The Crusader Publication, the official student publication of Xavier Ateneo, in partnership with the Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa Cagayan de Oro (NAGMAC), a young artists collective of poets, essayists, fictionists, playwrights, screenwriters, editors, and translators from Northern Mindanao, is announcing the holding of the 3rd Veritas Writers Workshop this 15 to 16 December 2018.

The workshop caters exclusively to members — alumni, faculty, staff, and students — of the Xavier Ateneo community. It is open to aspiring writers who have not been awarded fellowships to any national or regional writers workshop.

Fictionist and essayist Abigail C James serves as workshop director with other NAGMAC senior writers — essayist and poet Alton Melvar Dapanas, poet Ton Daposala, playwright and poet Mai Santillan, fictionist Raymond A Ybañez, and others — as workshop panelists. Other local writers will also serve as guest panelists.

The workshop includes manuscripts critiquing, introductory craft lectures on literary genres, mentoring sessions, and other parallel writing activities for the writing fellows.

Cagayan de Oro-born and Sydney-based novelist KM Levis who authored best-selling novels “The Girl Between Two Worlds” (2016) and “The Girl Between Light and Dark” (2018) both published by Anvil, will also guest-lecture on Writing Young Adult (YA) Literature.

The 3rd Veritas Writers Workshop will focus on poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction/essay in English, Tagalog, and Binisaya. Ten (10) fellowships will be available for the workshop. Interested applicants must submit a manuscript of any of the following:

• Poetry: poems written for the page or meant for performance; or
• Fiction: short stories or flash fiction; or
• Creative nonfiction & essay: a suite of micro-essays/flash nonfiction, or creative nonfiction (eg travel writing, personal essay, literary journalism, nonfiction memoir, lyrical reportage, and other forms).

Applicants may submit works in English, Tagalog, Binisaya, or a mixture of these three languages to reflect the multilingual context of Northern Mindanao. Subject heading of the email should be “LITERARY PIECE” and in the email’s body, write applicant’s name, course, college/department, literary genre, a short bionote, and mobile number.

Entries should be sent as attachments and named after the title of the piece(s) to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at The Crusader Publication Office, StC 302, by 02 December 2018. Late submissions will be disregarded.

After the workshop, the fellows will be given the opportunity to revise their old works and/or produce new literary works which will be considered for publication in the forthcoming issue of the Veritas Literary and Arts Folio.

Established in 2016, the Veritas Writers Workshop is the only school-based creative writing fellowship in Northern Mindanao.∎