UKIAH – Fans of poetry and fiction should mark their calendars for Thursday, March 25, when poet and author Gary Soto will read at Mendocino College’s Little Theater, 1000 Hensley Creek Road.

The event begins at 7 p.m.

Soto has written more than 50 books and continues to be prolific. He will be reading some new material from the upcoming collection “Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing” as well as a variety of other material.

The event is free. It is sponsored by the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, an affiliate group of the Mendocino College Foundation.

Born and raised in Fresno, Calif., Soto is the author of 11 poetry collections for adults, most notably “New and Selected Poems,” a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Award and the National Book Award.

His poems have appeared in Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, Ontario Review and, most frequently, Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in the Poets in Person Series.

He has received the Discovery-The Nation Prize, the California Library Association’s John and Patricia Award, a Recognition of Merit from the Claremont Graduate School (for “Baseball in April”), and the Silver Medal from the Commonwealth Club of California, in addition to fellowships from the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal.

In 1995, for his work with young people, he was selected NBC Person of the Week.

In 1999 he was honored with the Human and Civil Rights Award from the American Education Association, the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, and the PEN Center West Book Award for his young-adult short story collection “Petty Crimes.”

For the Los Angeles Opera, he wrote the libretto to the opera “Nerdlandia.” In all, sales of his books total nearly 4 million copies.

Soto was keynote speaker at Mendocino College’s Literary Festival in 2007, and his March 25 reading will act as a launching point for this year’s Mendocino College LitFest scheduled for Saturday, April 24, also at the Ukiah campus.

For more information about the reading and other Mendocino College Library events, call 707-468-3051 or visit www.mendocino.edu .