Poet, memoirist, and translator José Antonio Rodríguez's latest book is This American Autopsy: Poems, a New York Times "New and Noteworthy" pick. His work has appeared most recently in Watershed Review,The Common, Huizache, Salamander, and The New Yorker.

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His writing explores the multiple borders between the margins and the center, drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources, including his background as a queer, Mexican immigrant and first-gen high school and college graduate. His other books include the memoir House Built on Ashes, finalist for the PEN America Los Angeles Literary Award; and the poetry collections The Shallow End of Sleep, winner of the Bob Bush Memorial Award from the Texas Institute of Letters; and Backlit Hour, finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. He's also part of the collaborative book Borderlines: Drawing Border Lives, a collection of artwork by Reefka Schneider, poems in English by Steven Schneider, and Rodríguez's Spanish translations. 

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He is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Macondo Writers' Workshop, and CantoMundo. Other honors include finalist citations for the Lambda Literary Award, the International Latino Book Award, and the Foreword INDIES book award, and multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize. He is also the recipient of the the Discovery Award from the Writers' League of Texas, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award from Paterson Literary Review, the Founders’ Prize from RHINO, and the Clifford D. Clark Doctoral Fellowship from Binghamton University, where he received a Ph.D. in English. He also holds degrees in Biology and Theatre Arts and teaches writing and literary translation in the M.F.A. program at The University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley.

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The Day's Hard Edge forthcoming in 2024 from Northwestern University Press.

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