Congrats, dear April!

"This reading by students, alumni, and staff of the Jimenez-Porter Writers’ House is the culmination of an evening of good eats, speeches, games, and door prizes to celebrate the House’s ten-year anniversary.

As a former assistant director and instructor (2004-‘07), I arrived too late for the crab rangoon and sushi, but I enjoyed a slab of red velvet cake, catching up with old students, meeting new ones, sharing my poetry, and most of all, cheering on the program’s remarkable ten-year run. The House has flourished through the toughest of economic times—a testament to the University’s commitment to educating young writers."

Read the rest of her blog post here.

April Naoko Heck was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1971, and moved to the United States seven years later. Her poems have most recently appeared in Artful Dodge, Borderland: Texas Quarterly Review, Epiphany, and Shenandoah. She has received an AWP Intro Journals Award and held a writers residency at VCCA. Her first book of poems, A Nuclear Family, is forthcoming from UpSet Press in Fall 2013.