Thomas Ray Garcia's new short story collection, The River Runs, won the Américo Paredes Literary Arts Prize for fiction, sponsored by FlowerSong Press, McAllen, Texas, and sister press Prickly Pear Publishing, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Garcia's compelling stories present life along the Texas-Mexican border, as seen through the eyes of many exciting and complex characters. Garcia's The River Runs is an excellent collection of stories that include voices of youth and older generations with all their angsts and joys of living in a betwixt and between, a place that is neither here nor there, such as the U.S.-Mexico border region.