Maceo Montoya

Maceo Montoya is an author and visual artist who has published books in a variety of genres, including four works of fiction: The Scoundrel and the Optimist (Bilingual Press, 2010), The Deportation of Wopper Barraza (University of New Mexico Press, 2014), You Must Fight Them (University of New Mexico Press, 2015), and Preparatory Notes for Future Masterpieces (University of Nevada Press, 2021). Montoya has also published Letters to the Poet from His Brother (Copilot Press, 2014), a hybrid book combining images, prose poems, and essays; Chicano Movement for Beginners (For Beginners Books, 2016), which he both wrote and illustrated; and Imaginative Possibilities: Conversations with Twenty-First Century Latinx Writers (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2024), coauthored with Javier O. Huerta, which won a 2025 American Book Award. Montoya is a professor of Chicana/o Studies and English at the University of California, Davis.