Latest News

July/August 2008

• My new interview with Leonard is here. You can read the first one here and the second one here.
• One of Leonard's MFA graduate students, Eli Brown, has a first novel, The Great Days, coming out this fall.
• Leonard is finishing up his new novel, tentatively entitled Crossings. More information to come soon.
• On August 23rd, Leonard will be reading at a Korean American Literary Festival in Los Angeles, sponsored by Pen USA. More information to follow.
• Finally, Leonard will be relocating soon.

May/June 2008

• Leonard will be in Los Angeles in June, teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program.
• We updated the contact info again, including a way to leave Leonard voice mail. Please check here before e-mailing us, because we constantly change e-mail addresses to thwart spammers.
• Two of Leonard's novels, Over the Shoulder and The Fruit 'N Food, are being auctioned for Rhode Island's Urban Collaborative Accelerated Program, geared for at-risk high school students. Bid here, and the winning bidder will get the novels personalized and sent to them.
• Every four or five years I interview Leonard. It's time for another one. You can read the the 1999 one here, the 2003 one here. If you have any questions you'd like me to ask him, please e-mail me, Bill, at: webmaster [at] leonardchang.com -- I'll ask almost anything.

March/April 2008

• Leonard recently gave talks to U.C. Berkeley's Korean American Literature seminar and San Francisco State University's Writers on Writing class.
• Stanford University's English literature class "There's No Place Like Home: Geography, Time and Trauma in Asian American Literature" recently studied The Fruit 'N Food. You can get the syllabus here.
• A couple of Leonard's old short stories for children have been appearing online. "At My Parents' Grocery" and "My Korean Name", both published in Highlights for Children over a decade ago, are now on the web.

January/February 2008

• If you're a professor and are teaching Leonard's fiction, feel free to e-mail me or Leonard a copy of your course description or syllabus. We are considering creating an area on this site that will provide resources for educators and academics. For example, check out Course #499A on this Anthropology Course Listing at UIUC.
• Daniel Dae Kim has renewed the option on Over the Shoulder, and is continuing to develop the novel into a film.
• The Encyclopedia of Asian American Literature was recently published by Facts on File. There's an entry on Leonard, though neither he nor I have seen it yet.

November/December 2007

• A "Where Are They Now" profile from Leonard's hometown newspaper, the Long Island Herald, was recently published.
• In academic news, Professor Anne Soon Choi, of National University, presented her paper "Detecting Race: Leonard Chang's Allen Choice Series" at the American Studies Association Conference, "Américan Aquí: Transhemispheric Visions and Community Connections," in Philadelphia.
• Leonard's novels are being taught next semester in numerous places, including Stanford University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and in Korea and Germany.
• The MFA program where Leonard teaches, Antioch University in Los Angeles, was recently named one of the top 5 low-residency MFA programs in the country by the Atlantic Monthly magazine.
• To send U.S. mail to Leonard, it's best to use the Black Heron address, since his other publishers take up to a year to forward mail: Leonard Chang c/o Black Heron Press, PO Box 13396, Mill Creek, WA, 98082-1396, USA.

September/October 2007

Leonard has recently returned from a few climbing trips, and is now back at work on his novels and screenplays. His new novel is moving along slowly. He has partnered with a co-writer for his screenplays, Dave Goldstone, and they hope to have a new script finished soon. He's also working with his sister Mira and her new film production company, Collective Machinery. As for teaching, in December he'll be in Los Angeles at Antioch University's MFA Program. Finally, we have a new addition to the site -- check the photo page for a slide show that photographer Mitch Tobias put together for Leonard. This was taken at the Oakland waterfront at Jack London Square.

Here's an e-mail update from Leonard:

"I hope everyone had a great summer. I certainly did. I traveled quite a bit for weddings, climbing, and research, and although this definitely slowed down my writing, I had a great time. However, I realize I need to get back to work. Other than a climbing trip or two to Bishop and Hueco Tanks this fall, I'm hoping to hunker down and get some writing done. I'm working on a new novel that is taking a while because it's different from anything else I've done before, so it's hard. I foresee another year or two before I have anything worth showing people. My writing pace has most certainly eased back, in part because I have many more interests and projects, but more importantly I'm trying to push myself in new directions, and that's just going to require a lot of time and effort. I appreciate the occasional e-mails from fans and am grateful for your patience. Thanks!"

July/August 2007

Over the next two months Leonard will be traveling to Lake Mead National Park, Tahoe National Forest, Lincoln Woods State Park, and possibly Squamish, British Columbia. He is working on his new novel and teaching graduate students from Antioch University's MFA Program, and he promised that he will be giving a full update at the end of the summer.

May/June 2007

On May 19th at 6:30 pm Leonard will be giving a reading and speaking at the New College of California. And from June 14th to the 24th he'll be in Los Angeles teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program.

March/April 2007

Leonard recently answered a few questions for Genie Giaimo's Master's thesis. If you're writing any kind of scholarly article about Leonard's work, please don't hesitate to e-mail him (and even send along the paper. I can post it on the site if you'd like.) By the way, please note our new e-mail contact info. As for writing-related news, Leonard will be giving a reading and speaking at the New College on May 19th at 6:30. More information to follow. And, as promised, Leonard e-mailed me the links to some of his regular surfing sites:

Vicki Forman's blog -- I went to grad school with her.

Todd Pierce's page -- Another grad school alum, friend and fellow writer.

Nichelle Tramble's blog -- A fellow writer.

Marie G. Lee's Green blog -- A fellow Korean American writer blogging about green-related health issues.

Lawyerish's blog -- She is the wife of my childhood best friend. Sometimes I read this to see what's going on in their lives.

Then there are news sites, like the NYT, the Chronicle, and the Hollywood Reporter. I also check Word of the Day and my Netflix queue every day. Other sites, like the Oakland Library, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, and the Economist are less frequent...

January/February 2007

Happy New Year! There is not much to report here. Leonard has recently returned from visits to the Sierras, South Carolina and Los Angeles. He is currently working with a group of graduate students from Antioch University's MFA program, and is gearing up for a couple of more research-related trips. I asked him to e-mail me links to the various blogs and sites he routinely reads, so I will post those next time.

We've been having some e-mail forwarding and filtering problems, so I'm changing my contact address. Check the contacts page.

November/December 2006

Happy Holidays. Here's an e-mail update from Leonard:

"Not much going on except for the same plugging away on the new novel, new scripts, and getting ready for teaching. I'll be travelling a bit over the next couple of months, for rock climbing, writing research and family visits, but still hope to keep pushing forward with the writing projects. Best wishes for a great holiday season!"

September/October 2006

We've simplified this web site even further, and will eventually update the links page. Leonard is still working on his various projects, and after taking a semester off will be teaching this winter/spring at Antioch University's MFA program.

In order to streamline this Latest News page, I'm cleaning out the old news, with a few links to Leonard's ongoing projects. Thanks.

• To celebrate the ten-year anniversary of The Fruit 'N Food, Black Heron Press has just published a special paperback edition. You can order it through your local independent bookstore or buy it online from Amazon, Powell's, Barnes & Noble, and elsewhere.

• Dispatches from the Cold is still in development with Canary Films, and Debra Granik has signed on to direct.

• Over the Shoulder is still on track with Daniel Dae Kim producing and possibly starring as Allen Choice.

Please contact me, Bill Han, if you're finding that the pages load slowly, or if the web site goes down. My e-mail address is in the "Contacts" section. We're experimenting with different servers and are trying to keep the web site simple to facilitate faster loading.