Rod Carlos Rodriguez has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso and is a Lecturer (Adjunct Professor) at the University of Texas at San Antonio Writing Program. He is an award-winning poet who has been writing for over 40 years. He has 5 books of poetry published: Exploits of a Sun Poet (Pecan Grove Press, 2003), Lucid Affairs (Sun Arts Press, 2012), Native Instincts (Human Error Publishing, 2016), Cantos, Incandescent (Finishing Line Press, March 2024), and A History of Echoes: Poems (Gival Press, October 2024). He is founder/chair of the Sun Poet’s Society, South Texas’s longest running weekly open-mic poetry reading (1995-2022). He was nominated for the San Antonio Poet Laureate in April 2012, April 2014, April 2016, and April 2018. He was the poetry editor for Ocotillo Review, a literary journal/periodical and he was the editor of the Texas Poetry Calendar 2023 (Kallisto Gaia Press).

A History of Echoes: Poems - awards and nominations:

Awarded the Gival Press Poetry Award 2024
Nominated for the 2024 National Book Award
Nominated for the 2025 UNT Rilke Prize
Nominated for the 2025 Firecracker Award (CLMP)

Nominated for the 2025 Pushcart Prize for the poems, "The Stare" and "Mal Oro," published in A History of Echoes: Poems.

Nominated for the 2025 Eric Hoffer Book Award

Nominated for the 2025 Lenore Marshall Prize (Academy of American Poets)