Catching Up: The 5th Filipino ReaderCon Panel on Readers Take the Reins

 Aside from missing the PLAI Congress and the seminar-workshop at the University of Perpetual Help Laguna, the Filipino ReaderCon was another event I skipped due to follow up consultations with my doctors. The Readers Take the Reins panel was a session I hoped to take part in along with GFF, Tarie Sabido and book blogger extraordinaire, Blooey Singson. The panel is like a dream sequence where readers assert their needs and their vision of a reading revolution in the country. The question to answer is, if readers have the power to transform the book industry and readership in the country, what would be our environment and behavior towards reading and books?

Paolo Chikiamco has a recording of the session. I still have to listen to the entire thing. I am excited because there is a lot of talk on library development. So I was told.

Feel free to visit and download the recording. Go to Paolo's blog for the MP3.

Preview: Bookwatch July Issue

Here is a sneak peek of the July issue of Bookwatch. On the cover is a kapre, smoking a tobacco, regaling his young audience with stories great and small. How apt since we celebrate National Children's Book Day (NCBD) this month. Certainly, there are stories to tell, great and small, about the NCBD and the people behind its industry.

As guest writer for this issue, I wrote a think piece on the PBBY Salanga and Alcala Prizes. I threw in a bit of history of the awards and how it helped the industry grow into what it is today. The National Children's Book Award (NCBS) is  in the article as well as the necessity of raising the bar in children's and young adult (YA) book publishing in the country.

Speaking of YA, there's news on the KABANATA Workshop too and a brief mention about the Pilar Perez Medallion. Such is the history for a clamor of books and reading materials for teens. This issue looks into that and if you are a children's lit or YA lit advocate, you may just find the list of tales and stories of the fantastic a starting point to campaign for the development of YA lit in the country today.

Thanks to Paolo Chikiamco, editor of Bookwatch, for giving me this wonderful opportunity to write about what is very close to my heart. Here's hoping we can keep inspiring more people to support the growth of Philippine Children's and Young Adult Literature.

Ang Mga Kwento sa Kwentillion

First of all, I'm thanking Paolo Chikiamco for giving me two free copies of Kwentillon (my kids were delighted to have each a copy since the one I bought was donated to the library) and for bravely thinking of publishing a literary magazine that targets young adults as its intended readers. We need more brave people in the industry. Now for my review.

What worked

The line up of stories is impressive.  How can you go wrong with Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo as an opening salvo for readers? The Last Datu is fashioned after the Trese tradition. Folkloric but with a storytelling style that is kinetic, the old is presented as the new. There is always something happening on the page with illustrations that seem to jump out at the reader. It is like motion on printed page. The pace of telling is gradual but exciting, Tan reveals the past in bits of narration and deftly connects it with the present as Baldisimo provides the visuals that fill the mind with context. It is this combination of slow but measured unfolding of text and story, accompanied by moving illustrations (how black and white can be powerful colors!) that make The Last Datu, and the Trese series engaging reads.

Robert Magnuson's Poso Maximo is a delightful story of a simple life made meaningful by beautifully cooking a sunny side up. I like it that Magnuson did not put in words. The pictures were enough to tell the story. Poso Maximo is my kids' favorite in the line up of stories. For one, they have an experience of Magnuson's works as younger readers. They read his early works from Adarna House and Lampara Publishing. So, when they met his work again in Kwentillon, they were like reading a story from an old friend. That is reading magic! See how the reader, author-creator and story connected? For my kids, Nico and Zoe, the experience of reading Poso Maximo was a personal one.

The Secret Origin of Spin-Man by Andrew Drilon brought me back to Greenhills, San Juan and the fruitful years I spent at Xavier School as librarian. Boys read but the people who care for them need to provide the reading material and space to nurture the habit. Drilon's narrative speak of this space and habit. To many boys, the comic store is their reading space and comic books afforded them that space in their mind to imagine and create their own worlds. I still think about the imaginary brother in the story. Was he ever real?

High Society and Sky Gypsies are intense stories. Both appear to send the agenda of developing more historical fiction or graphic novels on that genre. To its creators, carry on and lead the way! The article on YA Lit by Tarie Sabido strengthens the argument for more YA literature in the country. The YA book reviews, the fan fiction article and the write ups about Manix Abrera and Chester Ocampo made me want to know more about the books and these two young creators of wonderment.

What did not work

I found the illustrations of Hannah Buena overwhelming. It's just me, I know, since my kids love the fullness of the images and how every bit of visual fills up the page. I had a difficult time suspending my disbelief in Sky Gypsie's Badjao characters and their ability to breathe in space with out a suit. I think the "genetic sturdiness" which the Badjao developed over time needed explanation in scientific and cultural perspectives.

