the philippine readers and writers festival 2016

ABOUT THE EVENT

#GoReadWrite2016 Join National Book Store and Raffles Makati’s Philippine Readers and Writers Festival featuring Pulitzer award winning author Adam Johnson and bestselling authors Paula McLain and Anna Todd from August 26 to 28, 2016 at the Raffles Makati.

Admission is free! Attend three days of book signings, discussions, and panels about books, literature, and culture from top Filipino writers and artists.

All events will be held at the Raffles Makati with registration starting at 9 a.m. every day.

Click here for the schedule of events. Tag #GoReadWrite2016 to join the discussion.

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August 26:

9:30am – 12:00pm
Lines of Flight:
The Practice and Limits of Realism in Philippine Fiction
Charlson Ong, Jaime An Lim, Dean Francis Alfar, Luna Sicat Cleto, Gabriela Lee, and Eliza Victoria.
Moderated by J. Neil C. Garcia
University of the Philippines Press

August 27:

10:00am – 12:00pm
Mundong Hindi Palaging Atin: Lunsad-Aklat ng The Lait Chronicles, Wounded Little Gods, at Instructions on How to Disappear
Gabriela Lee, Eliza Victoria, John Jack G. Wigley, Carl Javier, Dean Francis Alfar, Alan Navarra, Carlos Malvar, Joey Arguelles, and Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin
Visprint

Full list of events here.

FAQs here.

See you!

summer komikon 2016, or there’s so much good stuff our budget flew out the window

It’s good to be back! I missed last year’s Summer Komikon so I made it a point to attend this year and ask kind folks online what good titles are out there.

There were a lot.

What we got:

Lost (Rob Cham, Anino)
12:01 (Russell Molina and Kajo Baldisimo, Anino)
Kare-Kare Komiks (Andrew Drilon, Anino)
Amorsolo Esperanza & Andres Celestial (Elbert Or, Anino)
ZsaZsa Zaturnnah sa Kalakhang Maynila Blg. 2 (Carlo Vergara, Visprint)
Congratulations, You’re a Girl! (Grickenfish, self-pub)
Bits & Pieces (Grickenfish, self-pub)
Ugh 1 & 2 (Hulyen, self-pub)
Gekorr (Pancho Karambola, self-pub)
Alaala ng mga Anino (Mike Esteves and Mikey Marchan, self-pub)
Ligaya (Fatima Bergonia and Adrienne Onday, self-pub)
Aswang de Manila (Ianthe Pimentel and Kevin Samala, Blue Indie Komiks)
Buhay Habangbuhay (Paolo Herras and Tepai Pascual, Meganon Comics)
+ a couple of books from Charles Tan (not sold at the event–thanks Charles!)

We were very happy with our purchases and will spend the next few days going through them. My early raves and recommendations: Lost, 12:01, Congratulations, You’re a Girl!, Bits & Pieces, and Ugh. I hope to find the time and energy to review them one by one.

Thank you to everyone who dropped by the Visprint table! (Apologies if I forgot your name/got your name wrong/called you by a different name/asked for your name when I should obviously know who you are. It’s embarrassing. I’m really sorry. I’m bad with names.)

Summer Komikon 2016 — Photo from Kyra of Visprint

I’ll add more photos here as soon as I get them! (I remember posing with Alexandra Trese.)

We escaped the summer heat and dropped by Greeka Kouzina (which I also recommend) for dinner. It’s a short walk away from Bayanihan Center.

i will have a play in the virgin labfest, and other shiny writerly updates

Virgin Labfest XII

My one-act play Marte has been chosen as part of the main line-up of the upcoming Virgin Labfest. Very exciting news; I have seen great plays in the fest, and now I’ll be able to be a part of it! I can’t wait to see this little thing come to life onstage.

See the full list below, which was culled from an unprecedented 197 entries.

Virgin Labfest 12
Established in 2005, the Virgin Labfest is a laboratory festival of new plays by emerging and established Filipino playwrights and held annually at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). The Virgin Labfest aims to provide Filipino playwrights a venue to present their unpublished, unstaged, untested and untried works to theatergoing public. The Virgin Labfest is a yearly project of the Manila-based playwrights group Writer’s Bloc, Inc., acclaimed theater company Tanghalang Pilipino, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), in cooperation with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

MAIN LINE-UP:

Eliza Victoria’s “Marte”
Carlo Vergara’s “Mula sa Kulimliman”
Herlyn Alegre‘s “Bahay-Bahayan Tagu-Taguan”
Guelan Luarca‘s “Bait”
Ricardo Dingdong Novenario‘s “Daddy’s Girl”
Kanakan Balintagos‘ “Loyalist”
Ma. Cecilia dela Rosa’s “Ang Mga Bisita ni Jean”
Alexandra May Cordoso’s “Ang Sugilanon ng Kabiguan ni Epefania”
Jose Socrates delos Reyes’ “Dahan-Dahan ang Paglubog ng Araw”
Rick Patriarca’s “Hapag-Kainan”
Dominique La Victoria’s “Ang Bata sa Drum”
Oggie Arcenas‘ “Si Jaya, Si Ronda, Si Barbra at ang Mahiwagang Kanta”

