Mexican Teeth: Stories and Assorted Artifacts of an Errant Chicanidad

A young man must decide what's most important when violence breaks out at a drag club. A pizza delivery driver has a fateful encounter with a voracious customer at the end of the world. And a graduate student must face his childhood trauma while being treated by a sadistic dental trainee. In Mexican Teeth, Tom嫳 Hulick Baiza introduces readers to characters who slowly unravel what their lives mean to themselves and those around them. Baiza challenges readers to consider what it means to be "Mexican" in the U.S., why characters should be allowed to speak in more than one language, and whether it's possible for anyone to identify as only one thing. With a sharp blend of surrealism, melancholy, and humor, Baiza's stories and essays explore the complex nature of Chicanx identity while emphasizing the universal conditions that unite us all.

Tom嫳 Hulick Baiza is originally from San Jos? California, and now finds himself in Boise, Idaho. He is the author of the novel, Delivery: A Pocho's Accidental Guide to College, Love, and Pizza Delivery (Running Wild Press, 2023), and the mixed-genre collection A Purpose to Our Savagery (RIZE Press, 2023). Delivery was selected as the 2024 Treasure Valley Reads featured novel. Tom嫳 is the winner of the 2024 Eliud Mart璯ez Prize for his manuscript Mexican Teeth (Inlandia Books, 2025), and his writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best of the Net, and Best American Short Stories anthologies. Tom嫳 has fenced in Italy, been rescued by helicopter from the Sierra Nevada, fended off wild dogs while hitchhiking in rural Morelos, M憖ico, and once delivered a dozen pizzas to a Klingon-themed orgy at a sci-fi convention. When he is not writing, Tom嫳 is running trails, sharpening knives, or obsessing over bonsai trees.