Over all, Kwentillon is indeed a fantastic first issue. It is fun and engaging to read, but serious and intense in its agenda to provide young people with the literature they can call their own. Looking forward to the second more fantastic issue!

Bibliographic data: Kwentillion: A Million Stories to be Told. Budjette Tan and Paolo Chikimaco, editors. Mandaluyong City: Summit Media, 1st Issue 2012.

Pinoy Kids & YA Lit Fest in July

It appears that a line-up of literary events for children and teens are scheduled this month of July. Not only are these events for kids and teens, but also, for the adults who create and produce literature for them. Here's the litany --

Phil Speculative Fiction Vol. 7 Book Launching - July 28, 2012 / 2PM @ Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Shangrila Plaza, Edsa. Ebook formats of previous PSF volumes are available in Amazon and in Flip Reads.

Cyan Abad-Jugo's book, Singkit: A 1980s Diary (Anvil) will be launched on July 21, 2012 / 3PM @ Powerbooks, Greenbelt. There's a press release on Cyan and her writing experiences in the Inquirer. Go read Cyan's writing journey!


On the same day, the 1st Kwentillion Young Adult Readers Carnival is scheduled to take place at National Book Store Best Sellers, Robinson's Galleria. The event will begin at 1PM. Paolo Chikiamco of Rocket Kapre blogs about the panel of YA creators who will speak on their art and their craft. I'm attending this event since I'm eager to get Budjette Tan's autograph. Also, the YA Game sounds interesting. Maybe it's something I can replicate in the school library. 

In the library scene, school librarians of the CLAPI (Children's Literature Association of the Philippines, Inc.) has organized a seminar on K-12 Curriculum and Reading. This will be held at the Epifanio delos Santos Hall, National Library of the Philippines, T. M. Kalaw, Manila on July 24, 2012 from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. Php300.00 as registration fee, For further inquiries, you may contact Ms. Melba A. Tablizo of the National Library of the Philippines at +02 3105033 and/or Mrs. Leonila S. Galvez of DepEd, Manila at +02 2512859 / +02 2546162.

On July 17, PBBY will be awarding the Salanga Prize and the Alcala Prize to Russell Molina and Hubert Fucio respectively. It's the 29th NCBD and I'll try my best to update you all via Facebook and Twitter (live) as the ceremony rolls along. Dean Dina Ocampo will give the keynote address on the theme of mother tongue based instruction. Tarie Sabido, book reviewer and book blogger par excellence will be inducted as new PBBY board member.

And of course, the 2nd Best Reads-National Children's Book Awards will be held at the Mind Museum in Taguig City.

Lastly, Scholastic and Anvil are conducting book sales as I write this. Anvil dubbed their sale as Young Adult and Children's Book Festival and Scholastic promotes their 10th year anniversary with the 10 Deals for 10 Years warehouse sale.

Take your pick. Read! Read! Read!

Folks Talk on Pinoy Folk Tales

One of the many rewards I got from writing the manuscript of Tales From the 7,000 Isles: Filipino Folk Stories was that, I had the opportunity to discuss with my writer friends the influences, inspirations and status of Philippine folk lore today. This proves that writing, though a solitary act, should never be done in isolation. The whole process involves a lot of reading, speaking and articulating and yes, listening to peers and experts in the discipline.

Augie River and Dr. Luis Gatmaitan were perfect for such discussions. The former provided me with references and leads while the later gave me tips to the many possibilities of retelling a well loved tale. Paolo Chikiamco lent his passionate opinion on Filipino Folk stories via the interview questions I sent his way a few weeks back. His blog, Rocket Kapre has a treasure trove of resources for the folk tale enthusiast.

Read on Paolo's thoughts and insights on Philippine folk lore --

a. What made you compile a blog link/site on Filipino folk tales other than an obvious interest on the genre?

When I set up the website for Rocket Kapre Books, I didn't want it to serve only as a bulletin board for announcements pertaining to our books and authors. I also wanted it to be a place that fosters the creation of Filipino works of speculative fiction, wherever these works are eventually published. I figured one way to do this would be by sharing some of the resources I've found in my own research, and I chose to do this first with Philippine mythology and folklore because there didn't seem to be a lot of online resources dealing with these topics, and because our heritage is such a fertile source of inspiration. Speculative fiction authors in other countries have been kept their old tales alive by re-imagining them and re-incorporating elements into new, modern stories, and I'd love to see more Filipino authors do the same (in the footsteps of people such as Arnold Arre and Budjette Tan).

Researching pre-hispanic Filipino traditions can be a daunting and time-consuming task because of the vast diversity of the cultures and people lived in these islands, and a relative scarcity of research materials, especially if you don't live near a library. The Myth List and Philippine Pantheons pages are my way of providing a starting point for writers who want to incorporate elements of our myths in their tales.


b. What Western and Eastern influences are predominantly found in our folk tales? Name at least five.

