Gary Soto was born to working-class Mexican-American parents Manuel (1910—1957) and Angie Soto (1923-). In his youth, he worked in the fields of the San Joaquin Valley and in factories in Fresno. Gary's father died in 1957, when he was just five years old. Because his family had to struggle to find work, he had little time or encouragement for school, hence, he was not a good student. Yet Soto claims that in spite of his early academic record, he had begun his literary career by reading Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Jules Verne, Robert Frost and Thornton Wilder.

He attended Fresno City College and California State University, Fresno, where he earned his B.A. degree in English in 1974, studying with poet Philip Levine. He did graduate work in poetry writing at the University of California, Irvine, where he earned his M.F.A. in 1976. He states that he wanted to become a writer in college after discovering the novelist Gabriel García Márquez and the contemporary poets Edward Field, W. S. Merwin, Charles Simic, James Wright and Pablo Neruda, whom he calls "the master of them all."

Soto's poetry focus on daily experiences, often reflecting on his life as a Chicano. Regarding his relationship with the Mexican-American community, Soto has said:

"...as a writer, my duty is not to make people perfect, particularly Mexican Americans. I’m not a cheerleader. I’m one who provides portraits of people in the rush of life."

Soto also writes novels, plays and memoirs, and has edited several literary anthologies. His story "The No-Guitar Blues" was made into a film, and he produced another film based on his book "The Pool Party." He is a prolific writer of children's books.

About his work Joyce Carol Oates has said,

"Gary Soto's poems are fast, funny, heartening, and achingly believable, like Polaroid love letters, or snatches of music heard out of a passing car; patches of beauty like patches of sunlight; the very pulse of a life."

Soto has taught at University of California, Berkeley and at University of California, Riverside, where he was a Distinguished Professor.

Soto has devoted much time to being the Young People's Ambassador for the United Farm Workers of America, introducing young people to the organization's work and goals.

At present, Soto lives in northern California, dividing his time between Berkeley and Fresno, but he is no longer teaching.

Soto became the sponsor for the Pattonville High School Spanish National Honor Society in 2009.

Soto's first collection of poems,The Elements of San Joaquin, won the United States Award of the International Poetry Forum in 1976 prior to its publication in the Pitt Poetry Series in 1977. The New York Times Book Review also honored the book by reprinting six of the poems.

His second collection, The Tale of Sunlight (1978), was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.

In 1985, his memoir Living Up the Street received the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award.

In 1993, Soto received the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence from the Association for Library Service to Children for his production work on the film The Pool Party.

Soto's 1995 New and Selected Poems was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

In 1999, Soto received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes.

Soto has received fellowships from the California Arts Council, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (twice).

Other honors include the "Discovery"/The Nation Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award from Poetry. He has received The California Library Association's John and Patricia Beatty Award (twice), a Recogniton of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School for Baseball in April, the Silver Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, and the Tomás Rivera Prize.

The library at Winchell Elementary School in Fresno was named after Soto.

In 2010, the Old Administration Building at Fresno City College will become the permanent home of the Gary Soto Literary Museum.

Poetry:

• Partly Cloudy: Poems of love and longing (Harcourt, 2009)
• A Simple Plan (Chronicle Books, 2007)
• One Kind of Faith (Chronicle Books, 2003)
• Junior College (1997)
• New and selected poems (Chronicle Books, 1995) National Book Award finalist
• Canto Familiar/Familiar Song (1994)
• Neighborhood Odes (1992)
• Home Course in Religion (1991)
• Who Will Know Us? (1990)
• Black Hair (1985)
• Where Sparrows Work Hard (1981)
• The Tale of Sunlight (1978)
• The Elements of San Joaquin (1977)

Novels:

• Taking Sides (1991)
• Nickel and Dime (2000)
• Poetry Lover (University of New Mexico Press, 2001)
• Buried Onions(2003)
• Local News (2003)
• Amnesia in a Republican County, (University of New Mexico, 2003)
• The Afterlife (2005) (sequel to Buried Onions)
• Accidental Love (2006)

Memoir:

• Living Up the Street (1985), American Book Award
• Small Faces (1986)
• Lesser Evils: Ten Quartets (1988)
• A Summer Life (1990)
• The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy (2001)

Plays:

• Novio Boy: A play (2006)

Film:

• The Pool Party (producer, 1992) Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence (1993)
• The No-Guitar Blues based on a story from Baseball in April

Young Adult/Children's Books:

• Baseball in April (1990)
• A Fire in My Hands (1991)
• Pacific Crossing (1992)
• Too Many Tamales (1992)
• The Skirt (1992)
• The Pool Party (1993)
• Jesse (1994)
• 7th grade (1994)
• Crazy Weekend (1994)
• Boys at Work (1995)
• Summer On Wheels (1995)
• Canto Familiar (1995)
• Fearless Fernie (2002)
• If the Shoe Fits (2002)
• Marisol (2005)

Anthologies:

• Entrance: Four Latino Poets (1976)
• California Childhood (1988)
• Pieces of Heart (1993)
• Afterlife(1999)