Bio
Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time LGBTQ activist, co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and a Distinguished Lecturer at Hostos Community College - CUNY.
He received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel Chulito (Magnus Books 2011) has received nearly a dozen awards including a 2013 Stonewall Book Awards - Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor from the American Library Association and a "Small Press Highlights" mention from the National Book Critics Circle. He co-edited with Charlie Vazquez, From Macho To Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction (Tincture/Lethe Press 2011).
His writing's been published in several anthologies and journals including Los Otros Cuerpos (Tiempo Press 2007), Best Gay Stories 2008 (Lethe Press 2008), The Best of PANIC!: En Vivo from the East Village (Fireking Press 2010), Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (University of Wisconsin Press 2011), Love, Christopher Street (Vantage Point 2012), Who's Yer Daddy (University of Wisconsin Press 2012), Untangling the Knot (Ooligan Press/Portland State University 2015), as well as articles in El Diario (1997) and The Nation (2013). His play I Just Love Andy Gibb will be published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology (Duke Press 2016).
Mr. Rice-Gonzalez has written several plays including What Carlos Feels (1990), Pink Jesus (1997), and Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo (produced each year at BAAD! since 2004) and I Just Love Andy Gibb which won Pregones Theater's ASUNCION Play Reading Series and received a workshop production in May 2007.
He's attended Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, VONA: Voices of Our Nation, Lambda Literary Writers' Retreat and Sandra Cisnero's Macondo Writing Workshop, and has done residencies at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. He received an Audre Lorde scholarship from the ZAMI Foundation, a P.R.I.D.E. (Puerto Rican Initiative to Develop Empowerment) Award and the Lambda Literary Foundation's Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award in 2014.
In 2012, he teamed up with fellow queer Latina/o writers in New York City to form the Queer Latina/o Writers Collective to create a Latino presence at queer literary events and a queer presence at Latino literary events, and also works to create opportunities for the development and advancement of queer Latino writers.
In 2014, he was appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer in the English Department at Hostos Community College - CUNY, where he will also serve as an Associate Artistic Director of Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture.
In 1998, Charles co-founded, with award-winning choreographer/dancer Arthur Aviles, The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, a workshop and performance space that presents works that are empowering to women, people of color and the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. The space has won several awards including a NYC Mayor's Art Award and crowned one of the seven cultural pillars of the Bronx by the Bronx Council on the arts.
Charles was one of the founding members of Gay Men of the Bronx (GMoB) a grassroots organization which existed to combat isolation and foster a sense of community for gay men living or working in the Bronx. The organization was a trailblazer for gay visibility and activism during the AIDS crisis and changed queerness in the Bronx. GMoB existed from 1990-2001.
He serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and the National Association of Latino Art and Cultures, where he is currently chair of both.
Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBTQ activist, co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and an Assistant Professor at Hostos Community College - CUNY. He received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel Chulito (Magnus Books 2011) has received nearly a dozen awards including a 2013 Stonewall Book Awards - Barbara Gittings Literature Award Honor from the American Library Association and a "Small Press Highlights" mention from the National Book Critics Circle.
His honors include a MacDowell Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, a PEN Writing as Activism Fellowship, the Lambda Literary Foundation's Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, a New York City Council award, the Men(cion) Award from 100 Hispanic Women, an Audre Lorde scholarship from the ZAMI Foundation, and a Gay City News Impact Award for his activism and contributions to advancing the lives of LGBTQ people.
He co-edited From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction, and his play I Just Love Andy Gibb was published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology (2016). His writing's been published in over a dozen journals and anthologies, including Obsidian (2023), Aster(ix) (2022), Teaching Black (2021), QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking (Michigan State University 2016), Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing (2011), and in later in 2023 in Huizache and in the Queer/Black/Trans Anthology When Language Broke Open. In addition, Mr. Rice-Gonzalez has written several plays including Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo (produced each year at BAAD! since 2004).
He's attended Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, VONA: Voices of Our Nation, Lambda Literary Writers' Retreat, and Sandra Cisnero's Macondo Writing Workshop, and has done residencies at MacDowell, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.
In 1998, Charles co-founded, with award-winning choreographer/dancer Arthur Aviles, BAAD! - The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, a cultural organization and theater that presents empowering works for women, people of color and the LGBTQ community.
He serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and the National Association of Latino Art and Cultures, where he is currently chair of both, and the advisory board of the Macondo Writers Workshop. Photo by Marisol Diaz