I'm not sure if we can really speak of a Western influence in our earliest folk tales, since most of the foreigners who visited our shores before the Spanish arrived were from Asia. Some writers believe that a few of the more popular creatures of folk lore were created because of or as a reaction to the Spanish--"Kapre" is said to come from the Arabic word "Kaffir" and could have been used to demonize the West, while the Manananggal could have come from an attempt by Spanish missionaries to demonize female shamans who were their competition in the spiritual realm.

Easterners, being our neighbors, exercised a more direct influence, but you'd need an expert (rather than just an enthusiast like myself) to quantify them. Some of our people, such as the Sama Dilaut, may have come to our islands from other countries and carried their own store of folklore which mixed with those who were here before them. Certain local myths also seem to be of a type that can be found in some form in many other Eastern cultures -- such as the many myths dealing with a man who, through deceit, marries a Star in human form. The introduction of Islam to the south of the archipelago also influenced folklore there heavily, and we received Islam primarily from our Southeast Asian neighbors.


c. What is the prevailing folk tale motif have you observed present in the folk tales you've read so far?

Again, it's hard for me to generalize given that I've been trying to read up on the folklore of our people from all over the islands, and there can be great differences in the tales of the north as opposed to the south, or the myths of the people who live in the mountains as opposed to those who live in the lowlands. Each culture will have their own particular concerns, and that will greatly affect the motifs present in their folklore. Herminia Meñez Coben points out, for instance, that "the attainment of immortality without having to experience death" is central to the Bukidnon, and that's something you can see from their tale of the Ascension to Heaven via the Salimbal, the heavenly ship.


d. As a writer and collector of folk tales, what is the greatest challenge you've encountered yet? Where do you attribute this challenge?


As a collector, the greatest challenge is finding material that not only gives a narration of the old stories, but also gives a proper context, one that explains what the myth as a whole or elements of that myth meant for the people and culture from which it originated. If I'm reading an epic, say, where the hero turns into a particular kind of animal, it's very helpful to know whether that animal has a particular cultural significance. The old tales were always more than just literal narrations of events - like the universe itself in the eyes of many cultures, the old stories had layers, and if one simply reads a retelling of the story, without any context, that depth can be lost.

As a writer, the greatest challenge for me is trying to embrace these old myths and legends as a part of my Filipino heritage, without wrongful appropriation. These are my stories and yet, at the same time, they are not, because many of the stories which are considered Filipino folklore emerge from communities which pre-existed the idea of a Philippine nation, or even a Filipino race, communities which still exist today in a sort of grey area where they are struggling to maintain their unique cultural identities.


e. What folk tale personify the Filipino?


I think many of our countrymen are die-hard romantics, so I think that the stories that best embody the Filipino spirit are those that deal with true love, particularly those that involve a pair trying to overcome nigh-insurmountable obstacles in order to consummate their affections. One example is the myth of the Ibanag which explains why there is a high tide whenever the moon is full. It involves the daughter of the sun god, the son of the sea go, and the violation of the laws of the immortals. It could easily serve as the basis for the modern form of narrative that so engrosses the nation - the Fantaserye.

Paolo Chikiamco: Books I Read When I was a Teen

Paolo Chikiamco, Palanca awardee, speculative fiction advocate, blogger and Pinoy folklore enthusiast sent his list of books read as a teen. He is the second Xaverian to join in the Teen Read Week carnival of this blog :-)

Paolo blogs at Rocket Kapre.

I made an earlier post on my old blog about books I treasured early in my life as a reader, and it seems fitting to continue now, for Teen Read Week 2010, with books from my teen-age years. These aren't young adult books for the most part: for one thing, that genre didn't really exists aside from the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Sweet Valley juggernauts; and for another, I was already reading "adult" level genre fiction before I hit puberty. Given that these were some of my most productive years as a reader, it'll be hard to create a list of ten, but I'll give it a shot.

JEDI DAWN (Star Wars Game Books) by Paul Cockburn: Simply reading stories was never enough for me - I wanted to be a part of those worlds, to enter them. Before I discovered that I could sit down and write my own adventures, and before video games reached the point where the world and the story were as important as the gameplay, choose your own adventure books were the closest I could get to that--and this book was the best one I ever read. In 1993, I went to England as part of a summer exchange program, and I fear I might have left a bad impression with the foster family I was staying with, because after a visit to a London bookstore I had absolutely no interest in socializing with them. This book is one of the reasons why that was the case.

ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE (and the Farseer Trilogy) by Robin Hobb: I'm sure that the Farseer trilogy wasn't my first exposure to the first person POV, but it's the first one I remember, and it certainly set the bar for all those that came after. Hobb was the first author I ever read who really, really didn't shy away from having terrible things happen to her characters, and the fact that Fitzchivalry Farseer was--and still is, for me--one of the most grounded and sympathetic characters in fantasy fiction made his trials all the more heart wrenching.

NEVER DEAL WITH A DRAGON (and other Shadowrun novels) by Robert N. Charrette: In retrospect, the fact that I used to buy tabletop roleplaying game modules and construct adventures solely for myself to enjoy seems a bit pathetic. I was an only child whose few friends just weren't interested in "playing pretend"--but really, I didn't mind, not when making those stories was such a joyful process. Shadowrun was my first exposure to genre-bending and cyberpunk and the novels were always fun in and of themselves, and useful as resources for my own stories.

GOD TALES by Nil Guillemette: I'm not sure which one of these books I first read, but I know that after I finished the first book, I went back to the St. Paul store and bought all the other available volumes (only a few were available at the time--now of course there are more than thirty). Even in my youth I was never comfortable with the harshness, rigidity, and simple inconsistency of certain Catholic teachings. These books presented in their stories --many of them with speculative elements--a morality that I understood, one where the focus was on love and reasonableness and not punishment. I still remember vividly one story which had Mother Mary defending a sinner in a makeshift legal trial, and successfully proving that all it took was one selfless act in a lifetime to shield a soul from the fires of hell. The early books in this series played a huge part in my ethical development.

THE EYE OF THE WORLD (and the Wheel of Time) by Robert Jordan: This was the series that defined epic fantasy for me and a generation of readers. The series lost me toward the middle, and with no end in sight I stopped reading… but when the able Brandon Sanderson brings Robert Jordan's saga to a close, I'll read it straight through from beginning to end.

NOBODY'S SON by Sean Stewart: Most of the books I gravitated to were parts of a series, as opposed to stand alone novels, mostly because those were the books that dominated the shelves in those days, so Nobody's Son was a bit of a strange choice for me and the bookstores both. I never regretted my decision though. This book was the first to show me how to put a twist on an older story in order to make it new -- or maybe it's just that by this point I'd read enough to realize when tropes were being subverted, as in this case where the novel starts from the point which, in most other stories, would be the end of the tale.

THE MAGIC OF RECLUCE (and other Recluce books) by L.E. Modesitt Jr: Modesitt's writing was like nothing I'd ever seen before, with a rigor and consistency I admire to this day. The level of thought he put into his magic system made it seem real to me, and the level of detail he put in his description of everyday jobs (in the first book, wood carving; in a later book, forging/engineering) made them seem magical.

LEGEND by David Gemmell: Gemmell's books were comfort food for me, my equivalent of (high quality) Hollywood blockbusters, packed to overflowing with action and thrills and heroism. Legend was my very first "siege warfare" fantasy story, and also my first "old warrior comes out of retirement" story, and it's still the standard against which all similar tales are measured.

A PLAGUE OF ANGELS by Sherri S. Tepper: I'm a bit of a sap, so it's not strange for me to finish a book a bit teary eyed, but no other book has made me weep like a candy lover at the dentist. In a strange way, I've always felt that it was this book--more than any homily or teacher--that taught me the meaning and value of sacrifice and the cross.

THE MYTHOLOGY CLASS by Arnold Arre: The fact that I own the original four issue version of Arre's first graphic novel is a point of pride for me -- my proof that I was there when the komiks industry began to evolve into a new form. It was the first work of fiction I’d ever read to include -- to celebrate -- elements of Philippine folklore and myth, and no doubt because of that, it's the first book by a Filipino that I ever fell in love with. Much of my interest in local myth and legend can be traced back to this particular "class" -- and I've been learning ever since.

Honorable Mentions:

* The Lone Wolf series (gamebooks and novelizations)

* Wizard's First Rule (and the Sword of Truth books)

* Ender's Game (and the Ender Quartet)

* The Dragonbone Chair (and the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series)

* The Elenium and the Tamuli

* Sandman

Interview by Rocket Kapre Part 2

Rocket Capre unravels my mind scape and process in storytelling, writing and blogging. In the part 2 of the interview, Tales From the 7,000 Isles: Filipino Folk Stories is mentioned. Dianne de Las Casas, my co-author, friend and a great influence in my storytelling and writing career is featured as well.

Interview by Rocket Kapre

Paolo Chikiamco, writer and blogger, is posting a series of my interview via his blog, Rocket Kapre. It's a three-part feature that chronicles my life, so far. I feel so old and institutionalized. Haha! Then again, it's just me.

The first part appears today. Click the links!