Author Cecilia Brainard Interview by Read Pinoy Philippine National Book Development Board

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojtjwCDLfxM

 

Filipina novelist, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, is interviewed by Read Pinoy of the Philippine National Book Development Board on March 19, 2025. Brainard talks about Filipino and FilAm authors away from the Philippines - what they write about, difficulties they face. Brainard talks about why she has chosen to write about Filipino themes in her novels and fiction.

Interviewers were Lowell Alojado and Catherine Orda.  Cecilia thanks them and  Marian Louise Abio of NBDB.

The above YouTube link excerpts 19 minutes of the show with her interview.  

tags: #readpinoysaradyopilipinas  

 

Update! STEP INTO OUR KITCHENS -- Collection of Recipes and Essays by St. Theresa's College Philippine Graduates

 

UPDATE Re my cookbook project, STEP INTO OUR KITCHENS: THERESIAN RECIPES AND TALES -- I am happy to say that Vibal will be publishing this book and we're looking at a book launch date of June 8 in Manila. We are also looking at book signing in Cebu around May 31, all to be confirmed.

 

I am sharing the blurb that Ige Ramos wrote for this book that collects recipes and personal essays by graduates of St. Theresa's College in the Philippines.

 

"Step Into Our Kitchens: Theresian Recipes and Tales is not just a cookbook; it's a time capsule of cherished family recipes and stories passed down through generations. As you explore these pages, you'll discover more than just ingredients and cooking method—you'll uncover the love, laughter, and traditions that have shaped a Theresian family's Philippine Food Historian culinary heritage. For those with a Theresian grandmother, mother, aunt, wife, or sister, let these recipes serve as a bridge to the past, a connection to your roots, and a reminder to savor the flavors of your family history for many years to come. This is a true culinary masterpiece that captures the heart and soul of Theresian values. ~ Ige Ramos

 

The photo shown is Chef Pam Relampagos one of the contributors to this food book.

Tags: Filipino cookbook, Philippine cookbook, cook book, food book, St. Theresa's College, ICM Sisters, Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary 

How I Became a Writer -- Eileen R. Tabios - Filipino FilAm Series #6

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Eileen R. Tabios's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER -- A POET, THEN NOVELIST. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials. 

***

Eileen R. Tabios has released books of poetry, fiction, essays, art, and experimental prose from publishers in 11 countries and cyberspace. Recent releases include the novel The Balikbayan Artist; an art monograph Drawing Six Directions; a poetry collection Because I Love You, I Become War; an autobiography, The Inventor; and a flash fiction collection (in collaboration with harry k stammer), Getting To One. Other recent books include a first novel DoveLion: A Fairy Tale for Our Times which was subsequently translated by Danton Remoto into Filipino as KalapatingLeon and two French books, PRISES (Double Take) (trans. Fanny Garin) and La Vie erotique de l’art (trans. Samuel Rochery.  

Her body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21^st century diasporic poetic form; the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity; the “Flooid” poetry form that’s rooted in a good deed; the monobon poetry form based on the monostich; and a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry. She’s also edited or conceptualized 16 anthologies that involved hundreds of writers worldwide. Translated into 13 languages, her literary output has received recognition through awards, grants and residencies. More information is at https://eileenrtabios.

*** 

HOW I BECAME A WRITER --- A POET, THEN NOVELIST

The Poet

From my mother, I know the story of my first book. I was about two or three years old. It bore no title. It was created by my toddler-self folding a piece of paper to emulate a book’s pages. The first page bore a green Crayola scrawl at the bottom of the page. The second page bore a yellow Crayola circle at the top right corner of the page. The third page bore a brown Crayola scrawl at the bottom of the page. The “text” of its three pages might be interpreted as follows:

The grass is green.

The sun is out shining.

The sun burnt the grass.

 

How I Became a Writer - Hope Sabanpan Yu - Filipino FilAm Series #5

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Dr. Hope Sabanpan Yu's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials. 

