MEET TOMMY PICO
“[What interests me about mentoring is] giving back to the QAM community that helped me become the writer and artist I am today.”
Location: Los Angeles, California
Disciplines: Narrative film (fiction), Poetry, Zines/book arts
Tommy Pico is a poet and screen writer. Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, He now lives in Los Angeles after a 15 year stint in NYC.
He is author of the books IRL (Birds, LLC, 2016), winner of the 2017 Brooklyn Library Literary Prize and a finalist for the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, Nature Poem (Tin House Books, 2017), winner of a 2018 American Book Award and finalist for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award, Junk (Tin House Books, 2018) finalist for the 2019 Lambda Literary Award, Feed (Tin House Books, 2019) a New York Times Notable book of 2020 and finalist for the 2021 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and the zine series Hey, Teebs. He was the founder and editor in chief of birdsong, an antiracist/queer-positive collective, small press, and zine that published art and writing from 2008-2013. He was a Queer|Art|Mentorship inaugural Fellow, 2013 Lambda Literary fellow in poetry, a 2017 NYSCA/NYFA Fellow in Poetry from the New York Foundation for the Arts, was awarded the 2017 Friends of Literature prize from the Poetry Foundation, won a 2018 Whiting Award, is a 2021 Artist-in-Residence for Sundance’s Native Lab, and he’s been profiled in Time Out New York, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. He co-curates the reading series Poets With Attitude (PWA) with Morgan Parker at the Ace Hotel, co-hosted the podcasts Food 4 Thot and Scream, Queen!, is the former poetry editor at Catapult Magazine, writes for the TV shows Reservation Dogs, Resident Alien, and Crystal Lake, and is a contributing editor at Literary Hub.
Work
mentor profile
What interests you about mentoring?
“Giving back to the QAM community that helped me become the writer and artist I am today.”
Given your experience and interests, what kind of emerging artist do you feel best positioned to support?
“Writers coming from the literary world who are serious about moving into film/television and who might need some guidance in translating their work to a visual medium. also poets, like in general.”
As a mentor, what would you like to offer an emerging artist? What would you like to receive?
“I would like to offer a sound ear and eye and guiding light toward navigating the creative and practical aspects of emerging from the literary world to film and television: crafting a writing sample, seeking representation, how to take meetings, what you can expect in a writers room, and honestly probably a bunch of things I haven't thought yet because I've only had one cup of coffee. I don't need anything in return except a good faith investment in this opportunity. It's a karmic exercise: you'll get out of this exactly how much you put in.”
Have you had mentors of your own? Who have they been?
“Pamela Sneed (thanks QAM!), Alexander Chee, Ariana Reines, Sterlin Harjo, Bryan Fuller.”
Is there something we didn’t ask that you would like prospective applicants to know?
“Please please please take everything I say with a grain of salt, a smattering of sugar, and a lump of coal.”
This Mentor is open to working with Fellows either remotely or in-person!