Fresno Authors: Gary Soto

We like to say that we are all about Fresno; the people, the places and the lifestyle. When it comes to people that we’ve written about, we’ve admittedly been lacking in one category – the authors.

We’re going to remedy that with this series, looking at Fresno Based or Fresno Born authors. Since today is National “Read a Book Day“, we can’t think of a better day to start this series.

Gary Soto

Wikipedia lists Gary is an “American poet, novelist, and memoirist”. He was born in 1952 and grew up working the fields in the valley. As for school, he attended Fresno City College, California State University Fresno and then did grad work at U.C. Irvine.

He was the first Mexican American to earn his M.F.A. (Masters of Fine Arts) and went on to teach at both Berkeley and Riverside.

As for published works if you went to any of our local schools, you probably read a few of his poems or one of his children’s books. Need a little help remembering? Here’s a list of his poetry collections:

Meatballs for the People: Proverbs to Chew On
Sudden Loss of Dignity
Partly Cloudy: Poems of love and longing
A Simple Plan
One Kind of Faith
A Natural Man
Junior College
New and selected poems *
Canto Familiar/Familiar Song
Neighborhood Odes
Home Course in Religion
Who Will Know Us?
Black Hair
Where Sparrows Work Hard
The Tale of Sunlight
The Elements of San Joaquin **
Waiting at the curb: Lynwood California
Saturday at the Canal

The Elements of San Joaquin, won the United States Award of the International Poetry Forum in 1976. New and selected poems was a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award.

“As a writer, my duty is not to make people perfect, particularly Mexican Americans. I’m not a cheerleader. I’m one who provides portraits of people in the rush of life.”
Gary Soto

One of our favorite poems was titled, “Oranges” from New and Selected Poems. We we’re looking for a way to post it here and happened upon this video. It’s worth a watch!

Do you remember the poem now?

Or maybe it’s a children’s book you remember more than a poem.

Baseball in April
A Fire in My Hands
Taking Sides
Pacific Crossing
Too Many Tamales
The Skirt
The Pool Party
Local News
Jesse
7th grade
Crazy Weekend
Boys at Work
Summer On Wheels
Canto Familiar
Buried Onions
The Cat’s Meow
Jessie De La Cruz: A Profile of a United Farm Worker
Fearless Fernie
If the Shoe Fits
Marisol
When Dad Came Back

Gary has also written plays and memoirs, produced films and so much more!

Since we mentioned Opera the other day… Gary wrote the libretto to the opera “Nerdlandia” for the Los Angeles Opera. What’s a Libretto? It’s the text or the lyrics to the Opera!

Here’s Gary reading one of his own.

He currently lives in the hills above Berkeley but still spends some time in Fresno.

So what was your favorite work by Gary Soto?

FIND GARY SOTO

Website: https://garysoto.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialgarysoto/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=%22gary+soto%22
Fresno State: https://cah.fresnostate.edu/about/alumni/soto.html

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FresYes Writing Team

We say “Yes and” to our community, which we love to work and live in. We always speak positively about our growing business, each other and the Fresno community. We are proud to support local businesses, engage in what’s happening in our community and lovingly participate in as many volunteer activities as we can as individuals and as a collective group. We are generous and we are proud to give back.

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