Richard Vargas

Richard Vargas was born and raised in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California. He earned a BA at California State University, Long Beach, where he studied under American poets Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee, and earned an MFA from the University of New Mexico. Vargas edited and/or published five issues of The Tequila Review (1977-1980) and twelve issues of The Mas Tequila Review (2010-2015). A recipient of the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference’s Hispanic Writer Award, he was on the faculty of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference and of the 2015 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. Vargas is the author of five collections of poetry: McLife (Main Street Rag, 2005), American Jesus: Poems (Tia Chucha Press, 2007), Guernica, revisited (Press 53, 2014), How A Civilization Begins (Mouthfeel Press, 2022), and Leaving A Tip At The Blue Moon Motel (Casa Urraca Press, forthcoming in 2023). He currently resides in Wisconsin, near the lake where Otis Redding’s plane crashed.