Latest News

September/October 2010

• A new academic article about Leonard's first novel, entitled "The Korean American Cowboy and the Fallacy of Regenerative Violence" was recently published. You can read it at the drop box.
• We've added the Film/TV section, which includes some updates of Leonard's film and TV projects.
• Leonard's former graduate student mentee, Chandra Hoffman, has a new novel out, Chosen.

July/August 2010

• We're slowly streamlining this website to contain basic updated information. We've gotten rid of the short story and links sections, and will eventually add the Film/TV section.
• One of the pioneers in Asian American studies, Professor Elaine Kim of U.C. Berkeley, wrote in June's KoreAm Journal about Crossings, "I am drawn to Chang's spare, elegant writing and gripping stories. His characters neither shed nor perform their Korean American identity. And he's a male writer who respects and understands women."
• We're experimenting with a drop box for academic papers and dissertations written about Leonard's work. Guests can download and upload. If you've written a paper or dissertation about Leonard's fiction, please consider either uploading it or sending us a link.
• Two of Leonard's former MFA graduate student mentees have books recently published or about to be published. Jillian Lauren's memoir, Some Girls, and Chandra Hoffman's novel, Chosen. Congratulations to Jillian Lauren for becoming a New York Times Bestseller!
• To contact Leonard, check the contacts link. He is also now on Facebook and Twitter.

May/June 2010

• A reprint of Leonard's story "Wood Chips" just appeared in The Coachella Review.
• Leonard will be teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program in June. His Residency Seminar will be on William Faulkner and Light in August.

   

March/April 2010

• Leonard will be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on April 24th at 10:30AM at Rolfe Hall on a panel discussion with Marilyn Chin, Chitra Divakaruni and Petina Grappah about "writing the Other". He'll be signing copies of his novels afterwards. Check here for more info.
• A new interview with Leonard and review of Crossings appeared in Korean Quarterly. You can download the interview here as a pdf file. The review is here.
• Crossings will be taught in Feminist Theology courses at Princeton Theological Seminary and Garrett Theological Seminary. Please email Leonard if you're teaching his novels somewhere, so we can mention it here.

January/February 2010

• Leonard's new novel Crossings has been published. Order it here.
• Chris Cooper, of The Asian American Times, did an interview with Leonard. You can view the paper online (12/10 edition; pp. 14ff) or read it here.
• Martin Wong, of Giant Robot, also did an interview, which you can download here as a pdf file.

November/December 2009

• Leonard's new novel Crossings has been published. Order it here.
• As part of Antioch University and Two Hawks Quarterly "Literary Uprising" series, Leonard will be reading and signing copies of Crossings on November 17th, 6:00 PM at Antioch University.
• Leonard will be teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program in December. His Residency Seminar will be on John Updike.
• Giant Robot Magazine will publish an interview with Leonard soon. Look for the link here.
• Leonard's reading at the Los Angeles County Museum was recorded on video. You can view it here. His section starts at 00:23:00.

September/October 2009

• Leonard's new novel Crossings will be available in early September. Order it here.
• Leonard will be reading at the Los Angeles County Museum on Sept 12 at 9:30 pm. He will be reading with Sue Yon Kim at LACMA's Late Night Celebration of their Contemporary Korean Art exhibits. For more detailed information, check here. After the reading Leonard will be signing copies of Crossings at LACMA's bookstore.
• The Korea Daily News recently published an interview with Leonard.

July/August 2009

• Leonard's new novel Crossings will be published soon. You can order it here. More information (reviews, etc) will be posted here as they come in.
• Booklist just called it a "sad, sweetly lyrical depiction of family loyalties and responsibilities, brother betraying brother, and love the second time around..." Go to the Crossings page to see the full review.
• A new paperback edition of Dispatches from the Cold will be released in July, which you can order here as well. Order both and get free shipping.
• Leonard has settled in Santa Monica. He is currently teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program and is working on both book and film/TV projects.

May/June 2009

• Leonard will be teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program in June. His Residency Seminar will be on Noir Fiction.
• Professor Anne Choi, of National University, will be presenting her paper, “Detecting Race: Racial Trauma in Leonard Chang’s Allen Choice Series,” at the American Literature Association Conference in May.

March/April 2009

• Leonard's forthcoming novel Crossings is moving through the publishing pipeline with the expected release date of August 20, 2009. The excerpt will be available on this site soon. As articles and interviews begin appearing, we will post them here. The first reference to the forthcoming novel was recently on the front page of the Korea Daily News.
• Some of Leonard's old children's stories have been re-appearing online and as testing material for reading comprehension exams. If you're curious, download this Garden Grove fifth grade "Response to Literature" test, based on Leonard's story that first appeared in Highlights ten years ago.
• Two of Leonard's former MFA graduate students have novels coming out this year. Adam Schell's debut novel, entitled Tomato Rhapsody, will be published in June. Reyna Grande's second novel, Dancing with Butterflies, will be out in October. Both Adam and Reyna wrote these novels while working with Leonard.

January/February 2009

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

"Wishing all of you a Happy New Year! Everything's still on track, and I'm just working really hard on the various projects I already mentioned. I'm still doing the final edits on Crossings, so that's why the excerpt hasn't been posted yet, and I'm relocating again, although within the L.A. area... I hope everyone has a great 2009!"

November/December 2008

• We're slowly putting up more information about Leonard's forthcoming novel Crossings, scheduled for the Fall of 2009.
• A new essay by Leonard, entitled "Q-Zombies" will be published in Audemus in the spring.
• Leonard has relocated to Los Angeles.

September/October 2008

• Leonard's new novel, entitled Crossings, will be published in the Fall of 2009. More information will follow soon.
• Leonard recently gave an extended web interview with Marc Strassman for Harvardwood, an alumni film and publishing organization. Be warned that the sound goes out of sync half-way through. He was also part of a panel discussion on books and publishing, and you can view Part I, Part II, and Part III online.
• This fall Leonard is teaching at Antioch University's MFA Program and at the Academic Writing Program at Woodbury University.

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 2nd, Leonard will be reading at "The Many Faces of the Korean-American Storyteller" in Los Angeles, sponsored by Pen USA. It will be held at the New Los Angeles Theater Company, in Downtown Los Angeles, starting at 1:00 PM.

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.

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.