Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
9:00 PM |
Wake Me Because I Must Be Dreaming! Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!
We got it. My hands are shaking.
I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO City of Literature – about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 40 pages of the final bid. I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Marcos Virtucio and Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for "a cup of coffee" in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Akala ko coffee lang, turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. But I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that week also made me realize: Dumaguete actually could do this, we had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time.
And then I forgot all about it, until UNACOM contacted us sometime in November 2024 to inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film! That galvanized us to do the final bid from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do. Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven. I sacrificed finishing several of my books slated for publication this year just to finish this bid. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, I went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years. We submitted before the midnight of March 1, the deadline. [We never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement our bid. There was just no time.]
I always thought I could have done more, especially for our website – so I was just hoping the bid itself would suffice for the judges. But, truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.
9:00 PM |
Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!
We got it. My hands are shaking.
I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO City of Literature – about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 40 pages of the final bid. I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Marcos Virtucio and Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for "a cup of coffee" in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Akala ko coffee lang, turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. But I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that week also made me realize: Dumaguete actually could do this, we had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time.
And then I forgot all about it, until UNACOM contacted us sometime in November 2024 to inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film! That galvanized us to do the final bid from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do.
Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven. I sacrificed finishing several of my books slated for publication this year just to finish this bid. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, I went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years. We submitted before the midnight of March 1, the deadline. [We never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement our bid. There was just no time.] I always thought I could have done more, especially for our website – so I was just hoping the bid itself would suffice for the judges.
But, truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.
9:10 AM |
42 Questions Episode 1: With Susan S. Lara on Edith Tiempo
The first episode of 42 Questions with Ian and Renz is up! Our guest is fictionist Susan S. Lara, where we talk about National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo, on the occasion of her 104th birth anniversary. [NOTE: This was recorded on 22 August 2020, so please don't mind the references to the early months of the pandemic.]
7:34 AM |
In Dumaguete, The Arts Flourish Part 13: The Literary Grind
It is arguably difficult to measure the ebbs and flows of the writing life compared to most of the other creative arts. There is always the cue we take of the applause at the finish of a performance, whether dance, or drama, or a musical extravaganza; and there is always the palpable and visceral reaction of the beholder upon seeing a painting or a sculpture or a photograph—and architecture solidly occupies space in the landscape that it cannot help but invite instant reflection.
But literature? This one is enjoyed often in the privacy of a sequestered mind—with the reader putting down a finished book, and reflecting quietly on the words they have just read. Of course, there are other [more public] markers of “literary success” comparable to the reception of its creative cousins: a public reading inviting applause, a piece winning a literary award, a book being published and launched, a work being accepted to a prestigious writing workshop, a work being accepted for publication in a magazine or journal, a book entering a bestseller list. Their common denominator is “acceptance,” and to quote speculative fictionist Stewart Stafford, “All writing is a message in a bottle, cast into the sea in the forlorn hope of recognition and acceptance.” But in the time of the pandemic, most of these markers grounded to a halt, and what deepened—if you were a writer still intent on writing despite the world coming to an end—was the very basic condition of the writing life: its solitariness.
Solitariness is not necessarily a sad thing. According to novelist William Faulkner: “Writing is a solitary job—that is, no one can help you with it, but there’s nothing lonely about it. I have always been too busy, too immersed in what I was doing, either mad at it or laughing at it to have time to wonder whether I was lonely or not lonely. It’s simply solitary. I think there is a difference between loneliness and solitude.” This is true—but writing in the pandemic also made it lonely for many writers: cooped up in the lockdown, the solitariness of the writing became an escape, but when we needed escape from the escape, there was only quarantine to face, and the fear of the outside world to bear.
But the writing experience during the pandemic was not a monolith. There was a variety to it, with some writers declaring going down into the depths of idleness and madness as the pandemic deepened, while others welcoming the respite to churn out works they’d been trying to finish for years but couldn’t because of other obligations [obligations which were suddenly nullified, giving them no more excuses to delay what needed doing]. For many, it was the combination of the two, with months bursting with creativity, and months that invited nothing else but bingeing on Netflix. And so the writing continued, or did not continue, depending on whom you asked.
In the meantime, the markers disappeared, especially in 2020. Gone were the poetry readings or the communal workshops, which necessitated face-to-face interactions. Gone were the awards, the Palanca famously going on hiatus for two years—the first time it has done so since its inception in 1950. Gone were the workshops planned for the year—with the Silliman University National Writers Workshop and other similar workshops finally, and awkwardly, going on Zoom-mode as 2021 dawned. The processes of publications, of course, continued on because their very nature proved immune to the systemic ravages of the pandemic: writers still wrote, still submitted to publications far and wide, still received either acceptances or rejections, repeat. And readers still read—and read voraciously.
In time, even with the pandemic still raging, some of the old normalcy returned.
There were readings again. The first one we attended was a May 2022 reading and a talk with Mitos Suson, a Cebuana author who had accepted an invitation to stay in Dumaguete for a while. She had just published Shards of Time, her memoir/novel about the Martial Law, and it was an opportune time to do a reading with her—but it was an intimate affair, hosted by 451°F Books and Café’s Mike Reyes and Lea Sicat-Reyes, small enough not to arouse much of our pandemic paranoia. That small event became the catalyst to holding bigger physical events—including a reading of the graphic novel ZsaZsa Zaturnnah for Pride Month 2022, still at 451°F Books and Café, with author Carlo Vergara as special guest [over Zoom]. Later that month, in July 2022, the local Department of Trade and Industry [DTI] held its annual 6200 PopUp creative expo and culinary fair, for the first time in two years—and part of it was a day dedicated to literary arts, curated by Dum.Alt.Press, which came complete with authors’ talks and panels, a creative writing workshop with Daniella Spontak, a screening of Dumaguete short films, and a poetry reading hosted by the Renaissance Youth Leaders Forum and Ang Sandigan. Ms. Spontak herself curated several spoken poetry exhibitions at Shelter Gallery and MUGNA Gallery in the succeeding months before leaving Dumaguete for London in 2023.
There were literary awards again. When the Palanca Award returned in 2022, it was my honor to win first prize for the short story in English for “Ceferina in Apartment 2G,” something I wrote loosely based on my mother’s brief experience as an immigrant to the U.S., where she came to live with my brother Rey in Los Angeles. [She promptly returned to the Philippines within two years.] It was a story I labored in the doldrums of the pandemic, in 2021, when all I felt was being bereft of anchor and only storytelling felt like the only thing that could save me. A few months after I finished that story, I also received the KSSLAP Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, which recognized my contributions to literary arts and cultural work—a prestigious award that I had received even when I was completely mired in a mental health spiral, and I could not see the future beyond the emptiness I saw in that empty Luce Auditorium where the awarding ceremony was being held. But winning the Palanca the next year felt like a jolt of hope, a window to seeing that I was being recognized for work I had done in the middle of my pandemic darkness—and perhaps it also served as my necessary push into believing that things would be fine.
There were workshops again, the SUNWW going on to host two editions online.
And there were books being published again. The Sands and Coral, Silliman’s literary journal founded in 1948, brought out an Editor’s Issue in 2021, featuring works by all the editors of the journal, from pioneering writers Aida Rivera Ford and Cesar Jalandoni Amigo to latter editors including yours truly and Misael Ondong. In February 2023, it brought out two issues, Pandemonium [for Sand and Coral 2022, edited by Albertha Lachmi Obut and Patch Puengan] and Pagsubang [for Sand and Coral 2023, edited by Pia Alvarez, Isabel Torres, and Yudi Santillan III], which also included winning fiction and essay pieces that touched on the timely theme of “Hope, Transformation, and Rebuilding after the Pandemic.” [Jon Paculba won first place for fiction, and Paul Donaire won first place for essay.]
Zamboanga writer Sigrid Marianne Gayangos, who had moved to Dumaguete right before the pandemic and finally left to teach in Davao in 2023, used her lockdown in Dumaguete to teach mathematics online, and to put together her first collection titled Laut: Stories, published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2022. Of the book, poet Marjorie Evasco writes: “This first collection of thirteen stories by Sigrid Gayangos brings us back to the primal waters of the imagination. In the Malayo-Polynesian language of seafarers, laut is the name for the ocean on whose currents they rode to reach thousands of islands scattered in the Southern Pacific Ocean, some of them so small, and from time to time disappearing with the flow of the tides. In the thrall of stories inhabited by humans and more-than-humans, we echo Sigrid Gayangos’s praise of the seas and the oceans ‘for rolling relentlessly around the world, for reminding us of our smallness, for showing us how things are connected, for instilling a deep sense of wonder, for the air we breathe, for food, for the singing of the waves, for literally and figuratively everything. May we be better stewards of this water planet.’ To read each of these stories with care is to joyfully say yes!”
