“The theme of service is important to me: what it means to serve and be served.” Denise Chavez. Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia.

New Mexican writer, Denise Chávez, grew up in a family of readers, artists, and educators. Chávez earned a B.A. in 1971 and an M.F.A. in drama from Trinity University in 1974. Ten years later, she completed an M.A. in creative writing at the University of New Mexico. Her one-woman play Women in the State of Grace was originally written as Novenas narrativas in 1988. Among her best known works are The Flying Tortilla Man (1990), The Woman Who Knew the Language of the Animals/La mujer que sabía el idioma de los Animales (1993), numerous short stories, some of which appear in The Last of the Menu Girls (1986), and two novels, Face of an Angel (1994) and Loving Pedro Infante (2001). Chávez worked as an actress and educator and taught at the American School of Paris, the College of Santa Fe, and the Radium Springs Center for Women, a medium-security prison. Founder of the Border Book Festival in 1994, Chávez has received numerous awards. Among them are the American Book Award, the New Mexico Governor’s Award in Literature (1995) and the Woman of Distinction Award in Education (1996).