of life and death, past and present, here and there, old and young. In the characters’ minds, we find ourselves on one side of a divide, perpetually looking back or across. With Troncoso, that endeavor is often as dark as it is funny. The El Paso author’s newest collection depicts contemporary Mexican American life with a characteristic blend of sorrow and humor. It’s his most powerful work yet, and an essential addition to the Latinx canon."

I am so grateful to the Texas Observer and Daniel Peña.

https://www.texasobserver.org/sergio-troncoso-peculiar-kind-immigrants-son-borderlands/

Texas Institute of Letters: Literary Contests

The Texas Institute of Letters literary contests are now open with prizes totaling more than $22,000. Deadline is January 15, 2019.

Twelve categories:

• Jesse H. Jones Award for Fiction

• Carr P. Collins Award for Nonfiction

• Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Work of First Fiction

• Ramirez Scholarly Book Award

• Helen C. Smith Award for Poetry

• John A. Robertson Award For Best First Book Of Poetry

• Edwin "Bud" Shrake Award for Short Nonfiction

• Kay Cattarulla Short Story Award

• Fred Whitehead Award for Design of a Trade Book

• Jean Flynn Best Middle-Grade Book Award

• Texas Institute of Letters Best Young Adult Book Award

• Texas Institute of Letters Best Children's Picture Book Award

Eligibility for the awards requires that the author be born in Texas or have lived in Texas for at least five consecutive years at some time. A work whose subject matter substantially concerns Texas is also eligible. Download the PDF below to fill out form for contest entry and to send work to judges.

http://www.texasinstituteofletters.org/awards/2018-contest-details.pdf

Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Work of First Fiction

Please help me spread the word. At the Texas Institute of Letters, I have permanently endowed the Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Work of First Fiction ($1,000).

The Troncoso Award will be given to a first novel or short-story collection by an author from Texas or writing about Texas. The publication date of the work must be in 2017. The deadline for submission is January 2, 2018.

Here are the basic rules for all TIL awards: Each year the Texas Institute of Letters awards more than $20,000 to recognize outstanding literary works in several categories. Eligibility for the awards requires that the author be born in Texas or have lived in Texas for at least two consecutive years at some time. A work whose subject matter substantially concerns Texas is also eligible.

2017 TIL Contests:

http://www.texasinstituteofletters.org/awards/2017-contest-details.pdf

Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Work of Fiction
Sergio Troncoso Award for Best Work of First Fiction

Carr P. Collins Award for Best Book of Non-Fiction

Ramirez Award for Most Significant Scholarly Book

Helen C. Smith Memorial Award for Best Book of Poetry

John A. Robertson Award for First Book Of Poetry

Edwin “Bud” Shrake Award for Short Nonfiction

Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story

H-E-B/Jean Flynn Best Children’s Book

H-E-B Best Young Adults Book

Denton Record-Chronicle Best Children’s Picture Book

Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translation of a Book

Fred Whitehead Award for Best Design of a Trade Book

Texas Institute of Letters:

http://www.TexasInstituteofLetters.org

Thank you.

Sergio Troncoso

My Heart Is a Drunken Compass

Domingo Martinez’s second memoir, My Heart Is a Drunken Compass (Lyons Press), is a riveting roller-coaster of emotions from a writer struggling with his internal demons, mortality, family disasters, guilt, and the brink of failure. He succeeds to pull up from repeated nose-dives into oblivion, in part, through writing, a hard-won self-awareness, and friends who value his social insights, humor, and irrepressible spirit. My Heart Is a Drunken Compass is a must-read for those who love painfully honest memoirs and first-rate storytelling.

The book continues where Martinez left off in his first memoir, The Boy Kings of Texas, a visceral exploration into Mexican-American families in South Texas, machismo, alcoholic self-destruction, and even creativity and self-reliance amid abject poverty. Derek, the author’s younger brother, is bright, and wins a full scholarship to the University of Texas at Austin, only to descend into drinking binges that alienate him from the family. In one of these episodes, Derek passes out, smashes his head, and ends up in a hospital with serious head injuries. 

The author is plunged into an obsession with not only Derek’s mortality but his own, with missed opportunities and the guilt that comes with self-analysis. Martinez questions whether his actions as a brother caused Derek’s alienation and drinking, whether the alcoholic machismo the older brothers mimicked from their father only encouraged Derek’s own imitations of the brothers. Martinez also criticizes his mother’s divorce from his father, yet he also sympathizes with her. The author also escaped to Seattle to free himself of the toxic family environment in South Texas. 

After Derek recovers from non-life threatening injuries, Martinez segues into his erratic relationship with Steph, “the slim-hipped gentile promised to every son of an immigrant family as per the American Dream.” Bossy and bohemian, Steph is also running away from her family and leads the strangely passive Martinez to camping trips he detests and other misadventures in Seattle. Often when Martinez rethinks a decision he has made with her and wants to question or abandon what they are doing, she displays a terrific anger. Yet the sap still loves her:  Steph proposes marriage to Martinez, and he agrees. 

That’s the point where the relationship unravels. Steph continues her strange behavior of promoting half-truths about her past, manipulating Martinez into more misadventures, and finally punching him in another fit of anger. Martinez has had enough and more or less ends the relationship, yet he still goes back to Steph when she proposes another trip. The author meets Sarah, a level-headed and intelligent older woman, a philosophy professor he loves for her mind even if he is also attracted to her physically. In retrospect, Martinez recognizes how Steph ‘cannibalized’ his soul. As the relationship with Sarah begins, Steph is in a horrific car accident that leaves her with a traumatic brain injury. 

The ex-fiancé takes it upon himself to care for Steph, even though her Anglo parents hate him, even though Sarah feels as if she is having an affair with Martinez because of his devotion to the injured Steph. This is the most puzzling aspect of the memoir: this continued and guilt-ridden devotion to Steph as Martinez flounders with alcoholism, fights to keep Sarah, and struggles as a failing writer. It was a godsend that Sarah came his way, and that she is the one who tells him “to write your way out of this.” And he does so, brilliantly. So Martinez finally realizes what he has to do, with a little help from his friends. 

In My Heart Is a Drunken Compass readers are perhaps treated to the importance of the ethical quality of writing. That is, how writing about something happening to you now, even horrific disasters, gives the writer a way to gather meaning from a chaotic present, to process it, and act so that you make better choices. Martinez earns your trust as a writer and a storyteller because of his messy honesty that mirrors the lives of most readers: his heart is out there, in words, and it gets battered, and he also does much of the battering himself, but he still keeps going.

(This book review originally appeared in the El Paso Times on December 28, 2014.)