Víctor María Chamán is the Writer-in-Residence at the Workers’ Center of Central New York, a small grassroots, labor, non-profit committed to workplace and economic justice. He writes prose both in Spanish and English, self-translating according to need. The only short story of his published in the United States appeared in 2014, in the centennial issue of the The Southwest Review, where it won the quarterly’s Nathan Meyerson Prize in Fiction.
In July of 2022, Chamán received a two-year grant from the Creatives Rebuild New York Foundation to pursue his own literary projects while compiling and editing an anthology of non-fiction tales in collaboration with the mostly rural, migrant, indigenous membership of the Workers’ Center. Chamán travels across upstate NY interviewing and inviting the collaboration of worker-storytellers who, through a committee, guide both his part in this communal effort and the project, as a whole, which the workers’ own.
The writer’s previous accolades include the Calliope Nexus MFA Scholarship; two of Syracuse University’s top graduate fellowships (MFA 19′); The Parker Prize in Fiction from UT Austin; The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity’s National Prize in Ethics Essay Competition; and a Man of the Year accolade, awarded by San Antonio Magazine in 2012.
Chamán lives in Syracuse, NY, and is originally from Torreón, Mexico.