But even earlier, a history teacher in Bayawan was moved to do something with the pandemic, and resolved to put on paper her recollection of the simple life in a small barrio in that southern Negrense agricultural city—and somehow managed to weave these into tales that showcased heritage which she felt was fast disappearing. Her name is Dara Tumaca-Ramos of Malabugas, Bayawan, who studied to become a teacher at St. Paul University Dumaguete, and later worked as a social studies instructor at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod. The book she managed to write is titled Sang Una: Stories From the Barrio, and in her introduction, she writes: “Life is not always filled with grand and extraordinary events. More often, it is filled with ordinary and mundane daily occurrences which give life to life itself. It is in the ordinary circumstances, in the daily grind, as one might say, that culture is lived and passed on to the younger generations. But with the fast-paced, technology-driven world we live in, most of what we have treasured that form part of our heritage as a people are also rapidly disappearing in front of our very eyes. So many of these treasures are forgotten with the passing of years, or lost with our older folks passing o to the next life without being able to share these legacies to those left behind.”
“And then the pandemic happened,” she continues. “As people got cooped in their houses and food was rationed, there seemed to be especially among city dwellers, an awakening in the longing for life in the province. A life where social distancing was not a concern, where growing your own food was the norm, and playing outdoors with cousins and neighbors until dusk was a daily pattern of childhood.” She provides an answer to that longing with poignant observations of farm life, including the various processes of rice farming—from uprooting seedlings [panggabot] to planting [patanom], from harvesting [paani] to threshing [mapalinas]; bamboo cutting [panggama]; bamboo-weaving [manglag-i]; buying fish from the shore [panugbong]; catching crabs [panulo]; catching flying fish [pamanse]; and gathering tuba [pananggot]; as well as detailing stories of specific personages such as the aswang and the manugluy-a [the barrio doctor]; and traditions such as a wake [bilasyon] and games played at wakes [bordon], dancing [bayle], and firing bamboo cannons, among others. Sang Una also takes care to situate its stories in the unique language of the Malabugas community [Kiniray-a, from the Panay immigrants that settled there], and always minutely observant of the specific traditions it chooses to describe. Ms. Tumaca-Ramos would independently publish Sang Una in May 2021.
The visual artist Hersley-Ven Casero and I also released a children’s book, The Great Little Hunter, a picture book and art book put out by a local publisher, Pinspired, in April 2022—which also inspired an exhibition at MUGNA Gallery later that year, in December. In recollection, I have no idea how I came to put out this book, and to put out a Palanca-winning story, even when I remember the pandemic days to be an endless span of three years with gaping nothingness. How did that happen? Where did those specific bursts of tangible creativity come from?
Tackling these questions to make sense of my own literary output during the pandemic actually makes me nervous. Truth to tell, what has always remained clear to me, as I conclude this series of essays about the creative arts in Dumaguete in the throes of the lockdown, is that I really had no choice but to put the essay on the literary arts last—simply because I knew somehow it would limn the edges of autobiography, even the confessional. But I have written about this before, when I noted that writing in the pandemic became my savior as it deepened, and with it the stability of my mental health even as I spiraled outside of it. To make it easy to understand, here is my summation: when I was writing, I was fine; when I was not writing, I was lost in the storm. Not writing was often my status quo. But when I wrote, I was happy—and rewarded for it. But keeping at it was not easy.
Take the confessions of other Dumaguete writers.
From poet Simon Anton Diego Baena: “The pandemic period was my most productive year. I was living on the edge because I had nothing else to do. I never knew what could happen. And the pervasive presence of death fueled my desire to write more and more poems. I was also depressed for half of that first year because my wife was in Iligan and I was stuck here in Bais, which I dubbed Ciudad de los Muertos. [Strangely enough], the news of [pandemic] deaths on TV encouraged me to write about a more personal subject—specifically about my father’s passing—that I couldn’t let go of. It was like a shadow that never left me. It was like a noose around my neck.”
From poet Lyde Sison Villanueva: “I was productive during the first few months. I planned [and started] a couple of writing projects. I completed the Written Comprehensive Exam for my MFA. I revised old works and submitted them to various publications. And was published once. A year or so after the start of the pandemic, I got exhausted and I couldn’t focus on writing again. Life happened, and I had other priorities. But this year, in 2023, I’m starting to write again. But I became more selective and conscious of how I was using my time. I’m committed to take care of myself more, health-wise. I now strive to spend more quality time with family and friends. I don’t let my work compromise my mental health and personal life.”
From medical doctor and fictionist/essayist Justine Megan Yu: “During the pandemic, I went back to a previous idea for a longer piece: a personal piece about a year in my life where I wrote three eulogies. I wove these together into an essay and submitted it to a creative writing workshop specifically for doctor-writers. I was accepted into that workshop and spent a few weekends happily being in the online company of doctor-writers. Most of us were readers growing up, and wanted to write, but didn’t have the courage to pursue a career in writing or were encouraged to do something ‘more stable’ or ‘more realistic.’ It was nice to know there were others like me, who loved to read and write, who went into the medical profession and still had this urge to write and share what we wrote. But the pandemic gave me the opportunity to slow down. My medical fellowship training was paused because my specialty center that catered mostly to non-urgent, outpatient cases closed. I still went on duty at the hospital but I had less paperwork to do. This freed up my mind to go back to reading non-medical things and back to writing for myself again. However, I was not productive, writing-wise, because I only came up with that essay. But after years and years of not writing anything, I think that was productive enough for me. Still, the pandemic brought a clarity to my choices—what I really wanted to do with this one life, what kind of person I wanted to become, what kind of person did I want to spend my years with.”
From health worker and poet Andre Aniñon: “Surprisingly, I was productive! I didn’t write every day—but I was able to pen two stories in the first year of the pandemic. Still, it was definitely more productive than the years of not writing I spent prior. [The last formal piece I finished prior to the pandemic was in 2018.] I could attribute my pandemic productivity to the little ‘quarantine book club’ my friends and I had set up to try and give structure to our otherwise shapeless days. We started with novels, but seeing that most couldn’t commit to reading hundreds of pages within a week, we moved to short stories. One of the stories we read during that time was the late Luis Katigbak’s ‘Subterrania,’ where I found a comrade in one of the characters, Kaye, who at one point in the story, said: ‘I love these [stories] ... because even the worst of them, in their own way, are perfect. Better than a life of uncertainty. They have beginnings and endings. I get the world distilled in its purest form.’ I saved the entire passage as a note in my phone. Early in the pandemic, when so much of the world was upended, I was left, as a healthcare worker, to struggle navigating this ‘new normal.’ All I wanted at the end of every tiring shift and commute was a sense of structure and certainty. Reading gave me that. And when I was not content with finding that structure and certainty in reading, I took refuge and I tried to understand things, and I found solace in writing.
“But perhaps the greatest effect that this pandemic had on me was this realization and dread in thinking that nothing was so certain anymore. It was common to hear, every day, especially early in the pandemic, that the days were the same because of work suspensions and quarantine and endless hours of ‘staying at home.’ But I found that sentiment further from the truth. Life then was so unpredictable: one day I’d hear of someone I know being hospitalized due to COVID-like symptoms, and the next day I’d hear of their deaths. There was this grief that surrounded everything. And on some days, I’d keep on thinking: my God, what if COVID would get to me? And what if I’d pass it on to my loved ones? What if someone in the bus I rode to and from work carried the virus? What if the patient in front of me was infected but just asymptomatic? Working in a small laboratory at that time, we weren’t really given that much assurance and protection as to what would happen if we did contract the virus. Even coming from bigger hospitals, some of my friends felt the same way. So much of COVID and its manifestations were, as of then, unknown. And as a healthcare worker, I couldn’t exactly ‘stay at home’ until we were given answers. We had to continue despite it all. The fact that people thought all of COVID was a scam for us to accumulate money—the irony, given the realities of healthcare workers in this country—didn’t help. So even though I was ‘out and about’ in the world, because of this grief and uncertainty, I still felt cooped in some form of enclosure. It was in this darkness that I tried to find solace in reading and writing.”
