Category: plug

microfiction for awareness

I wasn’t able to blog, but I was able to tweet.

Yesterday was a Blog Action Day to save Philippine corals, in light of distressing revelations regarding the extent of illegal coral/turtle harvesting and export. To participate in the attempt to raise awareness, I sent an open invitation to Filipino authors to participate in a special edition of the #RP612fic event, and tweet micro fiction stories with a coral/marine theme. (Note: We’ll still be holding the normal #RP612fic on independence day, and the 13th as well.)

It was a lot of fun (even if my Internet cut out midway through) and I think that we managed to entertain folks on Twitter (and confuse a few–but if we make them ask questions, that’s a form of raising awareness too!) and the Save Philippine Seas organizers took note of our stories.

Read more on Rocket Kapre.

philippine speculative fiction 7: guidelines

Posting this for the editors! Feel free to re-post. :)

Editors Alex and Kate Osias invite you to submit short fiction for consideration for Philippine Speculative Fiction volume 7.

Philippine Speculative Fiction is a yearly anthology series, which collects a wide range of stories that define, explore, and sometimes blur the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and all things in between. The anthology has been shortlisted for the Manila Critics’ Circle National Book Award, and multiple stories from each volume have been cited in roundups of the year’s best speculative fiction across the globe.

First-time authors are more than welcome to submit; good stories trump literary credentials any time.

Submissions must be:

1. speculative fiction—i.e., they must contain strong elements or sensibilities of science fiction, fantasy, horror, magic realism, alternate history, folklore, superheroes, and/or related ‘nonrealist’ genres and subgenres

2. written in English

3. authored by persons of Philippine ethnicity and/or nationality

Submissions are preferred to be:

1. original and unpublished

2. no shorter than 1,000 words and no longer than 7,500

3. written for an adult audience

In all cases, these preferences can be easily overturned by exceptionally well-written pieces. In the case of previously-published work—if accepted, the author will be expected to secure permission to reprint, if necessary, from the original publishing entity, and to provide relevant publication information.

Submission details:

1. No multiple or simultaneous submissions—i.e., submit only one story, and do not submit that story to any other publishing market until you have received a letter of regret from us. We don’t mind if you submit to contests.

2. All submissions should be in Rich Text Format (saved under the file extension ‘.rtf’), and emailed to kate.osias at gmail.com, with the subject line ‘PSF7 submission’.

3. The deadline for submissions is midnight, Manila time, September 30, 2011. Letters of acceptance or regret will be sent out no later than one month after the deadline.

Editors’ notes:

1. Please don’t forget to indicate your real name in the submission email! If you want to write under a pseudonym, that’s fine, but this can be discussed upon story acceptance. Initially, we just need to know who we’re talking to.

2. If you’d like to write a cover letter with your brief bio and publishing history (if applicable), do feel free to introduce yourself—but not your story, please. If it needs to be explained, it’s probably not ready to be published.

3. We advise authors to avoid fancy formatting—this will just be a waste of your time and ours, since we will, eventually, standardize fonts and everything else to fit our established house style.

There will be compensation for selected stories, but we’ve yet to determine exactly what. In previous years, we’ve provided contributor copies of the book, as well as small royalty shares, but we are considering shifting Philippine Speculative Fiction to digital format, so we may be shifting to outright financial payment as well.

Please help spread the word!

Thanks,

Alex and Kate Osias, co-editors

Dean Alfar, publisher

philippine speculative fiction 6 book launch

Needless to say, happy to be included in the volume again. I attended the book launch at Fully Booked High Street despite another vertigo attack and the sudden rain. It’s just too fun to miss!

Jaykie came with me, and so did Beej (of Nosfecatu fame) and Phil (who also has a story in the volume – congrats!)

my book launch date

Before the PSF launch, Kenneth Yu took the stage to unveil the latest (and sadly, last) print edition of Philippine Genre Stories. It’s the Special Crime Issue, edited by Ichi Batacan. In her message, Batacan thanked the authors for not resorting to the crime cliches: detectives in trench coats, criminals in pinstripe suits.

Thanks Kyu for the copy! (He handed me one, then I lost it in the flurry of signing books and saying hi to friends. Thanks for replacing it, and I’m sorry!) I’ll read this soon.

Despite the end of PGS’s print run, Kyu has moved PGS to an online home. Visit: http://philippinegenrestories.com/ and stand by for more stories.

The PSF launch was hosted by the ever-jubilant Dean Alfar.

As usual, authors, introvert or no, had to stand up and say something. As usual, I tried to appear smart and charming and failed miserably. One of the contributors expressed it best: “Kailangan ba talaga magsalita? Kaya nga ako nagsusulat eh.”

This is Phil.
This is me being giggly and fat.

Meet the editors!

Kate Aton-Osias
Nikki Alfar

Dean also announced that PSF 7 is now accepting submissions. The next volume will be edited by the husband-and-wife tandem Alex and Kate Osias. Stand by for the guidelines, they should be online soon. Click here for the guidelines.

Class picture!

This was followed by a mad scramble for copies (the book sold out fast!) and author signatures.

Happy to see the contributors (some of whom are familiar faces) and to finally meet Honey de Peralta and Elyss Punsalan. Tin Lao introduced me to Dumaguete peeps Alyza and Jordan. It is always lovely to be told that there are indeed people out there who read (and enjoy) my work.

We had to break away from the group for celebratory dinner at Abe + gelato at Gelatissimo + coffee at CBTL. I had two shots of infused cappuccino and I still fell asleep before 3 a.m. (after watching Shaun of the Dead with J). And here I thought I would be up till morning.

