Words on a Wire

10/13/2024

Don’t miss Sunday’s broadcast with guest Parmy Olson, a Bloomberg tech columnist and author of Supremacy: AI, ChatGPT, and the Race That Will Change the World.

10/05/2024

Don’t miss Sunday’s episode with poet Cassie Holguin-Pettinato. Host Tim Z. Hernandez and Cassie discuss her new collection of poems, The Five Stages of Stuttering (, 2024).

Catch the broadcast at noon MT on .fm.

09/22/2024

Don’t miss Daniel Chacón’s conversation with renowned playwright and theater director Octavio Solis. Catch the broadcast this Sunday, September 22nd, at noon MT on KTEP 88.5 FM, or listen to the full, unedited version wherever you listen to your podcasts.

09/15/2024

Don’t miss today’s episode of Words on a Wire at noon MT on KTEP 88.5 FM, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

09/14/2024

Now available wherever you get your podcasts! Don’t miss host Daniel Chacón’s conversation with Daniel A. Olivas, author of Chicano Frankenstein (Forest Avenue Press, 2024).

09/03/2024

WoW Quick Review of Gabriel Dozal's The Border Simulator.

09/01/2024

We're excited to kick off a new season of Words on a Wire! Catch the first episode today at noon on KTEP 88.5 FM or wherever you get your podcasts.

08/30/2024

I love this detail on the cover of the new novel by Denise Chávez, Street of Too Many Stories. The Words on a Wire crew is going to Las Cruces today and interview her about this magical book.

08/25/2024

Book tour kicks off next month! Here's the FALL schedule. Spring calendar coming soon, for dates in LA, SD, SF, NY, NC, and others. A lot of cool things in store! Details: www.timzhernandez.com

08/23/2024

El Paso Matters review of Chuco Punk, the fantastic new book Chuco Punk by Tara Martin López.

In her second book, Borderland author Tara López was led by her passion for punk rock to reveal another movement created by people who felt their voices were unheard.

08/12/2024

08/12/2024

The essay I wrote THE WRITERS BLOCK, about living in Sunset Heights in a one-block radius with a bunch of other writers is being nominated for the Best American Essays series. Doesn't mean it'll be included, but it's nice that the Editors respected it enough to submit it.

Kafka can sit for hours on the corner of the balcony, the elbow, looking down on the busy intersection. On one corner, across from us is the Escher House, a three-story mansion now converted into c…

07/28/2024

Tim Z. Hernandez’s new book, THEY CALL YOU BACK, will be arriving soon –– before the official release date. It’s “a lost history, a search, a memoir.” We’ve read THEY CALL YOU BACK and love it. It’s our personal favorite of Tim’s books to date and sure to be our big book of the fall/winter season. To RESERVE SIGNED OR PERSONALLY INSCRIBED BOOKS, call 915.307.4760 or e-mail [email protected]. Better yet, pop into our shop at 5411 N. Mesa in Pepper Tree Square. Credit card and PayPal accepted. *** WE SHIP INSIDE THE U.S., so we can mail your copy or any copies you wish to gift to friends. ***

07/23/2024

A quick video review of the novel All That Rises by Alma Garcia

07/08/2024

You can read the title story of my new book, THE LAST PHILOSOPHER IN TEXAS, in this issue of New Letters.

The story was inspired by visiting my dad's birth place in Pecos, TX. All my life I heard about Pecos from my dad, but it wasn't until I moved to EL Paso from California that I was able to visit this very unique town, located at the gateway to the Big Bend.

Daniel Chacón is a professor in the bilingual department of creative writing at the University of Texas at El Paso. He is the author of six books of fiction, including Hotel Juárez, Stories, Rooms and Loops (Arte Publico Press, 2013); the shadows took him: A Novel (Atria Books, 2005); and Kafka in...

07/03/2024

Thank you Latino Stories for this great review!

"As the title suggests, these are stories of fiction and superstition, yet Chacón’s characters live in worlds where reality and superstition can be one and the same. As a savvy writer, he brings the characters in and out of these worlds seamlessly and convincingly. It’s no exaggeration to say that all of the stories in this collection accomplish this"

Book Review by Jose B. Gonzalez of The Last Philosopher in Texas: Fictions and Superstitions by Daniel Chacón.

07/01/2024

Ted Chiang published his brilliant collection STORIES OF YOUR LIFE over 20 years ago, but somehow several of these fictions glimpse the future, like this, the shortest of the stories, that predicts pretty much what is happening today with AI LLMs. As AI begins to develop scientific intelligence and understanding, it doesn't need human mathematical structures to express concepts.

There is recent evidence that AI created a mathematics that describes Newtonian motion more efficiently than Newton's equations. These are maths humans can't understand.

What happens when science and physics is inaccessible to humans? We just sit back and let the machines figure the world out? And the only way we can understand the complexities of the universe is through extremely superficial stories about how things work.

In the face of metahuman science, humans have become metascientists.

06/23/2024

Come and check out my first US reading and El Paso talk about The Last Philosopher, July 2. I'll be joined in conversation with Dr. Jeff Sirkin.

06/21/2024

Words host Tim Z. Hernandez gets starred review.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/tim-z-hernandez/they-call-you-back/

06/15/2024

Host Daniel Chacon talks with some members of the Macondo Writers Workshop, one of the most exciting, successful, and important creative writing workshops, founded by Sandra Cisneros.

Catch our latest episodes On this special episode of Words on a Wire, host Daniel Chacón invites writers from the Macondo community, a writing workshop founded by Sandra Cisneros. Guests include writers Carla Trujillo, Miguel Angel Ramirez, and Erasmo Guerra. Patos Salvajes es el espacio radiofóni...

05/29/2024

The El Paso author talks about his latest book, his inspiration and aspirations, and why we sometimes ask ourselves, “Am I the dreamer or the dreamed?”