From student and poet/fictionist Junelie Velonta: “Before the lockdowns of 2020, I was able to qualify for my first writers workshop in February of 2020. It was my first exposure to everything ‘creative writing’ so I did a lot of catching up during the first year or so of the lockdown. A panelist at the workshop gave me a copy of Ursula K. Le Guin’s ‘Steering the Craft’ and I spent time reading that during the early [months of] lockdowns. Some of the finger exercises recommended by Le Guin became seeds of stories, and I’ve turned two into actual short stories. From then on, I’d written three stories—one, a fantasy; another, something noir-ish; and another, a screenplay for a period short film. The first two I was able to submit to the SUNWW. The screenplay was the result of a two-week-long screenplay writing workshop organized by the De La Salle University. I’ve submitted the fantasy piece for publishing a few times now but the most I’ve gotten are two personal rejections, which I frame positively in my mind, since I have only started writing seriously over the last four years or so.
“Perhaps one of the reasons that I have been writing actively in the last three years is the exploration that I’ve been able to do because of the pandemic, not just because of the spare time, but also because it allowed me to see, converse, and observe people who I would have not met if I had turbo-ed through my STEM education and holed up in the third floor of the Science Complex [at Silliman]. Seeing the good and the bad, the moral and the questionable, the selfless and the self-serving sides of people—family, relatives, friends, politicians—educated me on the kinds of people in a community. In turn, they inspired me to create characters. The semi-constant presence of the radio broadcast in our home revealed to me that storytelling, the way Nicky Dumapit and Anthony Maginsay from DYWC do it, can reveal softer, ‘unworded’ truths that hard journalism can sometimes gloss over. Thus, my experiences during the pandemic solidified my ‘purpose’ on being serious about writing.
“But to frame how the pandemic affected me as a person and as a writer, I must mention that I am a STEM student, and a son, and a brother. My father retired right before the lockdowns, but developed TB at the height of COVID, and had a stroke and heart attack a year or so after that TB diagnosis. All of his retirement benefits were suddenly gone, and we had to sell our plot of land in Valencia where we had planned to build a house. These problems piled on top of doing online classes, and there was filial pressure to finish early so I could fund the education of my siblings. With the ever-worsening economy as manifested by the rising prices, the pandemic both radicalized and paralyzed me. I have developed a deep anger to the state and the status-quo, but also an overwhelming pressure to persist within it to build a future for those I treasure most. I can’t see myself developing radical beliefs and doing extremist actions, even in writing, simply because my sisters and brother look to me for guidance and support. The pandemic has made me an angry individual, student, and writer, but I have to make this anger die down because I can’t let the pot boil over.”
From fictionist Tara De Leon: “As the only able-ish bodied member of our household, I became the quarantine tribute–keeper of the barangay pass—and so, between having to wait at checkpoints and at hour-long lines to get into the grocery and sanitizing said groceries and cooking while struggling with my contamination anxiety, there wasn’t much time to write. The elaborate ceremonies drained me physically, mentally, emotionally. I checked out. It didn’t help that all ‘my year’ plans for 2020 were canceled. My partner met my family during my sister’s wedding in January 2020. Later that same year, I meant to travel to meet his family where we would officially announce our engagement. But borders closed globally. The pandemic felt eternal. Not knowing when borders would open, or if they ever even would, brought about new worries. So in June of 2021, he ended things. And I couldn’t do ‘girls’ nights’ because there was a pandemic out there and an 8 PM curfew. And I couldn’t book a ticket to fly to him to try and win him back because I couldn’t even leave the island! I had no outlet for all my feelings so I finally turned to writing. There was still a lot left unsaid in that relationship, but I cut off all communication with him—so I wrote letters I’d never send. It was cathartic. I don’t write letters anymore, I don’t feel the need to. Though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still reeling from the changes, even after almost two years. My pandemic story isn’t typical I guess but, it is what it is.”
And from the great Cesar Ruiz Aquino: “Pandemic or no pandemic, I was waning in my capacity to write poems. It feels like our species is paying for our meanness.”
* * *
The stories feel like a mix of somber reflections and surprised productivity. But there are bright spots, especially in terms of another marker of literary success: book-selling. For some reason, before the pandemic, there were only five “bookstores” in Dumaguete—a heritage establishment that has, frankly speaking and even though I love the store, has seen better days [Caballes Bookstore along Perdices Street], two that sold “pre-loved books [XIQ Books in the bowels of LuPega Building along Locsin Street and BookSale at Robinsons Place], a Christian outfit [Philippine Christian Book Store along Calle San Jose], and a tottering mainstream behemoth [National Bookstore, also at Robinsons Place]. Truth to tell, many would not even consider these establishments as “real bookstores,” and even NBS closed its doors for good the moment the mall was locked down because of the pandemic. And then, for the longest time, the feeling was that—for a place like Dumaguete that sometimes calls itself a “city of literature”—it was sobering to note there were no bookstores around. Can a literary city be “literary” when there are no bookstores around?
In 2020, right in the middle of the first year of lockdown, something in that status quo changed: a new bookstore opened shop. Ikaduhang Andana [Binisaya for “second floor”], located in the attic of the Solon house in the compound right behind the SUMC Medical Specialty Building, was the brainchild of 19-year-old Natania Shay Du. And for a while, it felt like water quenching thirst in a literary desert. “In the process of building the bookstore and connecting with the community…we realized that, because of the pandemic, there is an immediate need for more accessible education in any way,” Ms. Du told Renz Torres in an interview for MetroPost the month it opened. What’s more, her focus on Philippine publications felt like a gift. But then, the bookstore quietly closed shop within a year. And that felt like a heartbreak. [It has to be noted, however, that two more bookstores opened in its wake: PhindBooks along Aldecoa Drive, which caters to foreign trade books, and 451°F Books and Café, which caters to comic books and graphic novels.]
Enter Gayle Acar almost two years later.
Born and raised in Manila, she graduated from the UP College of Fine Arts, and had worked as a musician, a store supervisor, a personal stylist, and a graphic designer. In April 2022, Ms. Acar moved to Dumaguete with her husband Ernest and their two girls. “But I’ve been coming to Dumaguete since 2009, when I first met the parents of my husband [then my boyfriend] in Bais. Since then I would visit a few times a year, for gatherings or holidays,” she says. “My husband and I have always talked about moving to Dumaguete, for the slower pace and to be closer to nature, but couldn’t, due to my husband’s office work.”
But the pandemic hit, and work switched to a hybrid set-up. “And after spending too much time indoors, we just decided to finally relocate,” Ms. Acar says. “I was also homeschooling my kids and part of it was spending time studying nature, which was a struggle in Manila. Now we can go to the beach or mountains whenever we feel like it. We also live within walking distance to the bookshop.” There were other things she loved about Dumaguete: “The environment and stress-free living just inspires you to create,” she says. “And I’ve heard of writers workshops here before. But it was when we moved last year that we saw a lot of newly opened galleries and artist hubs.” These were incentives to the move.
In August 2020, prior to the Dumaguete move, she started LibrAria Books on Instagram. “It was primarily to sell books that my kids have outgrown. It was a blink decision to call the enterprise ‘LibrAria,’ because I was initially selling my daughter Aria’s books. We were beginning homeschool as well, and were trying to source books for our curriculum. It was hard to find most of the titles here, and I somehow found myself developing a skill for finding rare and beautiful books. I documented them through photos, and soon LibrAria became my visual playground.”
She ended up falling in love with bookselling, and pursuing it full time. She started with thirty titles, which became a hundred, to almost a thousand over a week-long drop. On ordinary days, she would post about two hundred titles on her Instagram account.
But it helped that she had always loved books. “Books have always been my companion,” Ms. Acar says. “Being surrounded by them makes me feel like I belong. I spend hours scouring and flipping through them at thrift shops, my kids browsing alongside me. Years before that, my husband proposed to me in a bookshop, and we got married in a library. Even more years prior, while in college, you would find me seeking solace within library walls and stacks of books.”
