Raquel Gutiérrez is an arts critic/writer, poet, and educator. Born and raised in Los Angeles, they are a 2021 recipient of the Rabkin Prize in Arts Journalism as well as a 2017 recipient of the Creative Capital | Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. Their writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Art In America, NPR Music, Places Journal, and The Georgia Review. Gutiérrez is Visiting Faculty in the English Department at the University of California, Riverside and is Program Faculty for Oregon State University-Cascades Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program. Their first book of prose, Brown Neon, an ekphrastic memoir that considers what it means to be a Latinx artist during the Trump era, will be published by Coffee House Press in June 2022. They currently reside in Tucson, Arizona.