13 th Ateneo National Writers Workshop

I was invited to be one of the panelists for fiction at the 13th Ateneo National Writers Workshop. It was nice to be part of lively, intense, and productive discussions about basic tenets of storytelling vis-a-vis form-and-genre-innovations, notions of representation and the writer's political ideology, etc. It was great to be in the same session with fictionist, Allan Derain, whose work I admire very much, and whose mode of criticism I find myself almost constantly in agreement with. It was especially lovely to be with women writers whose work and work ethics I hold in high esteem -- Beni Santos, Chari Lucero. It was fun to catch up with friends and former colleagues in the English and Creative Writing Departments -- Mark Cayanan, Martin Villianueva, Vince Serrano, Allan Popa, and Laurel Fantauzzo. But I was particularly happy to see and interact with Ma'am Chari, my last and ultimate teacher in fiction. :) After the draining and exhausting disagreements and melee in the literary community, I think I needed to see and listen to Ma'am Chari, to be reminded of why I write.