Establishing LibrAria in the middle of the pandemic felt like the right thing to do. “It was a time when we were confined and stifled, and LibrAria provided us with an opportunity to pass our time in creative ways, and try our best to live in spite of fear. It was just like any clean-up/garage sale but turned out to be my ikigai,” she says.
There was also the fact that running the bookstore combined all her interests. “It’s my love for retail, customer service, and visual merchandising that inspires me to make the online experience as personal as possible,” she says. This includes the process of curating titles [“meticulously selected, relentlessly hunted”]; putting them into themes like Fairies/Japan; arranging them into a teaser [“focal point, levels, balance”]; doing the photography [“the teaser, each book’s content, illustrations, flaws … my love for documenting books in a romantic flat lay plus dramatic lighting”]; scheduling [“sequencing, invoicing, shipping”]; designing graphics [“schedules, glossaries”]; custom wrapping [“stamps, stickers, flowers”]; and book recommendations [“I keep track of preferences”].
LibrAria on Instagram proved an instant success. Part of it, as mentioned above, was her attention to detail in her retailing of the books she was selling. “I am also passionate about retail and the customer experience, so I made packaging as personal as possible, with stickers, ribbons or lace, and flowers. It was also a way of connecting with the outside world during a time that everyone was indoors.”
Moving to Dumaguete meant moving the business as well—but it was easy to do, since the enterprise was mostly done online. But the more she thought about it, the more she felt that LibrAria needed a brick-and-mortar equivalent at this stage of the business. And so, in December 2022, the Acars opened their first physical store in 58 EJ Blanco, a collective enterprise of artists and entrepreneurs in Dumaguete.
“I used to keep my stocks at home, but it seemed more practical to keep them somewhere else. And I’ve been coming to 58 EJ Blanco since we moved to Dumaguete, and I loved the community there,” Ms. Acar says. “One of the artists showed me a space—which inspired me to create a hidden bookshop, with a shelf for a door, something that would transport you to a different time once you are inside. I also wanted it to represent my store on Instagram, how it would feel when you would expand the flat lays with flowers and antiques. It is also a representation of my introverted self.”
But it was a challenge opening the bookstore. “We only had less than a month to build, because we wanted to open in time for the art bazaar at 58 last December. So we did the essentials first, and refined details after the opening.” Another challenge for her was balancing and bridging the online/offline experience of LibrAria. “We are also learning about different customer profiles online and offline, and their preferred titles and genres,” she says.
Now, the bookstore has grown, including its curation of titles. “I would like to provide beautiful educational books for homeschooling families,” Ms. Acar says. “Also Filipiniana selections for transient guests, antiquarian titles for collectors, and a showcase Dumaguete-based writers’ and illustrators’ works. We are more than a bookshop, we also want to build a community of readers, through literary events and customer engagement.” The aim is “to become a source of inspiration for writers and artists, through books, or meeting colleagues and enthusiasts,” and to do that she envisions LibrAria to host a variety of activities to expand their community, including storytelling for children and families, workshops that would promote books on local culture and history, and others. “We are learning as we go along,” Ms. Acar says. “It was initially a passion project. But now, meeting the writers’ community in Dumaguete, we are exploring how we can give support or be a platform for their voices and their work.”
That last bit, a focus on Dumaguete writers in her bookstore, is the best draw—and one of the pandemic’s best gifts to Dumaguete literary arts.
6:06 PM |
White American Academic Calls a Vast Swath of Literature from a Country His Own Country Once Colonized as "Small"
That essay currently circulating around [no links, ewww] rankles because it asserts something about my Silliman writerly education that is untrue, and negates the effort of my mentors.
Can you imagine Timothy Montes, Marjorie Evasco, Merlie Alunan, Leoncio Deriada, Grace Monte de Ramos, Nino de Veyra, Ceres Pioquinto, Elsa Coscolluela, Cesar Aquino, Erlinda Alburo, Anthony Tan, Jaime An Lim, Eva Rose Repollo, and others -- the so-called "Tiempo set" -- being "apolitical, de-historicized, assimilationist, and anti-nationalist"? Like whaaaat? That is not what I was taught. These people went beyond New Criticism, and also argued with each other, especially during workshop [the fun part of SUNWW is the panelists arguing] -- and most of them became pioneers in the cultivation of regional language literature and in the process helped bring about an understanding of local poetics/aesthetics. [They made me start writing and valuing Binisaya literature, for one thing.]
I didn't get taught a monolithic, America-aping idea of literary writing, like we were whores of formalism.
The Tiempos, too, grappled with the issue of language in so many articles, grappled with national issues [you'd know if you actually read their poems and stories], and also fought the Marcos dictatorship in their speeches and writings [EK Tiempo's SEAWrite acceptance speech is a prime example; also Silliman was one of the "notorious five," the last five schools/universities permitted to reopen during Martial Law].
I gather that Doc Ed had very specific views of fiction, for example, but his voice was only one workshop voice, albeit authoritative-sounding and colored in baritone; he is not a synechdoche to understand the fullness of the workshop, and often he was fiercely in loggerheads with Edith over the merits of a poem or story. [In that battleground of ideas, from Aristotle to Derrida, from Marx to Anzaldua, is where I learned literature.]
To quote Alana Narciso's forthcoming essay on the matter: "To claim too that the Tiempos were mere receptacles of English colonial education, mindlessly parroting American standards is to reduce the complex issue of language and the intricate processes of cultural transformations even in post-colonialism into a discourse that is limiting in its simplism."
There's so much more to reveal actually -- especially the assertions about current organizers of the workshop, and our so-called lack of reckoning with our history. WTF. If you only knew...
POSTSCRIPT:
The more I think about it, the more offensive it becomes: a white American academic diagnosing as "small" a vast swath of literature written by writers in a foreign country his own country had colonized. Offensive, and insulting. The empire striking back once more, and making generalizations over a literature he has probably have not read.
8:29 PM |
Remembering Mom Edith on Her 9th Death Anniversary
I took this photo of Edith Tiempo in May of 2000 when we were having a break from the workshop session on our second Wednesday, the summer I became a fellow for fiction in the oldest creative writing program of its kind in Asia that she co-founded. We were in a "resort" somewhere in Bacong, now abandoned, which was infamous then for having an entire airplane right inside the compound, where guests could enter and clamber around the interiors, useful for our imagining ourselves in flight for somewhere else. I used to do sepia portraits of every single fellow and panelist, from 2000-2005, and this was part of that project. I'd remember this photo session because Mom Edith just seemed so relaxed. "Just capture me how I am now," she said. I did. And since then I've seen this photo published in many books, modules, and websites, sometimes repurposed for other artworks -- sans credit, hehehe. I remember the day she died in 2011. We were just ramping up for the serious start of Silliman University's weeklong Founders Day festivities -- and I was in a cafe about to enjoy coffee when I got the text message, which sent me racing to the Silliman University Medical Center. By then it was too late, and then soon began the challenge of planning and executing the State Funeral of a National Artist, made more challenging because we were doing it outside of Manila. It was a week of steep learning all sorts of protocols; a lot of sleepless nights -- but I did it because ̛I truly loved her as a mentor. I remember how patient she was with me whenever I visited her, to listen to her stories, or to seek her advice. Much has been made over the fact that many call her "Mom," some of them unkind, but you'd know why this is so if you had the privilege of being mentored by her, of just being in her presence. She simply exuded a one-of-a-kind maternal warmth, but one that's also exacting of your art. We will forever miss her.
6:17 PM |
Call for Manuscripts to the 59th Silliman University National Writers Workshop
The Silliman University National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 59th Silliman University National Writers Workshop to be held from 27 April to 8 May 2020 at the Silliman University Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village and the Silliman University campus.
This Writers Workshop is offering ten fellowships to promising writers in the Philippines who want to have 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 on or before 6 December 2019. (Extension to the deadline will not be made.) All manuscripts should comply with the instructions stated below. (Failure to do so will automatically eliminate their entries).
