GRACIAS from Red Wing, MN

A colleague of mine at Notre Dame recently noted to me in an e-mail that there hasn't been much activity here in quite some time. I realized I should have made something more explicit. For the first time in a long time, I have a considerable amount of uninterrupted time to focus on my own work. Having said that, I'm still checking e-mail, and attending to a few Letras Latinas-related things (ie: in correspondence with Michelle Otero about a second printing of MALINCHE's DAUGHTER).

I hadn't planned on writing much, if anything, here this month. I know it probably (no, I'm sure) is not the best way for cultivating a blog readership, I know, but I'm really hoping to get some writing done.

Having said that, I'm writing this brief entry to thank some people (I'm still glancing at the web once a day) for some appreciated gestures, in no particular order:

Rigoberto Gonzalez for mentioning Robert Vasquez's BRAILLE FOR THE HEART (Kudos to PF for adding him to their roster)at the Poetry Foundation;

Sheryl Luna for mentioning BRAILLE, indirectly, recently;

Robert for reminding us, in Sheryl's comments section, that sale of his chapbook is a fundraiser for a worthy cause;

Emmy Perez for a thorough plug of THE OUTER BANDS (University of Notre Dame Press, 2007) by Gabriel Gomez, our second Andres Montoya Poetry Prize winner. Both Gabe and Valerie will be performing in the Regis Philbin Studio Theatre at Notre Dame's Performing Arts Center on October 30;

Eduardo C. Corral for pointing his readers to Craig Perez's review of THE WIND SHIFTS: New Latino Poetry at GALATEA.

All this underscores, for me anyway, how important our collective efforts can be.

And finally, a thanks to those people who have e-mailed in their advance orders of BRAILLE FOR THE HEART. To re-cap: proceeds from the sale of this chapbook carried out in 2007 will me matched by a private donor---all in order to start an endowment whose first beneficiary will be Cristo Rey high school students in Pilsen (Chicago)so that they can attend Allison Joseph's wonderful summer Young Writers Workshop.

For those of you who haven't e-mailed in your order but intend to, please do so so that I can fill those orders first thing come early October. We'll worry about payment later. Main thing is for me to compile a snail mail list of where I will be sending BRAILLE FOR THE HEART.