story

updated

This morning, I went over to Megamall to pick up a few sundry items. I decided to pass by one of the magazine shops to check if the long-delayed 2nd issue of Story Philippines was there - because one of my stories is scheduled to appear in it.


To my delight, it was. "The Maiden & The Crocodile", one of my stories set in Hinirang, appears alongside stories by my comrades-in-letters - fictionist Ian Casocot and novelist Vince Groyon. It is a sad little story that is meant to be read backwards but which also works when read in the normal numbered sequence.

Here's what guest editor Emily Abrera thinks:

The weaving together of beasts and humans; the conversation between heaven and earth, the divine and the mundane, and how they hide behind one another’s masks. I like Dean Alfar’s “The Maiden and the Crocodile” because it hints, but never specifies. So always there is mystery, and it’s a love story besides! Beauty and the beast in reverse. And it is written sparingly; the author leaves room for the reader.

I love her, I do :)

It always feels great to have something in print - it makes the story, your labor of love, somewhat more real than what appears on your Word document or your home printer. I was so happy that I texted Ian and mailed him a couple of copies of the magazine then and there.

With just two more stories waiting to see publication ("Sabados con Fray Villalobos" in a food antho edited by Cecilia Brainard in a couple of months, plus a dragon story for Vin Simbulan's Dragon antho), I've all but exhausted the inventory of older stories I've submitted to various places. This means that it is time to start a fresh cycle of submissions left and right if I intend to have my new stories see print.

I'm also looking at having a collection of my fiction published by the Ateneo Press (the publishers of Salamanca) or by Anvil (the publishers of Latitude)- though honestly, all of a sudden I want it have more new stories than previously published ones. Which means I've got to really really get to writing those new stories.

Right now, I have a couple of things that argue to be finished, but the demands of work are simply overwhelming. I will make time soon though. I don't just have to, I need to. Especially when I know that a lot of other authors are busy actually writing instead of, like me right now, just talking about writing.