Applicants for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction fellowships should submit three to four (3-4) entries. Applicants for Poetry fellowships should submit a suite of seven to ten (7-10) poems. Applicants for Drama fellowships should submit at least one (1) One-Act Play. Each fiction, creative nonfiction, or drama manuscript should not be more than 20 pages, double-spaced. We encourage you to stay well below the 20 pages. Aside from manuscripts in Poetry, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, and Drama that should be written in English, the Workshop will also be accepting manuscripts for Balak (poetry in Binisaya) and Sugilanon [short story in Binisaya]. Applicants should submit a suite of seven to ten (7-10) balak entries with their English translations, or three to four (3-4) sugilanon entries with their English translations.
Manuscripts should be submitted in five (5) hard copies. They should be computerized in MS Word, double-spaced, on 8.5 x 11 inches bond paper, with approximately one-inch margin on all sides. Please indicate the category (FICTION, CREATIVE NONFICTION, POETRY, ONE-ACT DRAMA, BALAK, or SUGILANON) immediately under the title. The page number must be typed consecutively (e.g., 1 of 30, 2 of 30, and so on) at the center of the bottom margin of each page. The font should be Book Antiqua or Palatino, and the font size should be 12.
The applicant’s real name and address must appear only in the official application form and the certification of originality of works, and must not appear on the manuscripts. Manuscripts should be accompanied by the official application form, a notarized certification of originality of works, and at least one letter of recommendation from a literature professor or an established writer. All requirements must be complete at the time of submission.
Send all applications or requests for information to the Department of English and Literature, attention Dr. Warlito Caturay Jr., Workshop Coordinator, 1/F Katipunan Hall, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City. For inquiries, email us at nww@su.edu.ph or call 035-422-6002 loc. 350.
Aside from the Silliman University Writers Workshop, which ensures that May is the city's true Literature Month, the thing I love about Dumaguete, especially in the summer, is bumping into writer friends, like it's the most casual thing in the world. No plans, instant meet-ups.
With playwright and screenwriter Rody Vera at Rollin' Pin.
With children's writer Luis Gatmaitan at Qyosko.
With Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Dean Francis Alfar, Anthony Tan, and Cesar Ruiz Aquino and the fellows of the 57th Silliman University National Writers Workshop at the Ariniego Art Gallery.
With fellows, panelists, and staff of the 57th Silliman University National Writers Workshop at the Food District.
With Noel Tuazon, Erlinda Alburo, Jaime An Lim, and Marjorie Evasco at the Alice Fullerton Hall grounds.
10:05 PM |
The 2017 Silliman University National Writers Workshop Fellows Have Been Announced
Ten fellows to the 2017 Silliman University National Writers Workshop have been named. The 56th edition of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop starts May 8 to 19 at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village in Camp Look-out, Valencia, Negros Oriental.
The ten writers, chosen from a pool of applicants from all over the Philippines, are Elijah Maria Villanueva Pascual of Marikina City (Ateneo de Manila University), George Deoso of Quezon City (University of Santo Tomas), and Hezron G. Pios of Bacolod City (University of St. La Salle) for poetry; Arlene A. Avila of Tacloban City (University of British Columbia), Matthew Jacob F. Ramos of Cebu City (Ateneo de Manila University), Vincen Gregory Yu of Iloilo City (University of the Philippines-Manila), Cesar Miguel Escano of Tacloban City (Ateneo de Manila University), and Maria Tanya Cruz of Quezon City (University of Santo Tomas) for fiction; and Tiffany Corinne Conde of Quezon City (Ateneo de Manila University) and Catherine Anne A. Orda of Quezon City (De La Salle University) for creative nonfiction.
The panel of writers/critics for this year includes Director-in-Residence Jaime An Lim, Resident Writers Cesar Ruiz Aquino and Ian Rosales Casocot, as well as Regular Panelists Gemino H. Abad, Susan S. Lara, and Alfred Yuson. They will be joined by Guest Panelists Jose Wendell Capili, Grace Monte de Ramos, Danilo Francisco M. Reyes, Anthony L. Tan, and International Panelist Beth Yahp of Australia.
Founded in 1962 by S.E.A. Write Awardee Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist Edith L. Tiempo, the workshop is the oldest creative writing workshop of its kind in Asia. It was recently given the Tanging Parangal in the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining by the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
For more information about forthcoming events during the workshop, e-mail Workshop Coordinator Lady Flor Partosa at nww@su.edu.ph, or call the Department of English and Literature at (035) 422-6002 loc. 520 (Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center), or visit the website.
10:23 AM |
The 55th Silliman University National Writers Workshop Opens on May 9 / Fellows Announced
The 55th edition of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop is slated to start on 9—27 May 2016 at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village in Camp Look-out, Valencia and Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.
Ten writers from all over the Philippines have been accepted as workshop fellows. They are Catherine Regina Hanopol Borlaza of Lipa City (University of the Philippines–Diliman), RJ Ledesma of Bacolod City (University of St. La Salle), and David Lao of Matina, Davao City (Ateneo de Davao University) for poetry; Veronica A. Vega of Dumaguete City (Silliman University), Marianne Freya Nono of Parañaque City (University of Santo Tomas), Christian Ray Buendia of Cabuyao, Laguna (University of the Philippines–Los Baños), and Arnel F. Murga of Iloilo City (University of the Philippines–Miag-ao) for fiction; and John Patrick Allanegui of Manila (Ateneo de Manila University), Christine Faith V. Gumalal, and Bernice Cabildo, both of Cagayan de Oro City (Xavier University), for creative nonfiction.
Three alternates have also been chosen in case any of the regular fellows declines the invitation: Beatrice Adeline Tulagan of Quezon City (Kalayaan College) for poetry; Tanya P. Cruz of Quezon City (University of Santo Tomas) for fiction; and Nina Unlay of Quezon City (Ateneo de Manila University) for creative nonfiction. Jesulito Kuan of Cebu City (Silliman University) has also been invited to sit as special workshop mentee.
The panel of writers/critics for this year includes Director-in-Residence Ricardo de Ungria, Resident Writer Cesar Ruiz Aquino, and Regular Panelists Marjorie Evasco, Susan S. Lara, Gemino H. Abad, and Alfred Yuson. They will be joined by Guest Panelists Jose Peñaranda, Kimi Tuvera, Simeon Dumdum Jr., and Criselda Yabes, and International Panelists Sumana Roy from India and Prashani Rambukwella from Sri Lanka.
The workshop, which traditionally lasts for three weeks, is the oldest creative writing workshop of its kind in Asia. It was founded in 1962 by S.E.A. Write Awardee Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist Edith L. Tiempo, and was recently given the Tanging Parangal in the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining by the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
For more information about forthcoming events during the workshop, please email Workshop Coordinator Lady Flor Partosa at nww@su.edu.ph or call the Department of English and Literature at (035) 422-6002 loc. 520.
With writers Lakambini Sitoy (Sweet Haven, 2015), Criselda Yabes (Below the Crying Mountain, 2010), and Ricardo de Ungria (M'mry Wire, 2014) at KRI for dinner, last January 11 -- shortly after the deliberations for the fellows of the 2016 Silliman University National Writers Workshop. The dinner, sponsored by the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, was to welcome Bing back to Dumaguete, and to host the workshop screeners, which also include poets Myrna Peña-Reyes and Cesar Ruiz Aquino.
12:01 AM |
Call for Submissions to Sands & Coral 2016
Sands & Coral, Silliman University’s historic literary journal, is now accepting submissions for its 2015-2016 issue.
S&C is open to all persons currently enrolled in or once affiliated with Silliman University, as well as former fellows and panelists of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop. Sillimanian students are strongly encouraged to submit works.
The folio accepts works of fiction (short stories/excerpts from a novel-in-progress), poetry, creative nonfiction, graphic narratives (comics), artwork, and photos.
Prose submissions (fiction and creative nonfiction) should be between 1,000-4,000 words. Submissions should have a 1” margin on all sides, encoded in Times New Roman, Book Antiqua, Georgia, or Garamond, 1.5-spaced, and have a 12-point font size. ONLY ONE STORY/CNF PER APPLICANT IS ALLOWED. (For non-student applicants, only unpublished stories/CNF will be considered.) Subject matter is free, unrestricted.
Poetry submissions should come in a suite of 3-5 pieces. They should be written in the fonts and font-size specified above. (For non-student applicants, only unpublished poems will be considered.) Subject matter is free and unrestricted.
Graphic narrative submissions should be between 5-7 pages long, in black-and-white only. (For non-student applicants, only unpublished comics will be considered.) Subject matter is free and unrestricted.