At Abe: Bamboo rice + Bicol Express (na walang karne at hindi maanghang pero masarap) + lumpiang ubod (favorite ko to) + green mango with bagoong + pritong baby hito + adobong lamb = ang takaw namin, keri

My loot:

Kelly Link book + The Little Prince Moleskine from the ubiquitous Charles Tan (who gave similar gifts to several writers, kay yaman) - thanks! + a hard copy of the PSF 7 guidelines
PGS Crime + PSF 6

 *

Hey love, public speaking is not my strong suit, so I forgot to say your name in my “speech”. But in my head, in silence, I thank you every day, all the time. I thank you always. Thanks for coming with me to celebrate another publication.

Yiheee. (Panira yung yiheee.)

compli copies from story quarterly

Got these beautiful things from the post office:

This is Story Quarterly’s Issue 44.

I have a story here.

One of the copies will go to my parents, the other will be on my TBR list!

To wit:

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

reading now: Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

Story Quarterly Issue 44

The Bell Jar

Thank you to the editors.

Founded in 1975, StoryQuarterly has been publishing emerging and established writers for over 30 years. Originally an independent quarterly based in Illinois, its contributors’ work has been selected for inclusion in the annual collections The Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize: The Best of the Small Presses, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Among the acclaimed writers who have written for the journal are Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Frederick Busch, Joyce Carol Oates, T.C. Boyle and Jhumpa Lahiri.

In the summer of 2008, Rutgers University–Camden acquired Story Quarterly. J.T. Barbarese, associate professor of English who teaches poetry in the newly established MFA Program in creative writing, is the new editor. Rutgers–Camden novelists Lisa Zeidner, professor of English, and Lauren Grodstein, assistant professor of English, will serve as assistant editors. M.M.M. Hayes, who edited Story Quarterly for the past decade, remains with the journal as senior contributing editor.

Through its new affiliation with Rutgers University, Story Quarterly will continue to publish an annual print edition, the first one to appear through Rutgers–Camden in the summer of 2009 and will continue as an online presence that will showcase new work year-round. In addition Story Quarterly will begin to publish creative nonfiction and look to make the interview a staple feature.

You may contact their office for subscription questions, or if you want to get your hands on a copy.

* * *

I had to go to the Makati post office and pay a parcel fee of P40 to get these copies, and I still don’t know why. (Where will the P40 go?) Apparently the package had to go through Customs? (Again, why? My books from The Book Depository reached me just fine.)

pizza monday

Monday night, we were on our way from Makati to QC. Jaykie wanted to eat somewhere, and I mentioned Domino’s.

He seemed pretty excited haha. He said he hadn’t had Domino’s pizza in a long while. The last time I had Domino’s was in grade school! There was a Domino’s branch near our home, but it folded I think only after a year.

Anyway I liked their ordering system. Your name appears on a screen, plus the number of minutes before your order can be served, and the status of the pizza (IN OVEN, etc.). Pretty cool.

The pasta (I had bolognese) was blah but the pizza’s pretty good. We had Domino’s Deluxe. The pizza remained soft even after it went cold.

* * *

Fantastique Unfettered has reviewed the third issue of Stone Telling 3. :)

‘reunion’ recorded – now live!

Remember this announcement? Well the podcast for “Reunion” is now available for download!

Many thanks to Elyss Punsalan and reader Solo Galura. I’m thrilled. :)

Running Time 36m 53s

For the merry month of May, Pakinggan Pilipinas presents the prize-winning short story “REUNION”, written by Eliza Victoria. It’s narrated for us by Solo Galura, an architect based in Quezon City. The story was published in 2009 in the Philippines Free Press, and won the Grand Prize for fiction in the magazine’s 2010 Literary Awards.

Eliza’s fiction and poetry have appeared in various publications, locally and abroad. She has also received the Palanca award for her poetry. And if you’d like to read more of Eliza’s recent works, you could look for them in Stone Telling, Kritika Kultura, and Story Quarterly. She will also have a story in the upcoming sixth volume of the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology series.

And by the way, do drop by at the year’s most awaited launch:

PHILIPPINE SPECULATIVE FICTION VOL. 6
Edited by Nikki Alfar and Kate Aton-Osias
Book Launch on 28th May, 2011, Saturday
U-View Theatre, Basement of Fully Booked
Bonifacio High Street

some love for “monsters”

From reviewer and SF columnist, Rich Horton:

Anthologies from Elsewhere, 2010

I’ve already covered 5 anthologies each from the UK and Australia, but I saw two more from outside the US. These were: Philippine Speculative Fiction 5, edited by Nikki Alfar and Vincent Michael Simbulan (Philippines); and Tesseracts 14, edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory (Canada).

The two books between them contained 43 new stories: 5 novelettes and 38 short stories (three short-short), for a total of just over 200,000 words of new short fiction. 19 of the stories were by women (44%), and 18 were SF (42%).

Highlights from Philippine Speculative Fiction 5 include Joseph Anthony Montecillo’s “New Toy”, Andrew Drilon’s “A Game of Quam”, Eliza Victoria’s “Monsters”, and Dean Francis Alfar’s “Strange Weather”. From Tesseracts 14, I liked L. L. Hannett’s “Soil from my Fingers”, Claude Lalumiere’s “Vermilion Dreams: The Complete Works of Bram Jameson”, and Daniel Sernine’s “Nights in White Linen”.

Rich Horton writes regular columns for Locus (on short science fiction) and Black Gate (on the history of SF), and further reviews for Fantasy Magazine, SF Site, and other publications.

PSF V is still available in bookstores. ;)