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Michael Jayme is a native of El Monte, California. A graduate of the University of California, Riverside, his early work was collected in 1996 as Look Back and Laugh for the Chicano Chapbook Series, edited by Gary Soto. The following year he began publishing under the surname “Jaime-Becerra” and shortly thereafter a limited-edition collection of prose poems, entitled The Estrellitas Off Peck Road, was released by Temporary Vandalism. He earned an MFA in Fiction from the University of California, Irvine in 2001. His debut short story collection, Every Night Is Ladies' Night, is an exploration of place, cultural identity, and ethics. Published in 2004 by Rayo, the Latino imprint of HarperCollins, it has gone on to garner praise for its intricate construction and emotional honesty.

We met with Michael at the Palm Court Grill in Spokane, where we discussed the conceptual difficulties of using bilingual dialogue in fiction, the intersection of art and commerce, and the influence of punk rock on his literary aesthetic. He responded to criticism about his manipulation of verb tense, and explained his latest attempt to incorporate nonfiction into his upcoming novel.

When asked about his characters and politics in fiction, he said: “I go with the story that needs to be told. To me, politics are very personal, so I don't worry about my stories having to represent a certain viewpoint, a certain belief, a certain anything. My characters have to act the way they're going to.”