Denise Elia Chávez (born August 15, 1948) is a Chicana author, playwright, and stage director.

While in High School, she won a full tuition scholarship to study drama at New Mexico State University (NMSU).

Later she entered the MFA program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) and earned a degree in Creative Writing in 1984 under the direction of mentors Rudolfo Anaya and Tony Hillerman.

[12] She earned the Lifetime Achievement Award, Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize from the University of New Mexico in 2016.

[14] She serves on the editorial advisory board of the Latin American and Latinx literature, philosophy, and arts journal Chasqui.

[18] The female characters in these stories are "well-focused, occasionally naive but never weak," writes the Albuquerque Journal.

[2] The Albuquerque Journal compared it to Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel, writing that "Both novels are mammoth in text, deal with family trappings and bickering, are suspiciously autobiographical and give eloquent testimony to oppressive, mundane living.