Tuesday, January 26, 2010
10:52 PM |
Call for Submission of Manuscripts to the 49th Silliman University National Writers Workshop
The Silliman University National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 49th National Writers Workshop to be held 3-21 May 2010 in Dumaguete City.
This Writers Workshop is offering fifteen fellowships to promising young writers who would like a chance to hone their craft and refine their style. Fellows will be provided housing, a modest stipend, and a subsidy to partially defray costs of their transportation.
To be considered, applicants should submit manuscripts in English on or before
19 March 2010 (seven to ten poems; or three to five short stories; or three to five creative non-fiction essays). Manuscripts should be submitted in hard copy and on CD, preferably in MS Word, together with a resume, a recommendation letter from a literature professor or a writer of national standing, a notarized certification that the works are original, and two 2X2 ID pictures.
Send all applications or requests for information to Department of English and Literature, attention Dr. Evelyn F. Mascuñana, Chair, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City.
Labels: call for submissions, dumaguete writers workshop, philippine literature, writers, writing
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
I'm freaking hungry, I can eat an elephant. AHAHAHA!. But must concentrate on this: Boracay... Boracay...
Labels: life
[4] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
2:00 PM |
Touch, Move, Unseen
I love the invisible inventiveness of winds. They touch things, and move them, and we are the awed spectators to their ghost traces. From my table, for example, I can see the door to this room propped open to still firmness by a slight chair. And the wind—which I know is present because it touches my skin, and makes strands of my hair fly—compels it to meet its given destiny to shut close. It pushes so, and the chair moves. When the wind just as suddenly dies, everything goes back to their static stances, and we are left with the ordinary world and this tragedy: where only the visible and has mass can move and shape everything, and we are left only with the longing for cool, invisible forces. Like love.
Labels: life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, January 17, 2010
9:47 PM |
Vicious Cycle
Here's my stupid love story. It exists and doesn't exist. He's there, he knows. He wrecks havoc on my sanity. He knows. And goddamn it, it is difficult as fuck to love somebody who wants you to stop loving him and yet gives you every reason to do so. He's the devil, and he knows it is difficult to take to heart somebody who wants you to learn to compartmentalize -- and yet he also knows how to take down your frail boundaries with just the right word and the right glance. He wants you to learn to harden your heart, and goads you endlessly with lessons on how you do it. And yet, he plays games with those very lessons. He has the cheat sheets memorized. You want to hate him, but you don't, and you can't. And when there are those fortunate days when you start to think you've moved on, he comes around, being cute around you, setting you on fire again. And when you stupidly start to warm up -- he starts to withdraw once more. This is not healthy. This is stupid.
I'm stupid for not learning anything.
Fuck.
He is my private hell, and my secret heaven. One of these days, one of us will have to prevail. Pray that it will be me.
Labels: life, love
[2] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, January 14, 2010
By Padmapani L. Perez
How many times have you said to yourself
or thought out loud,
It’s been a tough year?
Tis not the years that are hard on us, my love.
For the years themselves are weathered
devotees; they are seasons come around
again and again only to see
that nothing was learned
and that we love them
less and less.
One would have to be tough indeed
to be a year.
[photo and poem courtesy of the
author]
Labels: life, philippine literature, poetry, writers
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, January 07, 2010
I can imagine perfectly how we would meet one day. I would be doing something in a laidback cafe, in the corner of X and X, drinking my second cup of coffee. It would be a cafe near the sea, where we would feel truly the borders of worlds. It would be a bright afternoon, not too late in the day. It would be a Sunday. The air would have the breeziness of a lazy summer. The traffic would be a crawl. A man and his dog would pass by. He would also be carrying a pink parasol. A young woman would jog past him, and a young boy, about nine, would cross her path with a red bicycle some uncle just bought him for a birthday gift. I would not see any of these. Everything is telescoped into the thing that I would be doing -- something. I don't know what that would be. Perhaps I'd be reading a book. Perhaps I'd be writing on a laptop. Perhaps there would be ten ounces of worry in my hands, and there was serious contemplation to do. There would be no clouds, I suppose, only an infiniteness of blue. It is a blue that extends far to the horizon where I could only imagine a different world existing and not there, not where I would be in that forlorn cafe, doing something.
And then I would just happen to look up. Why? I don't know exactly why.
But I would look up and there you would be. We both would catch each other's eyes. Your eyes would hold me. I would not look away. I don't know who would smile first. Perhaps you -- I am eternally shy. And then I'd smile back, and go back to what I'd be doing. That something. I'd be smiling still.
The next thing I'd know, you'd be there right in front of me.
"Hello," you'd say.
When I would turn to look at you again, my smile all nervous, I'd say --
Labels: life
[3] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
12:41 PM |
You Don't Wait
"You don't wait for inspiration to strike you," I always tell my writing students this. "There is no such thing as inspiration. There is only the act of getting up from your procrastinating butt and starting to pound that keyboard with your fingers!" And I realize just now, with some gravity anyway, that my scholastic rhetoric -- meant more to sound disarming to hapless students -- applies to the rest of life as well. Because I can't wait anymore for the rest of me to get on with the rest of my life. I feel I have been despondent too long, too sad ... too crippled with so much uncertainties. I don't know when exactly I started to get scared about things that surround and confound me, but I must admit there is this crippling fear without a name that hinders me from doing what I need to do. But what the fuck am I doing here endlessly waiting for me to get my "groove" back? I'm sick of my own excuses. I'm sick of my own beautiful words analyzing the gutter that I'm in. It's January, this should be a fresh start. Although I'm not much of a believer in New Year's resolutions, I guess I could do the next best thing -- and ... get ... off ... my ... lazy ... butt,
and stop feeling scared all the time. So, no more Facebook for now. No more Twitter either, or any of those precious social networking sites that eat up a life. There will only be this blog to chart my progress through the muck. I can't wait for my spirit and my body anymore to start feeling the life. Because the days are shorter, the future always uncertain, and if I don't do something about this, I'll regret not doing anything
now for the rest of my life. But in the meantime, one must learn not to panic too much:
time, it's all in the head.
Labels: life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
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