Plug: Write or Die Non-Fiction Series

From Read or Die (1, 2)

It's a long plug, so you can just visit Read or Die's website for the details. Here's the relevant snippets however:

Maria Isabel Garcia, winner of the 2007 National Book Awards for Essay for her groundbreaking book “Science Solitaire” (Ateneo Press) and noted science columnist for the Philippine Star, will kickstart the Non-Fiction series on January 12, 2008 (Saturday) in Powerbooks Greenbelt from 2PM to 4PM.

Please come! Ms. Garcia is one of the most fluent writers I’ve had the pleasure of reading. She’ll be talking about science writing, an interesting and—in the Philippines—a fairly novel genre of creative non-fiction. Science teachers are especially invited to attend and to invite their students along. There’s more to writing about science than dry equations and abstruse observations about the world around you.

---

January 12 (Saturday): Maribel Garcia
Science Writing
Powerbooks Greenbelt, 2-4PM

January 20 (Sunday): Isagani Cruz
Writing Literary Criticism
Powerbooks Greenbelt, 2-4PM

January 26 (Saturday): Butch Dalisay
Creative Non-Fiction
Powerbooks Megamall, 2-4PM

Write or Die: Dean Alfar

"It is one thing to be a lover of reading, like I am, like you are. But if we were all readers, there would be nothing to read if no one were to write." - Dean Alfar

Last Saturday, I was at the Write or Die workshop where Dean Alfar gave a two-hour talk on novel writing. For a good few minutes, I was manning the projector when a client called and I had to immediately depart to take the call. Dean's best friend, Vin, seemed to handle the PowerPoint duties quite well. What can I say, the event was packed and Powerbooks was grabbing chairs and benches everywhere, including their own cafe. Writers at the event include Nikki Alfar, Alex Osias, Kate Aton-Osias, Kenneth Yu, Michael Co (which I recognized from listening to Anansi Girl's podcast ), and the ever-elusive F.H. Batacan. Comic artist Wilson Tortosa was also in the crowd while the event was deftly handled by Read or Die members Giyenah and Innocentlyjaded.

The Event Organizers and Their Sponsors:

• Write or Die
• Read or Die
• Powerbooks
• Wikipilipinas
• UP Institute of Creative Writing
• UP Gawad Centennial Likhaan 2008

Links Mentioned by Dean Alfar:

• NaNoWriMo
• The Lit Critters
• Dean's Blog
• Dean's PowerPoint Presentation

Pinoy NaNoWriMo:
Several Filipino participants from NaNoWriMo also made an appearance during the event (they were occupying the front seats).

• NaNoWriMo thread on the event
• Tinamats has also uploaded her notes on the event (mostly from Dean's PowerPoint presentation).

Photos Courtesy of Kenneth Yu (Philippine Genre Stories)

Dean Alfar

Read or Die Representatives

The Audience (believe it or not, there were more people who showed up later on)

Audio Recording:

Write or Die 1: Dean Alfar (56 MB, 123:46 minutes)

Transcript:

Write or Die: Dean Alfar (work in progress--hopefully I'll be done before the Ad Congress but everything won't be transcribed by tomorrow!)

Long List of Literary Events for September

Tin from Read or Die has posted a calendar of literary events for the rest of the month. Do check them out if you're in the area.

Abridged Transcript of Kristine Mandigma, Dean Alfar, Gwen Galvez and Blooey Singson at RX 93.1

I wish I could have put this up during the Manila International Book Fair but transcribing takes time. Anyway, you can read about Kristine's fascination with Mills & Boon, Dean's spec fic cook book, Gwen's search for the Pinoy Harry Potter, and Blooey's Alamat ng Atis over here. Seriously though, Kristine talks about Read or Die, Dean explores spec fic and his latest book, The Kite of Stars, Gwen about the local publishing industry, and Blooey plugs the book fair (sorry the transcript is up too late!). It's a long read and rightly so since the interview lasted almost an hour.

RX 93.1 Recording of the Book Fair, Read or Die, Anvil Publishing, and Dean Alfar

Some days, I'm glad I used to be tech support. This is one of them. Anyway, Internet problems at home have been resolved (hopefully permanently) and in the meantime as I get myself up to speed with the rest of the world, here's the recording of RX 93.1's interview last August 30, 2007. It's nearly an hour long and is 70++ MB. Edited transcript to follow by next week.

Read or Die, Spec Fic, Anvil, and Manila International Book Fair on Radio

Just found out that last night, RX 93.1 had an interview with Kristine Mandigma of Read or Die, author Dean Alfar, Gwen Galvez of Anvil Publishing, and Blooey Singson of the Manila International Book Fair. Due to technical difficulties (no Internet, dead mp3 player), an edited transcript and recording won't be up until next week but here's some snippets I managed to jot down halfway through the interview (parenthesis are English translations of Filipino terms):

On Read or Die's current reading recommendations.

Kristine: This month is graphic novel month. So all the titles nominated are graphic novels. We have Dean Alfar’s Siglo there, which is one of the best graphic novel compilation. We have Alan Moore in the selection. We have Gerry Alanguilan’s Elmer. Just local talents, we have Dean Alfar’s Siglo, we have Gerry Alanguilan’s Elmer, and we have Craig Thompson’s Blankets. Which is a really, really nice graphic novel so that’s what we recommend. For this month, graphic novels. Next month I think we are on to historical novels for the selection.

On Read or Die's agenda.

Kristine: [We're] all embracing. But we also do have a special advocacy for Philippine lit as you mentioned. Even though we have very different tastes, I think one of our unifying threads, commonality namin (of ours) is that even if we don’t all read Filipino lit, we like to promote Filipino literature through this book club. We also have another website like http://libro.ph, if you could visit it, that’s one of our efforts to promote Filipino literature.

