our own voice

(updated with corrections)

The fall issue of Our Own Voice is up, with a special focus on the act of writing. There's a lot to read, so get started.

Aileen Ibardaloza , of the Editorial Board, recommends:

Writing: A Blog Abecedary By Dean Francis Alfar (thanks, Aileen!)
It wasn't until after my daughter Sage was born that I began to blog in earnest. I named it "Notes from the Peanut Gallery", thinking it would be an outlet for expression, a way of commenting on my life and the world around me ...

Writing in the New Publishing Paradigm By Cantara Christopher
Once you launch your work into cyberspace, it immediately becomes part of the permanent body of human knowledge. Your work is indexable, google-able, findable, sendable, shareable, judgeable ...

Interview with author Sabina Murray

Interview with author Nadine Sarreal

Bernie Aragon Jr. Looks for Love By Veronica Montes, Ivy Terasaka 2005 Short Story Competition First Prize

And I'd like to add:

Of First Marathons and First Novels by Zarina Natividad Docken.

All these and more from Editor Remé-Antonia Grefalda.


a reader writes

I received a wonderful letter from Dr. Caroline Hau who just finished reading Salamanca. You know the thing I mentioned earlier about how, ultimately, what really matters is when someone reads something you wrote? Well, in addition to recommendations on publishers for the book, she said:

"I just finished reading your wonderful novel "Salamanca"--really loved it. It's mindblowing and sets the bar high for the novels to come."

She, to poet/author/lit crit Paolo Manalo, is what Neil Gaiman is to everyone else (it's true - "In the fields of Philippine literary and nationalist studies, Carol Hau is a rockstar.").

From Paolo, on Dr. Hau's recent visit and lecture on the Philippine novel in English:

Her erudition showed in her articulation and even in her humor. The audience most appreciated the side comments that she made concerning the novels that one should be reading, and to the complaint that students of Philippine literature don't read enough Philippine literature. "Maybe because they're not worth reading." She even said that she'd give a list of novels that one shouldn't read, like a required nonreading list. The audience laughed, but I'm sure, given her research on the 240 novels written in English from 1921-2004, she isn't kidding.

And the neatest thing for me? She will be writing a blurb for Salamanca, when it gets published by whoever publishes it (I'm meeting with the lovely folk of the Ateneo Press tomorrow, with Anvil next week, and with UP Press after).

Again and again, what matters is that you are read.