REVISITED:

Maynard Manansala‘s “Dalawang Gabi”
Juan Miguel Severo’s “Hintayan ng Langit”
Eljay Castro Deldoc‘s “Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng mga Tala”

STAGED READINGS:

Layeta Pinzon Bucoy‘s “Mac and Naty”
Job Pagsibigan‘s “Mrs. Victoria”
Vincent A. DeJesus ‘ “Changing Partners”
Adrian Ho’s “Run, Marga, Run”
Jonathan Tad Tadioan‘s “Dinuguan”

FRAGMENTS:

Alex Dungca’s “Nang Maligaw ang mga Halimaw”
Dwein Baltazar’s “Ang Debutante sa Bubongan”
Jerome Ignacio‘s “Perfecto Gomez”

Here’s from the fest’s first write-up on Market Monitor:

Of the playwrights whose works were picked for the main line-up, five are “virgins.” Of these, the most notable is Eliza Victoria, who first gained attention—at least, from the literary community—for her Palanca award-winning poetry collections “Reportage” and “Maps,” and for her National Book Award-winning novel Dwellers.

writing roundup: online reads + a nomination + my compli copies are here!

Wounded Little Gods is now out in the wild. See a couple of photos from readers below. Thank you!

I also got my complimentary copies!

My first Visprint book with my latest Visprint book, for size comparison.

As tradition dictates, expect a book giveaway soon–but let’s talk about that later.

First:

Neon Literary Magazine has nominated my poem “What Waits” for the 2016 Forward Prize. You can read the poem and the three other nominated pieces in the link.Says editor Krishan Coupland: “The Forward Prizes, awarded annually, are some of the most prestigious awards for poetry available in the UK. Each year I nominate four of the best poems published in Neon during the previous twelve months for the Best Single Poem category[.]”
My short story “The Seventh“, published in Likhaan Vol. 9, is now available to read online. Feel free to share the link.
My story “Fortitude” will be appearing in this volume:

SCIENCE FICTION: FILIPINO FICTION FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Coming soon from University of the Philippines Press

With stories by: Kim Sarabia, Eliza Victoria, Kate Osias, Raymond P. Reyes, CP Coulter, Gabriela Lee, Lakan Umali, Daniel Carlos Tan, Nikki Alfar, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo

Cover design by: Aletheia Rio

Edited by: Dean Francis Alfar, Kenneth Yu

My story, “The Target”, will be appearing in the tenth volume of Philippine Speculative Fiction.

Coming in April! Philippine Speculative Fiction X, edited by Nikki Alfar and Dean Francis Alfar (Flipside Publishing). Featuring fiction from Alyssa Wong, Joel Pablo Salud, Jose Elvin Bueno, Cyan Abad-Jugo, Andrew Drilon, Gabriela Lee, Renz Torres, Francis Gabriel Concepcion, Alexander M. Osias,AJ Elicaño, Razel Tomacder, Richard Calayeg Cornelio, Sarge Lacuesta,Eliza Victoria, Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, Kenneth G. Yu, Kate Osias,Joseph Montecillo, Vincent Michael Simbulan, EK Gonzales, Noel Tio, Lakan Umali, and Raymund P. Reyes.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! Visprint is holding a Summer Warehouse Sale at the Visprint warehouse. See map below and get to it!

All of your favorite Visprint titles on SALE! From 20-50% off! April 2-3, 2016, 8am to 5pm only.

You’re still here? Oh goody. Let’s get to the exciting part.

Now that Wounded Little Gods has been released, here’s how you can support it:

1. Buy the book. Of course! :) Delivery to book stores is pending, but you can email bookorders@visprint.net to have it delivered to your doorstep.

2. Share this link and other Wounded Little Gods info on your social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest etc.).

3. Review the book. Blog about it. Tell your friends, whether you enjoyed it or not. If you are on Goodreads, add the book to your bookshelf and share your thoughts.

To celebrate, I will be giving away one (1) free signed copy of my new book.

Go to this link to see the mechanics and enter the giveaway: http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/6316c1c92/?

Some additional details:

The winner will be announced no later than April 17, Sunday.
Open to residents living in the Philippines only.
The copy will be shipped, hopefully immediately (it depends on how busy I am) via courier.
The copy I will be sending are from my own set of advance copies from Visprint, but Visprint is not a sponsor of this contest. Neither is the courier.
The winner will be chosen via electronic lottery, and will be announced on this blog and contacted via email.

