This special issue grew out of a lunch conversation at the 2009 Symposium on Second Language (L2) Writing at Tempe where each of us had presented, Michelle on" Advocating for Second Language Writers through Writing Across the Curriculum" and Terry on" Studies of Multilingual Writers' Experiences at a US University." On the second day of the conference, we arranged to have lunch together to discuss the exciting areas of overlap in our work and the possibility of a future collaboration. This wasn't our first conversation about WAC and L2 writing. Terry had co-written a chapter with Anna Habib on research on multilingual student writers at George Mason University for a collection Michelle had co-edited, Reinventing Identities in Second Language Writing (NCTE, 2010). During this project, we had corresponded often on the areas of connection and disconnection in L2 writing and WAC research and theory. But this lunch conversation was the first time we had sat down together and talked about our work. As we shared the questions and insights emerging for us from the conference, we realized that many of the presentations we were attending, while pertinent to WAC or based on studies in disciplinary contexts across the curriculum, would benefit from drawing from WAC theory and research. And, we wondered, why wasn't there more conversation about L2 writing in the WAC community?

We also realized during this lunch that we have complementary areas of expertise. Terry, who was then co-editing Writing Across the Curriculum: A Critical Sourcebook (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2011), has been involved with the WAC community and Clearinghouse for many years but had only recently begun engaging with second language writing scholarship after undertaking research on the multilingual student writers on her campus and on writing programs transnationally. Michelle, who