Bad News/Good News

If you want to be a writer, well, you have to write and submit.

Yesterday, Dean Francis Alfar announced Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 4's release date will be moved from December 2008 to February 2009. Oh well, there goes my plans of sending friends copies of the book during Christmas.

Anyway, going back to the topic, I was originally scheduled to have two stories come out this year so the delay means that I only have one publishing credit in 2008. If you're the type of person who only has one published story a year, the said news can be devastating. The moral lesson? Submit, submit, submit. Why bank your "career" on one story? Churn out more! (Yes, I'm making all these mistakes so that you can learn from them.)

There were also some speculative fiction books that were supposed to come out in 2008 but didn't. It looks like 2008 is going to be slim pickings as far as Philippine spec fic is concerned. Of course the opposite side of the coin is that 2009 seems promising. The 1st quarter will open with Philippine Speculative Fiction 4 and hopefully in the months after that (or God willing, the month preceding it), the release of a Philippine dragon-themed anthology (I wrote the introduction) and a short story collection from a talented horror writer (unless the publisher manages to release both books in December). Hopefully Fully Booked can get its act together and then release the winners of the 2nd Graphic/Fiction Awards (I've read three of the four winning stories and I'd say the quality is superior compared to the winners of the previous year). Most likely this will coincide when they announce the winners of the 3rd Graphic/Fiction Awards and when they manage to snag Neil Gaiman to return to the Philippines (I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that this will happen after his The Graveyard Book tour or in the event that he tours Asia).

Hopefully, we can also increase the presence of Filipino speculative fiction in online markets (currently, the count is 6 stories for 2008, the same number as in 2007).