Art and photo submissions should be composed of 3-5 pieces, in black-and-white only. They should be submitted in .jpeg, with a resolution of not less than 300 dpi.
All submissions should be attached to e-mail and sent to the Editors at this address: sandsandcoral2016@gmail.com. All applicants should also attach to the same e-mail a short biographical note, which must not exceed 350 words.
Deadline for all submissions is on 11:59 PM of 16 October 2015. Acceptance/rejection e-mails will be sent any time before the journal’s launch on 18 January 2016. Further inquiries should be sent to the same e-mail address posted above.
The editorial board, composed of Editor-in-Chief Veronica Vega, Associate Editor Michael Aaron Gomez, and General Series Editor Ian Rosales Casocot, look forward to your submissions. The literary journal is under the auspices of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center and the Department of English and Literature.
11:27 AM |
Call for Manuscripts to the 55th Silliman National Writers Workshop
The Silliman University National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 55th National Writers Workshop to be held 9—27 May 2016 at the Silliman University Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village.
This Writers Workshop is offering twelve fellowships to promising writers in the Philippines who want to have 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 30 September 2015. All manuscripts should comply with the instructions stated below. (Failure to do so will automatically eliminate their entries).
Applicants for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction fellowships should submit three to four (3-4) entries. Applicants for Poetry fellowships should submit a suite of seven to ten (7-10) poems. Applicants for Drama fellowships should submit at least one (1) One-Act Play. Each fiction, creative nonfiction, or drama manuscript should not be more than 20 pages, double-spaced. We encourage you to stay well below the 20 pages. Manuscripts should be submitted in five (5) hard copies. They should be computerized in MS Word, double-spaced, on 8.5 x 11 inches bond paper, with approximately one-inch margin on all sides. Please indicate the category (FICTION, CREATIVE NONFICTION, POETRY, or ONE-ACT DRAMA) immediately under the title. The page number must be typed consecutively (e.g., 1 of 30, 2 of 30, and so on) at the center of the bottom margin of each page. The font should be Book Antiqua or Palatino, and the font size should be 12.
The applicant’s real name and address must appear only in the official application form and the certification of originality of works, and must not appear on the manuscripts. Manuscripts should be accompanied by three forms: (1) the official application form, (2) a notarized certification of originality of works, and (3) the form letter of recommendation from a literature professor or an established writer. These forms are available upon request from silliman.cwc@gmail.com, or from the official website at www.su.edu.ph/nww. All requirements must be complete at the time of submission.
Send all applications or requests for information to Department of English and Literature, attention Prof. Ian Rosales Casocot, Creative Writing Center Coordinator, 1/F Katipunan Hall, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City. For inquiries, email us at silliman.cwc@gmail.com or call 035-422-6002 loc. 350.
To work with Myrna Peña-Reyes is to invite an eye for sharpness and perfection. That was only to be expected.
And so when the esteemed Dumaguete poet approached us at the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center at Silliman University (for which she has served faithfully as Writing Associate) and asked us if we could help her throw together a small launch for newest poetry collection, her third, we had to say yes.
Why? Because she was a legendary poet. Because she embodied, more than most, the formal beauty of Sillimanian poetry. And because she had always been a good friend, not just to us in the Center, but also to countless people in Dumaguete, who considered her sharp opinions and withering regard for incompetence something of a standard to live up to.
We said yes, even when we knew that to work with her was to subject ourselves to careful scrutiny, with every last inch of our efforts more or less subjected to countless queries for updating, and massive detailing that had to resonate with her grand obsessive compulsion.
We said, “Challenge accepted.”
But we also thought: how else to subvert her carefully laid plans, just enough to give her a nice surprise?
She gave us a ready-made program to work with. Very typical of Ma’am Myrna. It already listed down a series of poems from her new book, Memory’s Mercy (University of the Philippines Press, 2015), which were to be read by her poet friends who just happened to be in town as panelists for the third week of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop. This consisted of the formidable bunch of Krip Yuson, Gemino Abad, Susan Lara, Marjorie Evasco, and Ricky de Ungria (who happened to be this year’s Director-in-Residence for the workshop).
She had the musical interludes already chosen—The Beatles’ “When I’m 64” and “There Are Places I Remember,” and John Denver’s “Today,” all three her personal favorites—and she had already made arrangements for these to be sung by the campus top baritone Rigel Suarez, accompanied on the piano by the indomitable Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez.
She had already provided the dots, so to speak. We were there to connect them. To all her directives, we said, “Yes, Ma’am Myrn. Yes, Ma’am Myrn.”
She didn’t account for our secrecy and our deviousness.
All along, we were conspiring how exactly to make the event more than just a book launch. We wanted something to be also a fitting tribute to her. She deserved it. She deserved to know how much she was loved, how much she was admired. And so we set out to make one program which was to her liking, and which she had already given her absolute approval—and this became the program we printed out for all the guests. But we also had another program we kept secret, complete with inserted tributes, all calculated to surprise her—but also to amuse her. That, if we were incapable of making her cry.
“Let’s make her cry,” I told everyone.
But she must have already sensed something was afoot when the day came, and I told her Ron Calumpang was hosting.
“Aren’t you hosting?” she told me, her eyebrows raised.
I merely took her hands, led her to the special chair we reserved for her at the event venue, the U University House in Silliman Campus, and said: “Ma’am Myrn, don’t worry about anything. Just relax and enjoy yourself.”
“Did you get the map I asked you to project for the poem Susan is reading?”
Ooops, I thought. How do I tell her Susan wasn’t reading that poem anymore?
“Just enjoy, Ma’am Myrn,” I merely repeated myself.
She raised her eyebrows once more when Ron began with this welcome: “We have reserved this to honor to one of the most beloved figures in Philippine poetry in English. This year, the University of the Philippines Press has come out with her third collection of poetry—and we are here not just to launch this much-awaited book, but also to give tribute to the writer behind it. It has to be said that Ma’am Myrna has toiled very hard—like the O.C. that she is—to make sure that our program this afternoon would be to her liking, making sure that the flow should be done in a certain way, making sure that some of her favorite songs will be sung. And since this is her afternoon, we have made sure that all her wishes will come true. And then some: because we have little surprises for her along the way, essentially tributes to this writer, and how she is as a mentor, as a writer, and as a friend.”
Creative Writing Center Secretariat Lady Flor Partosa gave the first surprise tribute, and began it with an apology: “I have to apologize, Ma’am Myrnz, if my speaking here appears out of order,” she said, “but rest assured it is all part of the whole grand scheme of things.” And she continued: “At best, I will offer a few words as tribute, and let me start by saying that if there is one word to describe Ma’am Myrna: I will say that she is a giver. She generously gives her words, thoughts, and time to the workshop, the Creative Writing Center, and even to me, when I have something to share to her. Ma’am Myrnz can be very candid and frank but you know that she always does so out of concern and care for your or for the work that you do—be it a workshop activity, a program, another poem or essay. And I would like to add, if only by way of connection to this magnanimous woman, that Ma’am Myrnz and I have been connected decades before when as young college students they would go to my grandparent’s place in Valencia. I remember Ma’am Myrna and I laughing and smiling at her stories of their time in my grandparents’ house, recalling, for instance how my grandmother made the best chicken gravy in town. Ma’am Myrnz, all I can say is thank you for sharing this moment with us, launching your new book of poems in the workshop. Thank you so much for your generosity!”
The poet Marjorie Evasco followed that with a reading of “Off Course,” and word wizard Cesar Ruiz Aquino followed with a reading of “The Making of Tales.”
Virginia Stack, the administrator of the Korean Gandhi School in Valencia town, and a fellow member of the Wednesday Group, gave the second tribute. “The first time I met Ma’am Myrna was when she came to our Wednesday Reading Group,” Tata said. “She was invited by Annabelle Lee-Adriano, and I liked her right away—because of her humility being a prolific poetess. She owns it with a lot of thoughtfulness.” She continued: “I got the privilege of receiving her first two books as a gift for my birthday two years ago. And I love her poems. Many of her poems speak volumes about the human condition, and quietly touch the soul, very deeply. One of the dearest connection that we shared as kindred spirits was our love for our pets. When Simon and I first came here in Dumaguete, we brought our cat, Sebastian, all the way from New York. At that time, the cat was already 19 years old. After a year and a half living here in Dumaguete, Sebastian died of old age. He was very old, very, very old... Ma’am Myrna, among one of our few dear friends, came to the memorial ceremony. After the ceremony for Sebastian, Ma’am Myrna shared her own grief over the death of her beloved dog, where she made a promise to herself that would never again take another pet because of the pain she had to endure. I knew exactly what Ma’am Myrna had gone through.” And then Tata quietly finished by reading “Dog Gone,” Ma’am Myrna’s old poem about the loss of her pet, a puppy dog named Bantay.