 ***

Dr. Hope Sabanpan Yu is a professor of comparative literature at the University of San Carlos where she also serves as the Director of the Cebuano Studies Center. She is the Commissioner for the Cebuano language of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) and also of the Cultural Historical Affairs Commission of Cebu City (CHAC). She is a member several writers organizations: the Women in Literary Arts, Inc. - Cebu (WILA), Bathalan-ong Halad sa Dagang (BATHALAD), Mamugnaong Anak sa Dagang (MAD) and the translators' group Inotherwords Incorporated (IOW). She is a poet, fictionist, essayist and critic who works part-time in translation.

Her study Women's Common Destiny: Maternal Representations in the Serialized Cebuano Fiction of Hilda Montaire and Austregelina Espina-Moore (2009) was awarded the prestigious Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Award for research excellence in 2010. Her other scholarly works are:

 --Bridging Cultures: The Migrant Philippine Woman in the Works of Jessica Hagedorn, Fatima Lim-Wilson and Sophia Romero (2011),

--Institutionalizing Motherhood (2011)

--The Controlling Mother (2014) and The Other(ed) Woman: Critical Essays (2014) published by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts,

--This Thing of Darkness: Female Shapeshifters in Philippine and Japanese Literature (2018), -----Nature and its Persuasions: Critical Essays (2021), 

--A Comprehensive Compilation of Extant Cebuano Music with Transcription and Analysis (2022) and Mas Masaya sa Entablado: Ang Siste ng mga Piling Dula ni Piux Kabahar (2022).

 

HOW I BECAME A WRITER

Hope Sabanpan Yu

THE FAINT SWEETNESS of the ylang-ylang filled the night air. In the main bedroom, the soft creak of a wooden chair and the shuffle of slippers on the wooden floor told me my grandfather was settling in with a book. My siblings and I would gather at his feet -- wide-eyed, leaning closer as the world around us dissolved and gave way to the exciting world of talking animals in Aesop's Fables or to the labyrinthine imagination of the 1001 Arabian Nights. His voice was a deep river, flowing with wisdom and wonder, carrying foxes and herons and cunning caliphs and bewitched sultans. The stories twisted and turned, teaching lessons I barely grasped but felt in my soul, where words held power, every sentence could hold a whole universe.

 

It was through these nights that I learned the manner of stories: how a fable unfolded, each one deliberate and purposeful, how a tale could be both mirror and lamp. In those quiet and enchanted moments, the seeds of storytelling were planted deep within me, although I did not realize it yet.

 

By day, the world was a canvas of motion and discovery. Elementary school was an affair of textbooks with penciled-in answers, classrooms that smelled faintly of chalk and floor wax, and the occasional quizzes, each with its items of studied possibilities. Reading became a shared ritual where a cluster of classmates exchanged notes on memorable reads, whispering about a mysterious character or the surprise of a plot twist in the Nancy Drew series. We devoured tales of animals that spoke, courageous heroes, and distant worlds. In grade four, I had a teacher who loved to tell stories in the mid-afternoon from Philippine mythology, and my imagination ran wild with characters like the engkanto, the duwende, and the kapre which gave us goosebumps. But even then, stories felt like something more than just entertainment. They were companions, guides, a language I was slowly learning to speak. And yet, I did not write then. Words were still something I absorbed, their enormity pulling me in but never quite pushing me outward to create. Until several years later in high school, that is, with an unexpected present.

At a corner grocery store close to where I lived, I made friends with someone I occasionally ran into each time I bought a chocolate bar or ice cream cone. We just started with smiles and hellos. I sort of had a crush on him. He was an engineer, ten years older than I was. Though I learned that he had a girlfriend, I still fell for him and looked out for him when I failed to find him at the store.

One day he gave me a piece of lined yellow paper. On it was a poem, scrawled in a neat script — a cascade of words that spoke of time bringing a gift from the stars subtly given. It was simple yet profound, and it unsettled something in me. What does one do with a poem gifted to them? The act of receiving it felt incomplete, as though the poem was less a gift and more of a beckoning. So, I wrote back but never gave it to him. The lines felt clumsy at first, the words that stumbled and fell, rhymes that clanged rather than sang. But something about the process felt alchemical. I could take a blank page and, with the pen, fill it with echoes of my thoughts, my dreams, my questions. Responding to that poem was like prying open a locked door, and on the other side lay the boundless terrain of poetry. I wandered through its fields, scribbling at every turn. The more I wrote, the more I realized the words I was chasing were not always my own. They were fragments of my grandfather’s voice, of stories shared in school, of rhythms I had absorbed from the books and the air around me. 

