PHARR, Texas – Pharr native Thomas Ray Garcia has penned a new book of short stories about life along the Texas-Mexico border.

The River Runs is published by Prickly Pear Publishing and can be found in Barnes & Noble and other fine bookshops. Garcia is a winner of the Américo Paredes Literary Arts Prize.

Garcia, a PSJA graduate, is probably best known as the founder of the College Scholarship Leadership Access Program, or CSLAP. 

This 501(c)(3) non-profit organization started out as a summer program at PSJA. It now hosts college access events and provides personalized one-on-one sessions for high school students attending schools in the Rio Grande Valley.

Garcia is also a former candidate for the Texas State Board of Education. 

Two other authors have said good things about The River Runs. 

“”Thomas Ray Garcia’s The River Runs flows like precious water from the sacred cenote of contemporary Mexican American literature. To read his stories is to stare parched at that initial rush of water, sped by our own reflections as the pool finally settles. Then, do as I did and drink long and deep from The River Runs. Take a peek once more, if you dare. I doubt you will see yourself as you dud before,” said Robert Paul Moreira, author of Scores, DIG, and the musical Malinalli.

“In his seductive short story collection, The River Runs, Thomas Ray Garcia presents life along the Texas-Mexico border through the eyes of border dwellers with fears, anxieties, expectations, and the hopes and dreams of those whose lives are inextricably bound by the geopolitics of place,” said Dr. Norma Elia Cantú, author of Canícula and Cabañuelas. 

“As backdrop to the many stories, including forays into surreal and speculative fictions, he offers the complexities of life where the undocumented denizens of the Rio Grande Valley or El Paso coexist and manage living and surviving alongside Anglo and US-born Mexicans.”

The Rio Grande Guardian International News Service interviewed Garcia about his new book. Here is the interview:

Video

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