I Don't blog often on the status of my various projects, so here it goes.

It's a blessing to have various writing projects come my way. As I mentioned recently, I just finished guest editing the Rio Grande Review, the literary magazine of the University of Texas, El Paso, where faculty such as Daniel Chacón, Benjamin Saenz, Rosa Alcala, Sasha Pimentel Chacon teach and write amidst some of the best young talent in the country. Former MFA students such as Javier Huerta, author of Some Clarifications y Otras Poemas, are doing great work, and it was a pleasure to work with current graduate student Lau Ce in arranging the issue. Guest Editing is a strange but ultimately rewarding process, and I am grateful for the invitation and opportunity. The issue comes out soon, and you can purchase a copy and view online samples here.

I'm also wrapping up my work Guest Editing the inaugural issue of Asian-American Poetry and Writing, a great new organization from the Los Angeles area with some of the best young new voices around on its staff---Vanessa Hua, Neil Aitken, Ky-Phong Paul Tran, Margaret Rhee, and Nicky Schildkraut, to name just a few. They've already published articles on reviews on Nam Le and Kundiman, among others, and they offer creative writing workshops in the Los Angeles area. The issue I have assembled should be done soon (in the next few weeks?), as soon as I can put the finishing touches on my editor's note. It will feature Korean Adoptee writers---poets, memoir excerpts, and a play excerpt. It will be a remarkable and eye-opening issue, especially those of you for whom Korean adoptee writers are a new group of writers to tap. You can read about AAPW's workshops, reviews, and more---here.

Third, I am gearing up for work on a celebration of Juan Felipe Herrera's Half of the World in Light. Last year, before his NBCC award, I was invited by poet, editor, tour-de-force Francisco Aragon of the Institute for Latino/a Studies at the University of Notre Dame to head this project, which will feature the work of about 15-20 writers celebrating Herrera's landmark book. I've yet to contact writers for the issue, but I hope that in the fall of this year I can get the bulk of that work done. It will ultimately be published in the superb Latino Poetry Review, whose second issue just went online. You can read it here.

Lastly, I've been working to finish the 17th (!) issue of In the Grove, the literary magazine I founded in 1996. Anyone familiar with our magazine knows we've published quite sporadically over the last decade, and I am excited to announce that we are making the move to become an online magazine. Many factors have made this appealing---the low cost, the relatively lighter workload, the instant and wide distribution possibilities, and the increasing legitmacy of online publications. The next issue will "go live" on June 16, one week from today. It features the William Saroyan Centennial Prize Winners, selected by judges Steve Yarbrough, John Hales, and Steven Church. It also includes a short story by Tim Z. Hernandez's forthcoming novel from Texas Tech University Press, Breathing, In Dust. Poems by Dixie Salazar, Yu-Han Chao, Sam Pierstorff, Charles Hood, and David Campos will also appear. Oh, and by the way, I owe some of you the free copy I said I would mail...I hope to get those out soon. Anyway, thank you to our faithful and patient readers and contributors, and I hope you will make the transition with us as we move online next week. You can visit In the Grove here.

Lastly, lastly...I've never posted on my blog about the Freshman Composition level textbook/reader that I have co-edited with two colleague-friends. It's been a long haul---about seven years off and on working on the book. It's in the final stages of production, and I think it will come out in Fall of this year, if we're lucky. It has readings from Mumia Abu Jamal, Gloria Anzaldua, bell hooks, George Orwell, Anthony Bourdain, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bakari Kitwana, Alice Walker, and Wen Ho Lee, with poems by Li-Young Lee, Brian Turner, Martin Espada, and Ishle Yi Park. It's called Outside In: Writing to and from the Center, forthcoming from Prentice Hall. All you composition faculty at universities and colleges, I hope you'll keep an eye out for it. You can check out the Amazon page for it here.

Ok...lastly lastly lastly--- I am hopeful that a proposed Literature panel and Reading Gala Event is accepted for the IKAA Gathering 2010. I am part of a proposed reading event in Seoul, Korea that would feature two other Korean adoptee poets from the United States, paired with three Korean poets, Kim Ki-Taek among them. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as it would be an amazing experience for all involved, I think.

That's a little rundown of what I've been up to, as far as writing goes. I've been working on my second manuscript of poems as well, making good headway these days, as you may know.