And then poetry, too, began to shift. The compactness of a verse was not always enough for the worlds I wanted to explore. The imagery and emotion I had honed began to stretch outward, finding form in characters, in dialogue, in the tangled arcs of short stories. It was terrifying at first. Where poems were distilled lightning, short stories were sprawling storms with thunderheads to navigate and sudden downpours to endure. But they also offered something new: the chance to inhabit other lives, to construct worlds from scratch, to play god with words.

 

University marked the next turning point in my writing. As features and literary editor of the school organ, The New Builder, I began writing short stories in earnest. One of them, titled “Once in a Lifetime,” found its way into print, a quiet but profound affirmation of my efforts. Still, studies consumed much of my time, and writing became an occasional indulgence, with scraps of poetry that rarely found their way into publication but were filed religiously along with others.

It wasn’t until I entered a contest and my poem “Ibabaw sa Kakahuyan” was selected and published in a newspaper that I thought, perhaps, I had the makings of a writer. And this was certainty solidified when I joined my first writers' workshop, the Cornelio Faigao Memorial Writers' Workshop, after having been rejected the previous year with a submission for poetry. I submitted a story titled “The Driver’s Daughter” and it was there, amid the critique and camaraderie that I began to see writing as more than a solitary pursuit. Soon other workshops followed, scattered across the country, each one widening my understanding of the literary world and amazing me with the richness of the other fellows’ writings and the brilliance with which the seasoned writers critiqued the works.

 

Still, life has its own stories to tell, and for a time, mine shifted. I continued to write occasionally, but married life became a priority. My vehicle for storytelling became the bedtime tales I spun for my little daughter – when I was not reading from my own copy of Aesop’s Fables; stories conjured up from my imagination and populated with creatures from Philippine mythology like the tikbalang, aswang, and the manananggal. When I found myself free in the afternoons and wove a story, my daughter’s wondrous eyes reflected back the magic I had first discovered as a child. Then I moved on to writing children’s stories that took on issues with the environment. The fairy child that lives in the trees whose skin is brown. She’s small but fierce, her laughter the sound of leaves rustling in the wind. But her world is shrinking, as tree after tree is felled to the sound of saws cutting through, the earth trembling under the clearing taking place. She is a child of the forest, and her home is vanishing. When she meets two schoolboys one late afternoon, she is able to tell them about her plight and together, they learn that to protect the fairy’s home is to save something irreplaceable.

 

And then there’s the boy who swims in the sea. Born with webbed hands and feet, he is a curiosity, a child the villagers whisper about. But in the water, he’s a marvel, moving like a fish, speaking to dolphins and fish in a language only they understand. The coral reefs are his playground, his sanctuary, until the day he learns of how the other fishermen in his village earn their keep – through dynamite fishing. He cannot stop the fishermen alone, but he can show his village what harm dynamite can lead to aside from the life underwater and the wonder that is being destroyed.

 

This was one of the best times of my life as spinning these tales seemed effortless to do – a child sees the world without the armor we grownups wear, and feel its weight with unfiltered intensity. But the child also carries an immense capacity for hope, for action, for dreaming a world better than the one I’ve inherited. That’s why the brown fairy child exists, why the boy with webbed feet swims through my imagination. They’re sort of a bridge between the magic of a story and the sharp edges of reality.

 

In time, my husband and I ventured into business, a new chapter that demanded its own kind of creativity and diligence. Writing faded to the background, surfacing only in fleeting moments, with a scribbled line now and then, an idea tucked away for later. It wasn’t until after an operation to remove a twisted ovarian cyst that I found myself in a rare stillness, a period of rest that became a period of reckoning. It was then, in the quiet hours of recovery, that I realized what I had always known deep down: I wanted to become a writer.

 

The decision was met with contestation from family members who saw no future in it. “There’s no money in creative writing,” they said. “Writers starve.” They urged me to stick to business, to the pragmatic path we had built together. But something in me refused to yield. Against their doubts, I applied to a Master’s program abroad but opted out at the last minute from choosing the creative writing path. When I was accepted, the practical side of me—the one that had run a business, balanced budgets, and calculated risks—found a compromise. I chose to pursue the research track, reasoning that research funds could support my creative endeavors. In this way, I wove together the practical and the poetic, the pragmatic and the passionate, carving out a path that was uniquely my own.