The poet and anthologist Gémino H. Abad followed that with a fiery recitation of “Thunderstorm Over Diliman,” and fictionist Susan S. Lara with a reading of “Commuters,” a poem dedicated to the late Ernesto Superal Yee.
The last tribute was given by businesswoman and literary aficionado Annabelle Lee-Adriano who gave a spontaneous speech about her admiration for the poet and friend: “I credit my husband Edo for having introduced me to this ‘institution’ and her equally formidable twin, Lorna Makil,” Annabelle remembered. “She has been my little stress ball, and I hers... She’s been a source of strength, and also so much laughter... To Madam Myrna la Douce, life has been so much sweeter since you’ve been in my life.”
This was followed by the last of the readings, with Alfred A. Yuson reciting “Who Mourns the Death of Ants?” and Ricardo M. de Ungria reading “A Momentry.” And to cap it, J Marie Maxino stood up to introduce a video she had been editing the past three days prior to the event: a compendium of talking heads—friends and colleagues of the poet—giving their testimony about how she had been to them as writer and as friend. The video ended with a raunchy, very spirited reading of “The Blue Girl in Geography Class” by the poet’s niece, the actress Frances Makil Ignacio.
“That’s the missing poem Susan was supposed to read!” Ma’am Myrna exclaimed.
“Now you know why I had to choose something else!” Susan laughed.
After the poet’s response, Department of English and Literature Chairperson Warlito Caturay Jr. gave the surprise closing remarks:
“Annie Dillard once wrote that ‘we need to rescue the beauty of experience from the destructiveness of change,’” Warlito began. “Of course, because of technology, it has become so easy to capture the moment. Do you want to immortalize your love affair with a slice of red velvet cake from your favorite bakeshop? Take a selfie and Instagram it. Do you need to capture the performance of your favorite boy band? Take a video of it and upload it on YouTube. These are instantaneous ways of ‘rescuing the beauty of experience.’”
He continued: “But if there’s one thing Ma’am Myrna has shown us through her body of work, it is that creativity and controlled language could as well preserve the beauty of experience. Perhaps, even more poignantly. Today’s launch of Ma’am Myrna’s book is a joyous occasion. We not only celebrate her work, but also Ma’am Myrna for being Ma’am Myrna, who has always been a staunch supporter of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop and who has always been a loyal Sillimanian—generous of her time, talent, and resources, especially when the Department of English and Literature needs her. In behalf of the Department and the Creative Writing Center, thank you very much for coming and showing your support to one woman we genuinely admire and respect.“
And the poet was happy. “You are all schemers!” she smiled to us in the end. We gave a sigh of huge relief.
6:48 PM |
Fellowships, Festivals, and Friendships in Literature
This is happening tomorrow! Catch fictionist Susan S. Lara and poet Marjorie Evasco in a talk titled "Fellowships, Festivals and Friendships in Literature," where they lead a conversation on building a community of writers and readers. It's at 10 AM at the University House in Silliman Campus. The event is open to the public for free!
SEAWRITE awardee for the Philippines and National Commission for Culture and Arts Ani ng Dangal awardee, MARJORIE EVASCO’S books have won the National Book Awards for poetry, oral history and art. Her work is published in the Norton 2010 anthology Language for a New Century: Poems from Asia, the Middle East and Beyond (Eds. Ravi Shankar, Tina Chang & Nathalie Handal) and in The World Record: International Voices from Southbank Centre’s Poetry Parnassus (Eds. Neil Astley and Anna Selby). An honorary writing fellow in the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa in 2002, she also received a writing residency in 1991 from the Hawthornden Castle International Writers’ Retreat in Midlothian, Scotland, and in 1992 from the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Studies and Conference Center in Italy. She has also received major prizes from the Philippines Free Press annual poetry awards and the Carlos Palanca Memorial awards for the essay, and was regional writing fellow for poetry of the University of the Philippines Likhaan Center for Creative Writing in 1985-86, the Gawad Alagad Balagtas for Poetry from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas in 2004, the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan from the City of Manila in 2005, the Outstanding Silliman University alumna for creative writing in 2008, the Carlos P. Garcia award for literature education from the province of Bohol in 2011, and the Ulirang Mandaleño award for education from the City of Mandaluyong in 2012. In 2013 she received the Taboan Literature Festival award for her achievements as a writer, for promoting the literature of the Central Visayas region and mentoring young writers in various national and regional writers’ workshops. In October 2013 she served as visiting writer in the International Writers’ Program of the Hong Kong Baptist University, and was appointed in March 2015 as Visiting Literary Artist in the University of the Philippines Visayas, Iloilo City.
SUSAN S. LARA writes fiction and nonfiction. She has won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature and Focus Literary Awards for her short stories, and the National Book Award for her fiction collection Letting Go and Other Stories. She attended the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, and the Seminar on Contemporary British Writing at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom as a British Council grantee. She held the Irwin Lee Professorial Chair in Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2011. She has served as panelist in various writers workshops, including the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, of which she was director-in-residence in 2013 and 2014. Currently she is a professional editorial consultant and writing coach, and facilitates writing seminars and workshops for corporate clients.
5:56 PM |
Launching Myrna Peña-Reyes' New Poetry Collection
Myrna Peña-Reyes' new poetry collection, Memory’s Mercy: New and Selected Poems (University of the Philippines Press, 2015), will be formally launched on Thursday, 28 May 2015, 4 PM at the University House (formerly President’s House) in Silliman Campus.
Memory’s Mercy is the third poetry collection of Dumaguete poet Myrna Peña-Reyes whose previous collections are The River Singing Stone (Anvil, 1994) and Almost Home: Poems (UP Press, 2004). This third collection contains new poems written after she retired here with her husband in her hometown of Dumaguete in 2005 after living abroad for thirty-four years. It includes selections from the out-of-print The River Singing Stone that was nominated for the National Book Award.
Born and raised in the Philippines of Ilocano stock but Visayan upbringing, Myrna Peña-Reyes was educated at Silliman University from elementary through college (BA English) and the University of Oregon (MFA in creative writing). While a resident of Eugene, Oregon where she lived with her husband, William T. Sweet, she was a winner of the Oregon Literary Fellowship grant for poetry (2002) from Literary Arts. Presently retired in her hometown of Dumaguete, she continues her volunteer affiliation with Silliman University’s literature and creative writing program.
The book launch is fittingly held during the closing week of the 54th Silliman University National Writers Workshop. Present at the first Silliman Writers Workshop in 1962, Myrna had helped its founders, Drs. Edilberto K. Tiempo and Edith L. Tiempo, run the Workshop during its early years in the ‘60s and early ‘70s.
3:10 PM |
Fellows Chosen for the 54th Silliman University National Writers Workshop Slated for May 11—29
The 54th edition of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop is slated to start on 11 May 2015 at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village in Camp Look-out, Valencia, Negros Oriental.
Twelve writers from all over the Philippines have been accepted as regular workshop fellows.
The fellows for poetry are Aimee Paulette O. Cando of Quezon City (University of Santo Tomas), Angela Gabriele R. Fabunan of Olongapo City (University of the Philippines—Diliman), Darylle Luzarita Rubino of Polomolok, South Cotabato (University of the Philippines—Mindanao), and Mohammad Nassefh R. Macla of Davao City (University of the Philippines in Mindanao).
The fellows for fiction are Luis Manuel Diores of Cebu City (University of San Carlos), Patricia Corazon F. Lim of Quezon City (Ateneo de Manila University), Kristine Abelink Patenio of Murcia, Negros Occidental (University of St. La Salle in Bacolod), and Rodolfo Eduardo T. Santiago of Quezon City (Ateneo de Manila University).