Dean Alfar's take on speculative fiction.

Dean: Speculative fiction actually had its roots in science fiction because the question is what if. What if the world was like this or what if aliens had come. But it has since grown to encompass fantasy, sci-fi, horror, magic-realism, surrealism, and interstitial fiction. So actually a lot of the non-realist stories and types of books are covered by spec fic.

Dean's theory on why speculative fiction is popular lately in the country.

Dean: For the longest of times, a lot of the material that was available to the common public or general reading public was domestic realism or novels or stories about the plight of the poor and things like that which are important because that reflects social agenda and it’s important that we understand that. However we are also becoming more regional and global. We are influenced now by the Internet to look outside. Film comes in, there are no boundaries and literature comes in from other countries. And the literature of the imagination which is speculative fiction has no boundaries or citizenship so a lot of the younger generation, they look for the literature of wonder which is sci-fi, horror, fantasy and these are the things that matter to them and these are the things that they are reading and happily writing.

Redefining speculative fiction and escapism.

Dean: The older people would brand it [speculative fiction] as escapism and make it sound like a bad thing but to me escapism is just another term you use for hope. When people want to escape, like OFWs (Overseas Foreign Workers), they will read romances. It’s a happy ending, it allows them a fantasy, it gives them hope. Escapism is a term that needs to be shorn of its ugly thing. It’s not a bad thing. It permits the Filipino to hope and dream of a better tomorrow, that’s what utopian science fiction is about, what fantasy is about, and even horror that allows us to confront dark things and that’s not just about escapism, that’s about hope.

Anvil's take on the current best-sellers and what's selling.

Gwen: The same thing as what was selling ten years ago. Essentially self-help is still the best-seller. You’d have dictionaries, cookbooks, nonfiction, self-help. Books that will improve one’s self. In the arena of fiction, it’s still basically romance and suspense. So right now what is hot are the ghost stories. Yes, ghost stories. Because of what Dean said, we like something that will quicken the heartbeat, the what-if’s. We’re always interested, the Filipinos have an innate curiosity for the supernatural, it’s in our culture. We have a rich mythology so ghost stories will always sell. It’s pretty much the same. People all over the country the common reading material is romance and suspense, ghost stories.

New books that's out in the market.

Anvil: We have a new cookbook that’s out, it’s called Pulutan. It’s written by two soldiers who are the Oakwood Mutiny soldiers. They passed on their recipes... These are recipes that they compiled while they were, even before that [the Oakwood Mutiny], while they were assigned to different camps all over the country... They’ve been assigned to all over the country to different camps and they’ve been able to compile and test recipes that are usually indigenous to a particular area.

Dean: My latest work is my very first collection of short fiction, it’s called Kite of Stars and Other Stories published by Anvil. It’s available right now at the book fair and I’d like to invite everyone to the formal launch of The Kite of Stars and Other Stories. This will be on September 29, 4 o’clock in the afternoon, at Bestsellers in Robinsons Galleria.

The lead story is called Kite of Stars (ed note: was also published in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Seventeenth Annual Collection) and it’s about a woman who falls in love with a man and she goes on a 60-year quest to assemble the millions of components of a kite that she will use once assembled to attract his attention. For science fiction I have something called Hollow Girl which is about an android who looks for meaning in her life and love and finds it in the wrong places. For straight-out epic fantasy I have something called In the Dim Plane which is about a cast of villains trapped on a plane of darkness and one of them is a necromancer. So there is a lot that we can write about and this is the best time to be writing speculative fiction because now there are markets open, not just Anvil in terms of a publisher but you have magazines like Story Philippines, or even the Philippines Free Press which still is a bastion for excellent writing and they’re now open to spec fic. It’s incredible. There’s also the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories which publishes fantasy, horror, crime, western, romance, you name it.

On the book fair.

Blooey: Over at the book fair we have over 300 exhibitors in one venue. It showcases the largest and the most varied collection of printed materials like text books, educational supplements, literature, general references, religious and inspirational titles, self-help books, management books and many many more. And even multimedia and teaching aids and even interactive materials.

On the topic's question, do Filipinos still read?

Blooey: And to answer your question if Filipinos read, actually two years ago there was a survey conducted by an international surveying agency. It’s called the World Culture Score survey. It was conducted on 30,000 consumers in 30 countries and Filipinos ranked 3rd as the country’s most avid readers. We apparently we read for an average of 6.7 hours a week while India batted with 10.7 hours. India ranked no. 1.

Libro Soft Launch

From Read or Die

Join Read Or Die at the Libro.ph soft launch on June 30, 2007 at 4PM at the “Portrait Of The City” exhibit at the Glorietta 3 Park.

Adarna House will also be on hand for a storytelling session for children.

This event is part of the 11th Philippine Book Development Month and is made possible by the National Book Development Board and the Filipinas Heritage Library.

FREE FOOD WILL BE SERVED. Or UCC Coffee, at least. And cakes.

Read or Die is Alive!

I had dinner last night with "The Three Witches" (I label them so because when you invite one, you invite the other two) and Tin informed me that the Read or Die website is up again after a series of unfortunate "events" (such as a database crash deleting all the data). There's a couple of updates, including an interview with Kenneth Yu (Philippine Genre Stories) and Dean Alfar (Salamanca, Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1 & 2).

Read or Die Convention 2007 Reader's Choice Winners

Mainly because it's such a chore finding out who actually won (at least for me), here's the list of winners in the Pinoy Readers' Choice Awards 2007:

Fiction: Smaller and Smaller Circles by F.H. Batacan
Nonfiction: ABNKKBSANPLAKo by Bob Ong
Poetry: Hunos by Allan Popa
Komiks: After Eden by Arnold Arre