Have fun!

read the first two chapters of wounded little gods here

In case you didn’t know, my publisher, Visprint, is now accepting orders of my latest book Wounded Little Gods, for FREE delivery nationwide. I’m very happy to share this because I know there are readers, especially those residing outside Metro Manila, who find it hard to find my books in their neighborhood bookstores. Now this book will come to you.

The book has 230 pages and will retail at PhP280. If you want to get your copy hot off the presses, email bookorders@visprint.net now. You will get payment details after you email them.

For those who’d rather get the book in bookstores, don’t fret, because copies will hit bookstores nationwide before month’s end.

Well–while we’re waiting for the courier to knock on our doors, or for the copies to hit the shelves, shall we read an excerpt?

We shall.

The first two chapters of Wounded Little Gods can be read below. Enjoy, and feel free to share this post.

Continue reading read the first two chapters of wounded little gods here

aiming for two book releases in 2016

Hello!

Wow I haven’t been in here since forever.

I realized that I did not have a major print release last year, and so perhaps two books this year will even things out?

(I’m sure Mina Esguerra is looking at this and thinking, oh two books in a year? You’re so cute.)

Mervin Malonzo is busy working on the art for After Lambana. Here are some sample art I posted a while back to remind you/get you all excited. [Further reading: “Visprint announces 2016 Komiks Line-Up” on Flipgeeks.]

I sincerely have no idea how readers will react to this story. I also have no idea how readers will react to Wounded Little Gods, my little novel slated for release in March. [Further reading: “Eliza Victoria has Another Book!” on Whatsageek]

[We geeks band together, as it turns out.]

In other news, I will have a poem in the 42nd issue of Neon Literary Magazine. Thank you to editor Krishan Coupland. Check back on the leap day, and please consider pre-ordering or subscribing.

I’ve spent today putting the finishing touches to the eBook editions of issue forty-two of Neon. If all goes to plan, the latest instalment of the magazine will launch at the end of this month, on February 29th. If you want to be one of the first people to get hold of a copy, why not place a pre-order, or even subscribe?

From a brief biography of a man raised as a chicken, to a mortuary romance, to a tale that teeters on the edge of a precariously-assembled tower, this issue is packed with excellent poetry and fiction. There’s even a grotesquely surreal comic by Swedish artist Janne Karlsson, and an innocuous-looking but unique broadside by poet Jaclyn Weber.

Other writers featured in issue forty-two include Luke Silver, Clifford Parody, Jane Flett, Mack W Mani, Tara White, Eliza Victoria, Gregory Cartwright, Caroline Hardaker, and Natalia Theodoridou.

This will be our largest print run ever for an issue of Neon. Thanks to everyone who has already subscribed or purchased a copy – and for everyone else, it’s never too late to do so.

I am still writing–though not as fast and as often as I used to, as I want to. Work and life get in the way, you know how it is. But I’m enjoying working on the new novel (a murder mystery/fantasy), even if my scattered notes and plot timelines are driving me crazy. I have broken past the 100-page mark. I have a good feeling about it.

wounded little gods, a novel — coming soon

UPDATE 3/4/2016: Visprint is now accepting orders, for FREE delivery nationwide. Email bookorders@visprint.net now.

Wounded Little Gods–230 pages paperback, ₱280–will hit bookstores before the end of March.

This was the book that was slated to come out December 2015 and which will finally see the light of day this quarter. I finished writing this short novel in August 2014 but I feel like I will keep revising up until I see the final page layouts and/or Visprint wrenches it out of my hands. (I’m probably only mildly joking.) Don’t you just love the cover art? Cover art and design is by the brilliant Jap Mikel, who also designed the cover art for Project 17. It reminds me of the art and color palette of old komiks. I think it’s fantastic. He will also be working on the interior art, which I’ve yet to see–and I can’t wait.

I will update you all once the book hits the local bookshelves. For now, feel free to share this blog post.

Happy New Year!

Wounded Little Gods

A Novel by Eliza Victoria

Fantasy, Mystery

Published by Visprint

Regina was born and raised in the small town of Heridos, where gods and spirits walked the earth.

Until they didn’t.

Ten years ago, the whole town produced a bad harvest—rice grains as black as soot—and the people of the town moved on, away from the soil and the farms, believing the gods and spirits have abandoned them.

It is ten years later, on a Friday before a long weekend, and Regina ends her shift at an office in Makati. She walks home with a new colleague named Diana. Diana, following a strange and disturbing conversation with Regina, does not appear at the office on Monday, and the day after that.

And the day after that.

On Thursday, Regina opens her bag and finds a folded piece of paper filled with Diana’s handwriting.

On the page are two names and a strange map that will send Regina home.

Cover Art and Design by Jap Mikel
http://japmikel.tumblr.com/
japmikel@gmail.com

FOR 2016 RELEASE

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Wounded Little Gods

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