 

While pursuing my graduate studies in Literature, I continued writing creatively. During the hectic demands of academic life, I continued to write poems, small bursts of reflection and longing. These poems became a collection under the title Paglaum/Hope, a testament to the resilience I had found in words. Later, I published another collection; one that spoke to my views as a woman and my experiences navigating the shifting roles life had given me. In total, I authored four poetry collections, each one a chapter in the unfolding narrative of my creative life.

 

At the same time, academic writing began to take root. Papers written to fulfill class requirements grew into published articles, and the mandate to contribute to scholarly discourse subtly shaped my approach to writing. I seriously began presenting papers at conferences, stepping into the world of academic inquiry with the same curiosity that had first drawn me to storytelling. By the time I entered a doctorate program, I was weaving between academic and creative writing, letting each inform and enrich the other.

Academic writing begins with the seed of a question. For me, it is often one that burrows its way into my thoughts and refuses to leave, like a bone that needs to be chewed on. That first question revolved around Philippine-American women writers, their lives, their words, their diasporic narratives. What happens when these women, fractured by history and geography, write their way toward belonging? What truths do they uncover in the gaps of continents, in the hyphens of their identities?

The joy begins in the chase, combing through databases, chasing the flicker of a citation that might lead me somewhere significant. I read through articles, pulling at threads that dangle enticingly from paragraphs, noting phrases that glimmer with possibility. Following each thread is like a treasure hunt in the library: shelves of books with call numbers become coordinates on a map where the connection can continue. I feel like an explorer with each article in a book from the shelves feeling like a step closer to something even more profound, something hidden waiting to be uncovered to complete the story I speculate can be told. There is exhilaration in the company of scholars, whether dead or alive, whose works have gone ahead of my own; in poring over a study and finding lines that sing with recognition.

 

As the sources accumulated in this laborious process, the synthesis of voices ― mine and those of others, with notes spread around me like a map of stars, the constellations revealed themselves. A writer’s reflection on exile becomes a point of connection to another’s musings on the imposition of English in a foreign land. Themes of food and poetry emerged as anchors, grounding these diverse narratives. As a picture took shape, a new angle on an old discourse, a fresh lens through which to see, I became even more excited. But there were moments of frustration as well; especially with dead ends, the paragraphs that refused to cohere, which as time passed I realized were part of the process, the necessary resistance that sharpened the joy of discovery. When the writing finally flowed, when the ideas stuck in place, it was like the first breath of dawn after a sleepless night.

 

When a draft is finished, I am elated and emptied. The paper now exists outside of me, a fragile thing that carries my thoughts into the world. I imagine it someday in a journal or perhaps in the hands of another scholar, sparking something in them, the way others’ writings have ignited my own curiosity.  The joy of academic writing is at its heart the joy of creation. It is the magic of taking fragments of thought and shaping them into a whole. It is the delight of conversation across time and space, of listening and responding. And it is the hope that, in this weaving of ideas, we might come to understand something new about ourselves, about each other, about the world.

The same can be said of the delight in weaving stories and somehow, with this realization writing was no longer just a response. It became a need, a way of making sense of the chaos both outside and within myself. Writing is the map I use to navigate life’s labyrinth, the mirror in which I search for my reflection.

 

When I think back to those childhood evenings, to my grandfather’s voice reading a fable, I understand what I did not then. He was not just telling us stories; he was passing on a literary inheritance. And when that friend gifted me a poem, he handed me a key to unlock that inheritance. My journey towards becoming a writer meant listening with my whole being ― with my ears, yes, but also with my skin and soul because the story does not always announce itself in words. It can come in the texture of light through a glass window or in the rhythm of waves rushing to the shore. I have many of these things stored like seeds in my pocket. The writing is never perfect; it is but an ever-reaching, straining towards a truth that flickers just beyond my grasp.

 

Embracing this pursuit, chasing the glimmer even as it eludes me, to know that the beauty lies in the trying has been a lifelong endeavor.

 

 READ ALSO:

How I Became a Writer Series

Ian Rosales Casocot

Paulino Lim, Jr.

