At California State University, Fresno, Montoya also worked to help found the Chicano Writers and Artists Association (CWAA) with colleague and friend Daniel Chacón.

Montoya's poetry appeared in multiple journals and anthologies including The Santa Clara Review, In the Grove, Bilingual Review/Revista Bilingüe, and Flies, Cockroaches, and Poets.

[4] In 1997, Montoya's first collection, the ice worker sings and other poems (Bilingual Press, 1999), was selected by Francisco X. Alarcón for the 1997 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize from the University of California, Irvine.

Established in the summer of 2003,[1] the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize has featured judges such as Francisco X. Alarcón, Rhina P. Espaillat, and Robert Vasquez.

Past winners include Sheryl Luna,[12] Gabriel Gómez,[13] Paul Martínez Pompa,[14] Emma Trelles,[15] Laurie Ann Guerrero,[16] David Campos,[17] Felicia Zamora,[18] and Heidi Andrea Restrepo Rhodes.

[19] The issue was edited by Daniel Chacón and featured poetry, art, and testimonies from friends, family, mentors, and fellow poets.

In 2017, Montoya's posthumous collection, a jury of trees, was released from Bilingual Press and Letras Latinas at the University of Notre Dame as an entry in its Canto Cosas series.

In addition to the publication of a jury of trees, the 2017 Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference in Washington D.C. featured a panel entitled “The Iceworker Still Sings.” Panelists Francisco Aragón, Daniel Chacón, Corrinne Clegg Hales, David Campos, and Maceo Montoya spoke to the continued power and necessity of Montoya's writing and read poems found in a jury of trees[22].