Rudy Castañeda López was born in California to Mexican-American parents. He immigrated to New Zealand in 1986 and worked in Tertiary and Secondary Art Education until 2014.
Because he suffered from Dyslexia he did not consider writing as a practical pursuit until he was forty years old.
In 2005 he wrote his first novel, The Song of Laughing Bird published by National Pacific Press.
He focused on academic writing for the next couple of years. His Masters of Fine Arts dissertation, The Intimate Real: Empowering the Quiet Art, (2008) was published in Germany by Verlag Doktor Müller.
In 2013 he studied full-time at Whitireia Community Polytechnic and achieved an A+ pass on his Graduate Diploma in Creative Writing. His project for that year was the first draft of his book, Open Your Eyes, Jackson Ryder, (Escalator Press 2015).
In 2013 he was also given the Honour Award in the New Zealand Writing School Short Story Competition.
In 2020 his draft of Tattersoull 18 (Bone Age Press, 2024) was long listed for the MICHAEL GIFKINS PRIZE FOR AN UNPUBLISHED NOVEL.
He lives, and writes, on the banks of the Pauatahanui Inlet with his lovely wife, Jan.
Rudy Castañeda López was born in California to Mexican-American parents. He immigrated to New Zealand in 1986 and worked in Tertiary and Secondary Art Education until 2014.
Because he suffered from Dyslexia he did not consider writing as a practical pursuit until he was forty years old.
In 2005 he wrote his first novel, The Song of Laughing Bird published by National Pacific Press.
He focused on academic writing for the next couple of years....