XU LITERARY WRITERS. The Xavier Ateneans in various writing fellowships this year: (U-L) Dr Ma Elena Paulma, (U-C) Gari Jamero, (U-R) Angela Bernice Cabildo, (L-L) Eric John B Villena, (L-C) Christine Faith Gumalal, and (L-R) Rogelio Garcia Jr. Photos courtesy of the fellows.
By Stephen J Pedroza
Xavier Ateneans occupied a number of slots in various writing fellowships in different corners of the country this summer.
From the laidback vibe of Los Baños to the disarming city of Dumaguete, these programs served as venues for XU writers to hone their literary prowess and learn from the giants of Philippine literature.
“As a relative beginner in creative writing, I was not expecting to be accepted to a national writers workshop this year,” recounted Gari Jamero, a fellow for fiction at the 16th Iyas Creative Writing Workshop.
“I haven’t taken any creative writing units or courses and I’ve only attended one writers workshop, and that was right before IYAS. I was practically uninitiated,” he added.
A Biology graduate at Xavier, Jamero could not help but be more excited rather than intimidated about participating in Iyas, held at Balay Kalinungan Retreat House at the University of St La Salle (USLS) in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental.
“To have your work read and critiqued by the pillars of Philippine literature is quite the golden opportunity,” he shared. “Through the critiquing sessions, I felt the validation of my efforts as a writer, and the challenge that my peers are issuing to me: to create a veritable legacy, narratives and characters that will far outlive me and touch the lives of several other generations.”
Out of 119 applicants nationwide, this year’s Iyas awarded 15 fellowships to writers in the genres of fiction, poetry, and drama in English, Filipino, Cebuano, and Hiligaynon, held on the last week of April.
Managed by USLS, in cooperation with the Bienvenido N Santos Creative Writing Center and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the 16th Iyas Creative Writing Workshop featured Grace Monte de Ramos, RayBoy Pandan, DM Reyes, Dinah Roma and John Iremil Teodoro as panelists, and Marjorie Evasco as workshop director.
“The most I got from the workshop is that writing is not a full-time job, not in the sense that you can just do it on the side, but rather, it is a way of life,” Jamero reflected. “When you are a writer, everything you do, you do for your writing; and it has enlightened me on how to pursue my future endeavors.”
Writers workshops either make you or break you, but for Jamero, “It seems IYAS has made a writer out of me, though still quite new.”
The charm of Dumaguete
Meanwhile, Asia's longest-running writing workshop rolled out its 55th instalment on May 10 with ten budding literary writers from across the country under its wings.
The Silliman University National Writers Workshop (SUNWW) runs for three weeks at the scenic Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village, a facility located at Camp Lookout in Valencia and overlooking Dumaguete and the Visayan sea in its farthest east.
This year's ten fellows included Xavier’s Angela Bernice Cabildo, a Development Communication graduate, and Christine Faith Gumalal, a Literature faculty member.
Comprising the SUNWW panel are director-in-residence Ricardo De Ungria, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Ian Casocot, Gemino Abad, Marjorie Evasco, Susan Lara, Alfred Yuson, Nikki Alfar, Simeon Dumdum Jr, Jose Victor Peñaranda, and Katrina Tuvera.
The program also invited two international panelists, Yeo Wei Wei from Singapore and Prashani Rambukwella from Sri Lanka, to further infuse an Asian perspective to the workshop.
Launched in 1962, SUNNW was founded by National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo and Southeast Asian Writers Award recipient Edilberto Tiempo.
Polishing craft in Los Baños
In the calm atmosphere of Los Baños, twelve writers from the genres of poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction and drama presented their works in progress, and talked about their craft on May 22-29, at this year’s University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop (UP NWW).
The UP NWW was established for advanced writers only. The fellows are accepted not only on the basis of their publications and awards but also for the potential of their current literary projects.
Among the invitees for the annual midcareer writing workshop was Xavier’s Dr Ma Elena L Paulma (English creative non-fiction), a Palanca awardee and executive assistant to the XU president.
The book she co-authored, The Night That Changed The River, and her other paperbacks on the craft of writing are coming out soon.
Iligan workshop
An AB Sociology graduate of XU, Eric John B Villena, was recently named as one of the 15 fellows for the 23rd Iligan National Writers Workshop (INWW) to be held at the Mindanao State University - Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) on May 30 to June 3.
The panelists of this year’s INWW are Pranesh Prasad, John Iremil Teodoro, Victor N Sugbo, Erlinda K Alburo, Shirley O Lua, Steven PC Fernandez, German V Gervacio, the project director Christine Godinez Ortega and keynote speaker Isidoro M Cruz. Besides the Jimmy Balacuit Literary Awards, the organizers of the Iligan workshop are set to launch the proceedings of last year’s INWW titled The Mythopoetic and Creative Writing published by the MSU-IIT’s Office of Publication and Information.
Villena is a familiar face in national writing workshops. He was a fellow at the 8th Palihang Rogelio Sicat, 2012 Ateneo National Writers Workshop, Western Mindanao Writers Workshop, and 2009 Davao Writers Workshop.
He has recently self-published his collection of short stories titled Thus It Rain Tonight and Other Stories (Lulu Press Inc). His unpublished manuscript, Mga Bulong ng Anino at Tahimik, was shortlisted for the 2015 Cirilo F Bautista Prize for Novel.
Convergence of art critics in Iloilo
Another XU English professor, Rogelio "Roger" Garcia Jr earned a slot at Kritika, a workshop in criticism, encompassing various arts and cultural practices in architecture, literature, visual arts, cinema, music and performing arts, multi-art, heritage conservation, and gastronomy.
Garcia is one of the 15 fellows of the art and cultural criticism workshop to be held at the Injap Center for Continuing Education of the University of San Agustin in Iloilo, West Visayas from July 13 to 16.
Renowned cultural critic Rolando B Tolentino serves as the workshop director of Kritika while distinguished experts in various art forms will join him as panelists in the five-day live-in event.
Led by the De La Salle University’s Bienvenido N Santos Creative Writing Center, Kritika will draw together established and young art critics and scholars to cultivate their “interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary ways of approaching art and cultural forms” while molding an intellectual community.
Besides being a critic-dramaturg, Garcia is a theater actor of XU's The Xavier Stage. He was a writing fellow at the Iligan NWW, Silliman NWW, UP NWW and Sulat Dula Mindanao Playwriting Workshop.
A well-published writer, Garcia has been a visiting scholar at the National University in Singapore, and recently, he was awarded the Fulbright Scholarship to study literary criticism in the US.
Proudly Kagay-anon-made
Locally, nine young Cagayan de Oro-based writers challenged to revitalize the local literary scene of the city.
Xavier University hosted the inaugural CDO Writers Workshop, organized by the Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa Cagayan de Oro (NAGMAC), in partnership with XU Department of English Language and Literature (DELL), from April 1 to 3.
The workshop sessions were facilitated by a diverse selection of writers affiliated with different universities and colleges across the city.
Villena is NAGMAC's senior fellow for fiction while Jamero is a junior fellow in the same genre. Gumalal and Cabildo are junior fellows of NAGMAC for creative non-fiction. Dr Paulma and Garcia also serve as two of the organization's resident literary mentors.∎
CDO WRITERS. The fellows, panelists, and organizers of the 1st Cagayan de Oro Writers Workshop strike a wacky pose at the end of the three-day event held at the Dell Reading Room of Xavier University. Photo grabbed from CDO Poetry Night's Facebook page.