The fellows for creative nonfiction are Jona Branzuela Bering of Cebu City (Cebu Normal University), Rowena Rose M. Lee of Manila (University of the Philippines in Mindanao), Miguel Antonio Lizada of Davao City (National University of Singapore), and Edmark Tejarcio Tan of Quezon City (University of Santo Tomas).
Khail Campos Santia of Malaybalay, Bukidnon (Silliman University) will join them as a special fellow for poetry. The names of other special fellows from around the Asia-Pacific region will be announced later.
Four alternates have also been chosen in case any of the regular fellows declines the invitation: Christian Jil R. Benitez of San Mateo, Rizal (Ateneo de Manila University) for poetry, Edmond Julian Y. Dela Cerna of Davao City (San Pedro College) and Matthew Jacob F. Ramos of Cebu City (Ateneo de Manila University) for fiction, and Fritzie D. Rodriguez of Balaga City, Bataan (University of the Philippines—Diliman) for creative nonfiction.
Three applicants have also been invited to sit as special workshop mentees, including Ana Joaquina Adriano of Dumaguete City (Enderun College), Silvin Federic Real Maceren of Cebu City (Silliman University), and Chuckie Perez Manio of Bacolod City (Silliman University).
The panel of writers/critics for this year will also be announced later.
The workshop, which traditionally lasts for three weeks, is the oldest creative writing workshop of its kind in Asia. It was founded in 1962 by S.E.A. Write Awardee Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist Edith L. Tiempo, and was recently given the Tanging Parangal in the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining by the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
For more information about forthcoming events during the workshop, please email Workshop Coordinator Ian Rosales Casocot at silliman(dot)cwc(at)gmail(dot)com or call the Department of English and Literature at (035) 422-6002 loc. 520. (Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center)
2:49 AM |
Ricardo de Ungria is new Silliman Workshop Director
Award-winning poet Ricardo de Ungria has been appointed Director-in-Residence for the 54th Silliman University National Writers Workshop by Silliman President Dr. Ben S. Malayang III upon the recommendation of the Advisory Board of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center through its Coordinator, Ian Rosales Casocot.
De Ungria has published eight books of poetry and edited a number of anthologies, for which he has won five National Book Awards. Through a Fulbright Grant, he received his MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis in 1989. He has received writing grants from the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers and Bellagio Study and Conference Center.
He is a founding member of the Philippine Literary Arts Council, which published Caracoa, the first and only poetry journal in the Philippines in the eighties, and initiated a series of poetry readings that stirred interest in the performative aspect of the literary arts.
In 1999 when he moved to Davao, he founded the Davao Writers Guild that, since then, has held annual readings in the schools and malls in the city and published books by its members and a literary journal called Dagmay that features literary works in various languages by mostly young writers in the Davao region.
He has served as Chancellor of the University of the Philippines in Mindanao for two terms (2001-2007) and as Commissioner for the Arts at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Dr. De Ungria will oversee the selection of fellows and panelists for the 2015 Silliman Creative Writing Workshop, the oldest of its kind in Asia, which was founded by the late Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo in 1962. He will also help in the continuing evaluation of the thrusts and programs of the Workshop, which this year is scheduled for 11-29 May 2015 at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village and the campus of Silliman University in Dumaguete City. (CWC)
1:39 AM |
Call for Manuscripts to the 54th Silliman National Writers Workshop
The Silliman University National Writers Workshop is now accepting applications for the 54th National Writers Workshop to be held 11—29 May 2015 at the Silliman University Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village. This Writers Workshop is offering twelve fellowships to promising writers in the Philippines who want to have achance 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 9 February 2015. All manuscripts should comply with the instructions stated below. (Failure to do sowill automatically eliminate their entries).
Applicants for Fiction and Creative Nonfiction fellowships should submit three to four (3-4) entries. Applicants for Poetry fellowships should submit a suite of seven to ten (7-10) poems. Applicants for Drama fellowships should submit at least one (1) One-Act Play.
Each fiction, creative nonfiction, or drama manuscript should not be more than 20 pages, double spaced. We encourage you to stay well below the 20 pages.
Manuscripts should be submitted in five (5) hard copies. They should be computerized in MS Word, double-spaced, on 8.5 x 11 inches bond paper, with approximately one-inch margin on all sides. Please indicate the category (FICTION, CREATIVE NONFICTION, POETRY, or ONE-ACT DRAMA) immediately under the title. The page number must be typed consecutively (e.g., 1 of 30, 2 of 30, and so on) at the center of the bottom margin of each page. The font should be Book Antiqua or Palatino, and the font size should be 12.
The applicant’s real name and address must appear only in the official application form and the certification of originality of works, and must not appear on the manuscripts.
Manuscripts should be accompanied by the official application form, a notarised certification of originality of works, and at least one letter of recommendation from a literature professor or an established writer. All requirements must be complete at the time of submission.
Send all applications or requests for information to Department of English and Literature, attention Prof. Ian Rosales Casocot, Workshop Coordinator, 1/F Katipunan Hall, Silliman University, 6200 Dumaguete City. For inquiries, email us at silliman.cwc@su.edu.ph or call 035-422-6002 loc. 350.
It was all too sudden. We were still reeling from the news that Silliman alumna Ross Camara, publisher of Aria Editions, had passed on when we got another unfortunate missive. Last Thursday afternoon, I got a text message from Silliman University’s Alumni Affairs Officer Ruben Bokingo, informing me that Rose Lamb Sobrepeña—writer, philanthropist, and wife of Atty. Enrique Sobrepeña Jr.—had also died. Mrs. Sobrepeña, especially for many recent fellows of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, is known in Dumaguete as the generous spirit behind the Writers Village at Camp Lookout, Valencia. For that, and for many services she has given her Alma Mater, the Writers Village, established in 2008, has been named in her honor.
And so, last Monday finally found me and English Department Chairperson Warlito Caturay Jr. in Manila. Her funeral service was being held at Heritage Park in Taguig City, and we went there to pay our final respects to one whose generosity has helped much of creative writing in Silliman today.
The memorial program that Monday afternoon was organized by La Hermandad Zamboangueña (led by its past president, the beautiful Gloria Pichel Mara, who is better known to all of us as Loli Mara) and Silliman University. And we were all there, “because for the loving memory of our beloved Rose,” Ms. Mara said in behalf of all of us.
Indeed, Ma’am Rose was that beloved—and the emotional and often funny outpouring from friends who gave testimony were a clear indication of just how much she was held in high esteem in the many circles she ran in, including the United Church of Christ in the Philippines community.
There were several Sillimanian alumni that day at Chapel 6 of Heritage Park, which included former Silliman President and recently declared National Scientist Dr. Angel C. Alcala. Also present were the University Board of Trustees’ Ambassador Antonio Villamor and Atty. Grace Sumalpong, Silliman Alumni Association Manila Chapter President Edna Mijares, National Writers Workshop Director Susan S. Lara, as well as Melba Adraincem, Chatty Realiza, Gloria Belarmino, Radi Apostol, Mel Morales, Diane Morales, Dolly Felicitas, Bishop Norman Marigza, Joselito Asiniero, Bobby Cafe, among many others. We went together as members of a larger Sillimanian family to give honor to one of our own. And in our own half of the memorial service, Atty. Sumalpong spoke in behalf of the university, and in particular BOT Chair Leonor Magtolis Briones, Vice President for Academic Affairs Betsy Joy Tan, and President Ben S. Malayang III.
Among many Filipino writers—especially those who have been through the beautiful rigors of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop, founded by Edilberto Tiempo and National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo—the name Rose Lamb Sobrepeña is synonymous to three things: home away from home, comfort, and a beautiful camaraderie. And that is because those are the things that perfectly describe the looks and the experience of the Writers Village back home, which is named of course after our beautiful benefactor.
I have met Mrs. Sobrepeña only once, in Dumaguete, when she came to visit the Writers Village named after her, and to launch her latest collection of writings. And my impression has always been that of an indomitable woman who was also kind hearted and who was also a writer to reckon with. She was peerless in her devotion to literature and creative writing, and in fact, her love story of how she met and fell in love with Sir Ike is one legend we keep repeating in the telling back in Silliman.
Thank you, Ma’am Rose, for your life and your gift.
9:00 PM |
Wake Me Because I Must Be Dreaming! Dumaguete is Now UNESCO City of Literature!
