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Published Work
Prose and Poetry by Mario Montoya
Prayer For the Guilty (Poem)
June 2021
Prayer For the Guilty confronts prison culture from a Chicanos perspective, exploring what it means to have faith in a place with no soul. Constructed in the form of a prayer, and published with a Spanish translation accompanying the poem, it is featured in a Spring issue of Free Them All Zines, created by The Fronteristxs Collective.
Use It or Lose It (Flash Memoir)
December, 2018
February, 2019
This award-winning piece took third place in the Santa Fe Reporter's annual writing contest for 2018. The following year, Use It or Lose It was featured on the literary website WordsForCharity.org where it was awarded the Compassion Chronicle Grant. Online link above. Yet if you wish to read without scrolling through the entire contest, you can also find Use It or Lose It HERE.
Double Impostor Syndrome: Being of Color In An MFA Program (Blog)
November 2018
Originally published as a blog for the Blue Mesa Review website, Double Impostor Syndrome is a brief discussion about the struggles of attending an MFA program as a person of color. Written in second-person, it is designed to put non-POC's in the shoes of people of color as they navigate the unfamiliar world of graduate school. Scroll down to the third article.
Lunchtime In the North Valley (Flash Memoir)
June 2017
Lunchtime In the North Valley is based on one of my earliest traumatic memories, the day I witnessed a man get shot dead by police. At age five, the tragic incident shaped my views on police for years, as I struggled with trusting anyone with a badge. Published by Z Publishing House in the anthology All at Once I Saw My Colors, the short essay is also written in the second person. Story at link above. You can purchase the whole anthology, via Amazon, HERE.
For Halloween, Be Your Favorite Author (Blog)
October 2016
My first blog post for Blue Mesa Review, this short piece (third post down) celebrates the tradition of Halloween, but with a writer's angle on the spooky holiday. Voiced with sarcastic dark humor, For Halloween, Be Your Favorite Author received strong feedback at BMR.unm.edu at the time of publication. It still ranks as one of the most reshared blogposts BMR has ever reproduced.
