Before becoming a fiction writer, Olivas authored legal articles, essays and book reviews for the
Los Angeles Daily Journal. He started writing fiction in 1998 with the publication of his first short story in the literary journal,
RiversEdge published by the
University of Texas-Pan American. His first book was a novella,
The Courtship of María Rivera Peña, which was published by a small and now-defunct Pennsylvania-based press, Silver Lake Publishing in 2000 and is now out of print. The novella is loosely based on Olivas's paternal grandparents' migration from Mexico to Los Angeles in the 1920s. Three short-story collections followed in quick succession, each published by
Bilingual Press, a publisher affiliated with
Arizona State University. They are
Assumption and Other Stories (2003),
Devil Talk: Stories (2004) and
Anywhere But L.A.: Stories (2009). In September 2017, Olivas published another collection,
The King of Lighting Fixtures (University of Arizona Press). In February 2022, Olivas published the collection,
How to Date a Flying Mexican: New and Collected Stories (University of Nevada Press).
BuzzFeed offered a positive review observing, in part: "Throughout all of his stories, there are strong Chicano characters, who embody tales that range from the laugh-out-loud funny to the heartbreaking. A timely retrospective from an important voice in Latinx literature."
Alta Journal review said "Prompted by tragedy—the death of his father and the pandemic—Olivas revisits decades of writing to produce this collection of new and previously published stories. Olivas's work is surreal, dystopian, critical, and introspective, ultimately moving into contemporary political rhetoric." In a review published by the
Los Angeles Review of Books, the novelist
Michael Nava noted, in part: "This deeply textured, sensual collection more than accomplishes Olivas's self-proclaimed task of rendering the beauty and complexity of Mexican and Mexican American culture in its fabulist, folkloric stories." In 2011, the
University of Arizona Press published Olivas's first novel,
The Book of Want. The novel is written in the magical realist tradition but also includes
postmodern elements such as sections where characters are interviewed about being in the novel itself, text messages, and a short play. On March 20, 2023,
Forest Avenue Press announced the acquisition of Olivas's novel,
Chicano Frankenstein, with a publication date in 2024, noting that the novel "addresses issues of belonging and assimilation through a modern retelling of the Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley classic." On November 3, 2023, the
Boston Review published an excerpt from
Chicano Frankenstein. On May 8, 2024, after the novel's publication,
NPR's
Code Switch podcast ran an interview with Olivas regarding his novel where he discussed the anti-immigrant political rhetoric of the 2022 midterm elections that inspired him to write the book. On August 6, 2024, the
University of Nevada Press published
My Chicano Heart: New and Collected Stories of Love and Other Transgressions. The
San Francisco Review observed: "While Olivas has been writing for a while, newcomers to his works will gain a profound understanding of Chicano and Mexican cultures and the pivotal role of love in each."
Shelf Awareness opined: "Imaginative Olivas deftly jumps between realism, magical surrealism, the mysterious and fantastical, capturing indelible glimpses of longing and loss, cleaving betrayal and healing renewal." Between 2003 and 2010, the
Los Angeles Times published six of Olivas's children's stories. One of those stories, "Benjamin and the Word", was republished by
Arte Público Press in 2005 as a bilingual picture book. The story revolves around a boy named Benjamin who is Chicano and Jewish and who suffers bigoted taunts on the schoolyard.
Work as editor Olivas edited
Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California Literature (Bilingual Press, 2008), where he brought together sixty years of Los Angeles fiction by Latino writers. The volume collected some of the best-known Latino writers
Luis Alberto Urrea,
Helena María Viramontes,
Luis Rodriguez,
Kathleen Alcalá and
John Rechy, and also introduced writers at the beginning of their careers
Melinda Palacio,
Manuel Muñoz,
Salvador Plascencia and
Reyna Grande. In 2016,
Tía Chucha Press released
The Coiled Serpent: Poets Arising from the Cultural Quakes and Shifts of Los Angeles which Olivas co-edited with
Neelanjana Banerjee and
Ruben J. Rodriguez. The anthology includes a wide range of poetry by including writers
Dana Gioia,
Ruben Martinez,
Wanda Coleman,
Holly Prado. In 2023, Olivas was named co-editor of the new book series from the University of Nevada Press, The New Oeste: Literatura Latinx of the American West in the 21st century. The co-editor is the poet, León Salvatierra.
Non-fiction On June 1, 2014,
San Diego State University Press published Olivas's first nonfiction book,
Things We Do Not Talk About: Exploring Latino/a Literature through Essays and Interviews. The volume brings together essays that have appeared in
The New York Times,
La Bloga,
Jewish Journal,
California Lawyer, and other publications, that address topics from the Mexican-American experience to the Holocaust. The book also includes 28 interviews that Olivas conducted over the years with Latino/a writers including
Daniel Alarcón,
Gustavo Arellano,
Richard Blanco,
Sandra Cisneros,
Héctor Tobar,
Luis Alberto Urrea,
Justin Torres,
Reyna Grande, and
Helena María Viramontes.
Poetry In November 2017, Olivas published his first book of poems,
Crossing the Border: Collected Poems (Pact Press).
Playwriting Olivas wrote his first full-length play
Waiting for Godínez in 2019. He explained that he was inspired both by
Samuel Beckett's iconic
Waiting for Godot and the absurd, anti-immigrant policies of the federal government. It was also selected for Playwrights' Arena's Summer Reading Series (2020), The Road Theatre's Twelfth Annual Summer Playwrights Festival (2021), the Garry Marshall Theatre's New Works Festival (2022), and was a semi-finalist in the 2021 Blue Ink Play Award sponsored by American Blues Theater. The play had its world premiere on April 5, 2024, in a Teatro Espejo production in Sacramento, California, directed by Devin Valdez. The play was published in book form by the University of New Mexico Press on September 2, 2025. Of this new print edition, the
Latino Book Review said in a review, "Olivas takes his most audacious step yet: an absurdist tragicomedy that transplants Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot into the terrain of U.S. immigration policy.... Olivas’s genius lies in how he allows humor to refract horror." In 2020 Olivas was selected for Circle X Theatre Co.'s inaugural Evolving Playwrights Group to adapt his novel
The Book of Want (University of Arizona Press, 2011). The play had a Zoom reading on June 21, 2021, which was directed by Daphnie Sicre. Olivas's first live, staged play,
Waiting, had its world premiere with Playwrights' Arena on July 24, 2021. ==Bibliography==