Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Mexico and New Mexico, José Skinner writes about hard times on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. His short story collection “Flight and Other Stories” received much critical praise. His gritty and imaginative stories have appeared in Boulevard, Third Coast, Colorado Review, Florida Review, Quarterly West, Bilingual Review, and many other literary journals, as well as in the anthologies “Our Lost Border: Essays on Life Amid the Narco Violence,” “In the Shadow of the Strip: Las Vegas Stories” and “Las Vegas Noir.” His second collection, “The Tombstone Race,” was published by University of New Mexico Press in 2016.