Rigoberto González

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Rigoberto González
Born	July 18, 1970 Bakersfield, California
Occupation	professor, writer
Nationality	USA
Notable work(s)	So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks, Antonio's Card, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa
Notable award(s)	Guggenheim Fellowship,National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, American Book Award

Influences Gary Soto, Francisco X. Alarcón, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Pat Mora,Alberto Ríos, Clarence Major, Jewell Parker Rhodes

Official website http://www.rigobertogonzalez.com/

Rigoberto González (1970-) is an American writer and critic. He is an award-winning author of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and bilingual children's books, and self-identifies in his writing as a gay Chicano.

1 Personal Life
2 Professional Background
3 Publications
- 3.1 Complete Book-Length Original Works
- 3.2 Works Edited
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] Personal Life

Born in Bakersfield, California on July 18, 1970, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico, he is the son and grandson of migrant farmworkers, both parents now deceased. His extended family migrated back to California in 1980 and returned to Mexico in 1992. González remained alone in the U.S. to complete his education. Details of his troubled childhood in Michoacán and his difficult adolescence as an immigrant in California are the basis for his coming of age memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa.

During his college years he also performed with various Baile Folklorico and Flamenco dance troupes. He earned a B.A. in Humanities and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Studies from the University of California, Riverside [1], and graduate degrees from the University of California, Davis, and Arizona State University in Tempe. His former teachers include the Chicano poets Gary Soto, Francisco X. Alarcón, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Pat Mora and Alberto Ríos, and the African American writers Clarence Major and Jewell Parker Rhodes.

[edit] Professional Background

In 1997 he enrolled in a PhD program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, but dropped out a year later to join his partner in New York City and to pursue a career in writing. The two published their first books only a few months apart in the spring of 1999 and received numerous awards and recognitions for their works. In 2001, González pursued a career as an academic, holding distinguished teaching appointments at The New School, the University of Toledo, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

González has lived and worked mostly in New York City and currently teaches at the writing program of Rutgers University in Newark, where he is Associate Professor of English. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, and of various international artist residencies including stays in Spain, Brazil, Costa Rica, Scotland and Switzerland, he writes a monthly Chicano/Latino book review column, now entering its seventh year, for the El Paso Times of Texas. He is also contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, a board member of the National Book Critics Circle, and is on the Advisory Circle of Con Tinta, a collective of Chicano/Latino activist-writers.

Respected for his versatility with literary genres and for his generosity toward writers, González has championed a number of efforts to give visibility to marginalized voices. He curates and hosts The Quetzal Quill, a reading series in Manhattan, and has featured a number of poets on The Poetry Foundation blog Harriet, and on the National Book Critics Circle blog Critical Mass through the Small Press Spotlight Series.