Tommy Pico

Pico grew up on the Viejas Reservation of the Viejas Group of Capitan Grande Band of Mission Indians, a Kumeyaay tribe near San Diego. His father was a tribal chairman.^[3][4] At age five, Pico started writing comics, and as a teenager he created zines and wrote poetry.^[5] His name in Kumeyaay means "bird song".^[6]

Pico attended Sarah Lawrence College, where he studied pre-med with the intention of returning to the reservation as a doctor. He decided not to pursue medicine and moved to New York City, where he worked as a barista in Williamsburg and started writing poetry.^[3]

In 2008, Pico lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn.^[5] In 2019, Pico moved to Los Angeles with a friend of his.^[6]

In 2011, Pico was an inaugural mentor in the Queer/Art/Mentors programme;^[2][7] in 2013 he was a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry.^[2][8]

In 2016, Pico's first book IRL was published by the small press Birds, LLC.^[9] IRL is written as one long text message, drawing on the epic tradition.^[5] Pico's poem was written in first-person narration, from the perspective of Teebs. Teebs is a fictional character writing about fictional events, however, the character parallels as Pico's alter-ego and is used as a nickname.^[10] IRL received critical acclaim and was included on best-of-the-year lists for 2016.^[11][12] In 2017, it received the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize.^[13]

Pico's second book, Nature Poem was published in 2017 by Tin House. Nature Poem, like IRL, was written from the perspective of Pico's alter ego and fictional character, Teebs.^[14] Pico again used the epic format, in this case to explore and challenge stereotypes of Native Americans as "noble savages" who are one with nature.^[15] Nature Poem also received critical acclaim.^[16][17][18] Pico followed Nature Poem with Junk in 2018 and Feed in 2019. Pico considers his four books as a series called the "Teebs tetralogy".^[19][20]

Pico co-curates the live reading series Poets With Attitude with Morgan Parker,^[21] and he is the co-host of the podcast Food 4 Thot, a podcast about queer identity, race, sex, relationships, literature, and pop culture. He is also the co-host of the podcast Scream, Queen! with Drea Washington. Scream, Queen discusses marginalized people and horror films.^[20][22] He also appears in the 2022 documentary series Queer for Fear: The History of Queer Horror.^[23]

In 2018, Pico was commissioned to create soundscapes for New York City's High Line park and a walking tour of Seattle for Vignettes Gallery and Gramma Press.^[20]

He has written for TV shows including Reservation Dogs and Resident Alien.^[24] Pico was chosen as a 2021 Sundance Institute Fellow.^[24][25]

In 2017, Pico's debut IRL received the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize.^[13] his second book, Nature Poem, was the winner of a 2018 American Book Award and finalist for the 2018 Lambda Literary Award. He was a 2018 Whiting Award Winner for poetry.^[2]

• IRL (2016, Birds, LLC: ISBN 9780991429868)^[26]
• Nature Poem (2017, Tin House: ISBN 9781941040638)^[27]
• Junk (2018, Tin House: ISBN 9781941040973)^[28]
• Feed (2019, Tin House: ISBN 978-1-947793-57-6)^[29]