Centaur of the North, a collection of short stories linked by common words, plot elements, and themes, was written by South Texas author (Houston: Arte Público, 1996), with a second printing in 1999. This first short story collection by Corpus Christi author Wendell Mayo won the Premio Aztlán Literary Prize in 1996. The stories' settings move between Corpus Christi in South Texas and various cities in the Midwest, and they focus on families of dual heritage and the ideas of rootedness, tradition, language, and truth.