Manuel Muñoz is the author of a novel, What You See in the Dark, and the short-story collections Zigzagger and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue, which was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award.  He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts.  He has been recognized with a Whiting Writer’s Award, three O. Henry Awards, and two selections in Best American Short Stories, and was awarded the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. His most recent collection, The Consequences, was published by Graywolf Press and in the UK by The Indigo Press in October 2022.  It was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and longlisted for the Story Prize.  It was published in Italian by Edizioni Black Coffee and in Turkish by Livera Yayinevi.

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In October 2023, he was honored with a MacArthur Fellowship for "depicting with empathy and nuance the Mexican-American communities of California's Central Valley."

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In 2025, TriQuarterly Books, an imprint of Northwestern University Press, will reissue his first three books with forewords that "celebrate the enduring, empathic power of Muñoz's fiction." Zigzagger will be introduced by the esteemed Helena María Viramontes, honoring her important mentorship during his time with her at Cornell University in the mid-90s.  The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue will be introduced by the Chicana writer and activist Cherríe Moraga.  What You See in the Dark will be introduced by the film critic Charles Taylor.

 

His frequently anthologized work has appeared in The New York Times, Epoch, and Glimmer Train.  His most recent work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature, ZYZZYVA, and Freeman’s. 

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A native of Dinuba, California, and a first-generation college student, Manuel graduated from Harvard University and received his MFA in creative writing at Cornell University.  He currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.