writing – Page 21 – Eliza Victoria

I’ve been having extraordinarily kind Monday mornings.

After a revision, my short story, “username: tanglaw”, has been accepted for publication in the seventh volume of the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology! Thank you to editors Kate and Alex Osias for giving me a chance to revisit the piece and make it stronger.

And good news for readers abroad – PSF is going digital this year in order to reach a wider audience. Stay tuned for the details.

From anthology editor Paolo Chikiamco:

On December 14, 2011, “Alternative Alamat“ – our anthology of stories inspired by Philippine mythology – will be released on Amazon.com, Flipreads.com, and the iTunes store. This anthology has been more than a year in the making, and it is near and dear to my heart, so any help spreading the word would be greatly appreciated. I’m excited, not the least of which because of the excellent cover art provided by Mervin Malonzo (creator of “Tabi Po“, who also provides the interior illustrations), and because I believe we’re attempting something that hasn’t been done before, in the context of Philippine mythology.

Book details, story introductions, and information for book bloggers and interested book reviewers.

December 14! I have a story here – “Ana’s Little Pawnshop on Makiling St.” Please buy the book and/or help spread the word!

thanksgiving

We don’t have Thanksgiving Day here in the Philippines, but that didn’t stop J’s family (who has relatives in Nevada, Oklahoma, New York, and beyond) from whipping up a fabulous dinner.

Behold! Cornbread, pan-fried chicken, biscuits, veggie pot pie (not in picture), steak, mac and cheese, chunky gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing.

For dessert: pecan pie, candied yams (yams topped with marshmallows), and pumpkin mousse tart (not pictured).

I am thankful for: family (mine and J’s), good stories, good weather, good friends, good food, and J.

Greenhills on Sunday! I now know how to commute to Greenhills! Tao na ako.

Dinner at Bizu. Best clam chowder we’ve ever tasted.

J treated me to Happy Lemon! Cocoa Rock Salt and Cheese at last! No picture of the drink, but believe me, it’s very tasty. And also very rich, so maybe next time I’ll just order the regular size.

Re-posting an open call for submissions:

Editors Dean Francis Alfar (publisher of the Philippine Speculative Fictionanthologies) and Kenneth Yu (publisher of Philippine Genre Stories) announce an open call for short fiction submissions for HORROR: Fantastic Filipino Fiction for Young Adults.

The Fantastic Filipino Fiction for Young Adults is a new annual anthology series, with the first volume focusing on horror, and launching in mid-2012.

More details here.

Found out today that Stone Telling editors Rose Lemberg and Shweta Narayan have nominated my poem “Prayer” for the Pushcart Prize! Hello, Monday!

Here’s a list of ST’s six nominees:

Sonya Taaffe, Persephone in Hel
Catherynne M. Valente, The Secret of Being a Cowboy
Amal El-Mohtar, Pieces
Jaded, Sewing Souls with Blanks: Silences in Kamala Das’s Poetry
Shira Lipkin, The Changeling’s Lament
Eliza Victoria, Prayer

Information about the Pushcart Prize.

The Pushcart Prize – Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of our annual collections.

Writers who were first noticed here include:

Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Rick Moody, and many more. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series.

My poetry collection, “Maps”, is now live on the Palanca Awards website. You may read the poems here.

the birthday weekend, in bullets

J bought me Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars on Oct. 29 and I finished reading it two days later. Do I even have to mention that this is an absolute page-turner? What a fantastic volume of stories. Full Dark is peopled with characters caught in tragic circumstances (rape and assault, a terminal illness, murder) that stretch them to their limits. Their tragedies lead to the discovery of the Other Self – either the darker self that leads to more ruination, or the stronger self that helps them survive. I think King is strongest when writing the short novel. With full novels he tends to meander; with short stories he tends to resort to cheap B-movie horror tricks. Take any King novel or short story collection and you’ll know which parts/stories you can remove without feeling shortchanged. I can’t remove any of the stories from Full Dark. Not one of them.

I went with J’s family to Holy Cross. Weather was nice and we had a lovely walk.
Horror movie marathon with J’s sisters and brother-in-law. Here’s our feast: chicken wings with blue cheese dip, bread and cheese, various sausages, apple cheesecake, coconut cupcakes with chocolate frosting.

Pumpkin mousse tart! Made by J’s sister, V. I could eat this every day.

Watched Dawn of the Dead, Trick r Treat, The Crazies, and Kababalaghan aka The Return of Magandang Gabi Bayan and Nostalgia. (My childhood!)
Went home to Bulacan! Caldereta, kare-kare, menudo, adobo, yema, pastillas, Oreo cheesecake (from my sister and her boyfriend), leche flan. My father and J finished a bottle of Johnny Walker (Black) at 2 in the afternoon (J was coerced). J ended up napping most of the time. He said he liked the wind there.
We watched Rec 2, which we hated with a passion.
All too soon we had to leave. We stopped by SM North Edsa and tried two restaurants. One is Hapadog, the Japanese hotdog place. We were amused by their Japanese soda, which you had to open by pressing down on the bottle opening to push down the marble holding the soda back why does it have to be this complicated, Japan?