Some recent news: Dago to put out Texas anthology; Pasenos win awards

Hi folks, I was glad to get the University of New Mexico Press catalog last week and even happier to see that our own Dagoberto Gilb is returning to UNM Press (they published the much touted Magic of Blood) to publish Hecho en Tejas: An anthology of Texas-Mexican literature due out in November. The book description says its a "historic anthology that established the canon of Mexican American literature in Texas." It will include such writers as Texas' first Spanish-speaking writer, Alver Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, prose by Americo Paredes and Jovita Gonzalez, Rolando Hinjosa and Tomas Rivera, Estela Portillo Trambley, and even our adoptive Tejana Sandra Cisneros. Also inelastic are Ricardo Sanchez, Carmen Tafolla, Angela de hoyos, and Lalo Delgado. Why to go Dago! Read more at www.unmpress.com.


Chucos and Chucas win awards again

We missed some news in our last issue of Pluma Fronteriza and we are ashamed.

Rich Yanez shot me an email to tell me that Gabriel Gomez won the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize. That's two Pasenos (the other was Sheryl Luna) who have won this prize. Also, Alicia Gaspar de Alba shot one over to us: Two Awards. Her book Desert Blood won the Lambda Literary Foundation Award for Lesbian Mystery and the Latina Book Award for English-Language Mystery.

This led me to see other Chicano(a) and Latino(a) Lambda Literary Foundation Award winners include: Bullets and Butterflies: Queer Spoken Word Poetry, ed. Emanuel Xavier (Suspect Thoughts) and Antonio's Card/La Tarjeta de Antonio by Rigoberto Gonzalez (ChildrenÂ’s Book Press).

Also, David Romo's book Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground Cultural History of El Paso and Juarez: 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press) won Best History Book in the Latino Book Awards. For Best Novel - Adventure or Drama, Carry Me Like Water by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Rayo/ Harper Collins edition) won. And forBest Poetry Book - English, The Religion of Hands: Prose Poems and Flash Fictions (University of Arizona Press).

Take care everyone.