Some News from this City and the Towns Around It

There's some exciting poetry news coming out of Fresno. My friend, acclaimed poet Brian Turner, has a second book, Talk the Guns, coming out in early 2010 from Alice James Books. Another poet friend, Mike Medrano, will have his first book, I Was Born in the Cavity of Sunsets, published in 2010. Jon Veinberg has a new book, The Speed Limit of Clouds, just out from C & R Press. And another poet friend David Dominguez, author of Work Done Right from the University of Arizona Press, has founded a new literary magazine along with Reedley College colleague Rick Garza: The Packinghouse Review. *

I'm busy with quite a few exciting projects these days: I'm guest editing two projects, one for Asian American Poetry and Writing (Los Angeles) as well as the forthcoming issue of the Rio Grande Review (El Paso). I'm grateful to the editors of both publications for inviting me to serve as Guest Editor. I'm also facilitating two separate book discussion meetings for the NEA Big Read on Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. These events are in late March, one at the Selma Public Library and the other in Fresno at the Talking Book Library for the blind. I'm also looking very forward to my reading on March 18 at CSU Stanislaus---please come if you're in the area. And last but not least, I am very excited about the invitation to read in New York City for Kundiman on November 8, 2009. I'll be reading with Sandy Tseng (book forthcoming! from Four Way Books, October 2009) and the one and only Lee Ann Roripaugh.