July 18, 2019 at 1:53 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Places, Recommended, short story collections)
Tags: Carlos Bulosan, reading lists, summer, The Philippines
There is such a streak of fatalism that runs through the Filipino character. Was that a legacy of the Spanish? Or was that always present, even before?
Carlos Bulosan was from Pangasinan. So presumably this was how life was in that province, pre-World War II.
- The farmers sold their bales and went to the market. They bought the things that were most needed in their homes and walked around in the plaza counting their money. Some of them were lured by the gamblers at the cockpit, and they went home without their money.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 11, 2019 at 8:10 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, plans, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers)
Tags: essay, Filipino writers, Kelly Link, Poets & Writers, reading lists, summer
- A writer’s library is more than just a collection of books. It is also a piecemeal biography of that writer’s life, and measurably so, as most have writers have spent countless hours reading the books that they now own or have borrowed, hours that add up to years, perhaps decades, given a long enough life.
— James P. Blaylock, My Life in Books
Love this essay, which echoes so many of self’s feelings about her own library. Just recently, self decided to start reading some of her collection. Books she’s picked up from author’s readings, and then stashed away on a shelf, in the fond hope she’d get to them “someday.”
Someday is here!
Two of the books she’s owned for years but never got around to reading:
- Carlos Bulosan’s story collection, The Laughter of My Father
- Kelly Link’s short story collection, Get In Trouble (She read a couple of stories, not the whole collection)
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 4, 2019 at 7:39 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Holidays, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers)
Tags: California, essay, favorites, Latin American writers, reading lists, Rosario Ferré, second reads, translation, writing process
HOME: 4 July 2019
Today self finished Stephen Westaby’s Open Heart and began a re-read of the Rosario Ferré collection The Youngest Doll (University of Nebraska Press, 1991). Some pieces are memoir, some are nonfiction, some are magical realist.
- Being a writer . . . one has to learn to live by letting go, by renouncing the reaching of this or that shore, to let oneself become the meeting place of both . . . In a way, all writing is a translation, a struggle to interpret the meaning of life, and in this sense the translator can be said to be a shaman, a person said to be deciphering conflicting human texts, searching for the final unity of meaning in speech.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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June 29, 2019 at 4:41 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Memoirs, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Relatives, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: essay, inspiration, Latin American writers, Rosario Ferré, Saturdays, short story, writing process
The day of my debut as a writer, I sat at my typewriter for a long time, mulling over these thoughts. Inevitably, writing my first story meant taking my first step toward Heaven or Hell, and that made me vacillate between a state of euphoria and depression. It was as if I were about to be born, peering timidly through the doors of Limbo. If my voice rings false or my will fails me, I said to myself, all my sacrifices will have been in vain. I will foolishly have given up the protection which, despite its disadvantages, at least allowed me to be a good wife and mother, and I will justly have fallen from the frying pan into the fire.
Recommended Reading: Rosario Ferré’s short story, The Youngest Doll, from the collection of the same name
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February 5, 2019 at 8:56 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Family, Filipino Writers, Memoirs, Publishers, Relatives, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Asian American Writers, grief, illness, Mayor of the Roses, medicine, memoir, memories, Miami University Press, short story, teaching, writing process
For the workshop this weekend, re-reading some old stories to show different ways of writing memoir. In particular, thinking of a story called Lenox Hill, December 1991, which Jessica Hagedorn included in the anthology Charlie Chan is Dead.
When Jessica contacted self to solicit a piece, self had nothing, nothing, nothing.
Her sister had died just the month before. She did keep a diary, though.
The diary became the story. The first story in what later become a cycle of grief stories: Mayor of the Roses (Miami University Press)
For a while, a course called Ethics in Medicine, taught at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, included the story in their syllabus.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 1, 2019 at 3:56 pm (anthologies, Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Bellingham Review, Fridays, Literary Magazines, Manila Noir, Potomac Review, teaching, The Lost Language
2018 AWP Bookfair, Tampa, FL
Found these copies of self’s third short story collection in the National Bookstore in Gateway Mall, Cubao, Metro-Manila! (January 2018)
Such a beautiful cover! POTOMAC REVIEW 59
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January 25, 2019 at 5:41 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Links, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: California, Cee Neuner, Fridays, Hotel Amerika, Literary Magazines, teaching, TransGenre
Must be on a roll! Participated in two Fun Foto Challenges in one week!
The theme of this one is BLACK AND WHITE. Self took these pictures just a few minutes ago. Thanks to Cee Neuner for the always-wonderful prompts!
Self is teaching a three-day writing workshop in Mendocino in February. Here are some of the materials from the last time she taught this class, in 2016:
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October 14, 2018 at 9:22 am (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Holidays, short story collections, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, artists residency, Bluestem, dystopia, inspiration, Ireland, science fiction, short story, Tyrone Guthrie Centre
Self is going to try, while she’s at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, pulling all her science fiction together into one collection.
What to call it?
She’s toying with the idea of making this the first story:
THE FREEZE (published in Bluestem)
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine
Redwood, Oak, Laurel, Manzanita, Pine
Thanksgiving was just a week ago. I served brined turkey with oatmeal rolls and my special fig-and-rice stuffing.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 7, 2018 at 3:36 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Events, Filipino writers, Readings, Redwood City, The Philippines
Cover of Benedicta Takes Wing by Monterey Artist Jean Vengua
The collection is called Benedicta Takes Wing, and you are crazes if you are anywhere near the Redwood City Main Library (1044 Middlefield at Jefferson) and you do not drive straight over on Saturday, 8 Sept, 2:30 p.m., the Fireplace Room, to hear Veronica Montes and fellow writer Lillian Howan read, from their respective books! Crazes!
Veronica Montes, author of Benedicta Takes Wing: Stories (Philippine America Literary House, 2017)
Self will excerpt from Lillian’s book, The Charm Buyers, next.
“Lamentation” opens thus:
Her name was like a song: Maria Josefa Gabriela Cariño Silang. I wish I had given it to her.
* * * *
In the province of Ilocos Sur, there is a barrio called Canlogan. It sits in the shadow of a mountain range that rises up like an enormous hand telling you to stop, telling you there is no way to pass. But the mountains are not as impenetrable as they seem; they are sliced through with rivers, each one running swift and strong. This is where my daughter, who I did not name, was born.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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September 6, 2018 at 7:05 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, short story collections, Women Writers)
Tags: Asian American Writers, Events, novel, Readings, Redwood City
Two wonderful Asian American women writers are coming to Redwood City for reading and book-signings!
By Lillian Howan, Published by University of Hawai’i Press, 2017
A collection of short stories by the great Wakako Yamauchi who recently passed away. Edited by Lillian Howan, published by Hawai’i University Press.
Veronica Montes, author of Benedicta Takes Wing: Stories (Philippine America Literary House, 2017)
Cover of Benedicta Takes Wing by Monterey Artist Jean Vengua
Saturday, 8 September 2018
2:30 pm
FIRESIDE ROOM, REDWOOD CITY MAIN LIBRARY
1400 Middlefield (corner Jefferson Avenue)
Redwood City
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
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