José Skinner

José Skinner (born 1956) is an American writer of novels, short stories, essays, and translations.

Early life and education José Skinner was born in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico and grew up in Mexico City. He attended the Universidad Iberoamericana and worked as a Spanish-English interpreter and translator in the courts of New Mexico before earning his MFA in fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Career He taught creative writing and directed the bilingual MFA program at the University of Texas–Pan American in the Lower Rio Grande Valley. He has been a fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2018.

His novel The Search Committee was published by Arte Público Press in 2025. Kirkus Reviews called it "a dramatic and often darkly humorous debut thriller" that "lingers after its final page." The Texas Observer wrote, "Skinner’s breezy lack of pretense is refreshing for a book taking on such fraught topics as narco-violence and the U.S.-Mexico border, but his humility disguises real sophistication. Skinner knows this material inside and out, and he’s delivered a convincing vision of the Texas-Mexico borderlands in these dark times." CrimeReads named The Search Committee a Best Book of 2025, and it won the Texas Institute of Letters' 2026 Jesse H. Jones Award for Best Book of Fiction.

His first collection, Flight and Other Stories, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection and a finalist for the Western States Book Award for Fiction and the Drue Heinz Literature Prize. Publishers Weekly called the collection "varied, well-crafted and frequently daring." Latino Literature Hall of Fame member Luis Alberto Urrea said, "José Skinner’s got a book called Flight. He’s my great hope. There’s something really remarkable and grand going on in his work, his fiction."

Of his second collection, The Tombstone Race, Kirkus Reviews said, "With verisimilitude, compassion, and a surprising amount of nobility, Skinner navigates the mean streets of New Mexico with cunning and grace." Latina Magazine wrote, "The authenticity of José Skinner's experiences as a Spanish/English interpreter in the courtrooms of the Southwest hit harder than an NFL linebacker." In Western American Literature, Melina Vizcaíno-Alemán wrote, "By carefully balancing an artistic appreciation of the landscape with an awareness of social reality, Skinner presents a thought- provoking collection about a diverse people and place mired in regional development." Rigoberto González of NBC News wrote, "José Skinner's long-awaited second collection measures up to, and indeed surpasses, his critically-acclaimed debut 'Flight and Other Stories." The book was a Writers' League of Texas Discovery Prize Winner in 2016.

His fiction has appeared in Witness, Third Coast, Colorado Review, and many other literary magazines, and his nonfiction in Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco-Violence, Monthly Review, The Progressive, El Nuevo Mexicano, and The Millennium Reader. He has reviewed books for The Texas Observer and American Book Review.

In 2023, he and Melynda Nuss founded Alienated Majesty Bookstore in Austin, Texas.