Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, was raised in Fresno, California. Soto is the writer from many adult poetry. On 1995, Soto was the finalist for both Los Angeles Times Book Award and The National Book Award. Soto's poems appeared in many literary magazines. Not only did Soto create magnificent poetry, but he also was a producer of a film. Gary Soto was the producer of the film " The Pool Party", which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence. In 1997, because of his advocacy for reading, he was featured as NBC’s Person-of-the-Week. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation.Recently he has discovered that he enjoys baking cookies. He divides his time between Berkeley, California and his hometown of Fresno.