Greetings SLWIS members,

I would like to welcome you to the preconvention issue of SLW News. The TESOL 2016 convention is quickly approaching, and I hope to see you at SLWIS events in Baltimore as we celebrate the association’s 50th anniversary. Please come visit the SLWIS booth in the Exhibit Hall and consider signing up to help staff it; it is an excellent way to meet fellow SLWIS members and promote our interest section.

In this issue, we include announcements related to SLWIS sessions and events in Baltimore, articles, book reviews, calls for proposals for books that will be published by TESOL Press, and the second interview in our Meet the Expert series, which Elena Shvidko conducted with Professor Icy Lee. We are also excited to introduce a new section of the newsletter, Graduate Student Spotlights,in which we highlight the work that graduate students are doing in second language writing. If you are a master’s or doctoral student and interested in contributing to this section, please contact Elena, our community manager and Graduate Student Spotlights editor.

Finally, we would like to thank all of the authors and editors who have contributed to this issue and worked with us during the editing process. Your contributions are extremely valuable, and they help keep our SLWIS active. As always, we hope you consider sharing your teaching and/or research insights with our SLWIS community. For more information, please visit our submission guidelines in this issue.

Happy reading!

Sincerely,

Ilka (on behalf of the editorial team)

SLW News Editorial Staff

Gena Bennett
Steven Bookman
Adam Clark
Ming Fang
Helena Hall
Kristina Lauer
Peggy Lindsey
Margi Wald