Caroline S. Hau

Eileen R. Tabios

John Jack G. Wigley

Hope Sabanpan Yu

AND MORE from Cecilia's Blog:

A Book Fair to Remember (And Get Ready For), by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Positively Filipino 

Philippine Folktale - L0s Siete Pecados by Filomena Alesna Cuenco

An Afternoon with Exploding Galaxies, with Carlos Bulosan Book Club, PALH

Carlos Roxas Interview of Cecilia Brainard re Frankfurt Book Fair 

Cecilia Brainard's Travel Report of Frankfurt Book Fair 2024

 Tags: Filipino authors, Filipino writers, Filipino books, Filipino literature

 

How I Became a Writer - John Jack G. Wigley - Filipino FilAm Series #4

 

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Dr. John Jack G. Wigley's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials. 

***

Professor John Jack G. Wigley, Ph.D., is the author of seven books and co-author of a number of textbooks on literature and creative writing. Presently, he is a literature professor at the Faculty of Arts and Letters, a Research Fellow of the UST Research Center for Culture, Arts, and the Humanities (RCCAH), and a Resident Fellow of the Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (UST-CCWLS). He was a former Director of the UST Publishing House and Chair of the UST Department of Literature.

***

A Writer’s Journey Through Memoir Writing

John Jack G. Wigley

I already have seven books – two memoirs, two books of creative nonfiction, a short story collection, a novel, and a translation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera. Some of them have been recognized as outstanding books in local and national book awards. Although I have tried my hand at writing in different genres, I guess I am most remembered for writing memoirs. The first two books I wrote, Falling into the Manhole and Home of the Ashfall, were memoirs. This is my journey of becoming a writer through the writing of memoirs.

 THE BEGINNING   

I developed an early love for literature as a child. While most boys my age would play tumbang preso or shoto or climb guava trees and catch spiders under the scorching heat of the midday sun, I would get the storybook my mother gave me during Christmas, and holler at the young kids, about four or five years old, to come and gather around the wooden staircase of Lolo Jessie. I would borrow my neighbor's kiddie blackboard, ruler, and chalk and read passages from the storybook aloud. I would bang on the board if I saw inattentive kids who seemed uninterested in listening to my retelling of Why the Pineapple Has Many Eyes or Chicken Little. I would ask the kids who said what and what happened to whom in the story. They would answer in unison as I flashed illustrations from the book. I was fascinated by the stories I read to them, totally lost in the world of Pina, the disobedient child, and Chicken Little, the innocent fowl who thought the world was over after an acorn fell on his head.

One day, I thought to myself, I will be writing my own stories.

 

 

How I Became a Writer - Caroline S. Hau - Filipino FilAm Series #3

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Dr. Caroline S. Hau's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials here. 

 

Caroline S. Hau was born in Manila and educated at the University of the Philippines-Diliman and Cornell University. Her books include Tiempo Muerto: A Novel, Demigods and Monsters: Stories, and Recuerdos de Patay and Other Stories. She lives in Kyoto.

 

 

How I Became a Writer

Caroline S. Hau

1 

People like myself aren’t supposed to dream of being a writer, let alone become one.

            Asked what course they would like to take up in college, the children of my neighborhood of San Nicolas in the part of Manila known as Chinatown mostly responded with “Commerce.” I myself copped to that once or twice, despite having zero interest in minding the store.

            The long 1970s were a literary desert for the Philippine Chinese. The price paid by Chinese-language newspapers to remain in publication was the abolition of the literary section, the better to avoid having one’s work (mis)interpreted as a critique of current affairs. A moot issue anyway, since I could barely read and write Mandarin Chinese.

Before that, writing was among the childish things one put away. Pioneers of Chinese-Filipino fiction in English like Alexander SyCip and Benito Lim published only a handful of short stories.

           My parents, however, belonged to that rare breed of Chinese Filipinos who were able to pursue full-time careers as artists. It was my mom who supported my decision to major in English instead of a Pre-Med course at the University of the Philippines. (The response I got from others was invariably “English lang?”) 

I met Charlson Ong soon after the EDSA Revolution opened up a democratic space for writers and publishers. Charlson showed that it was possible to write compellingly about being Tsinoy as a Tsinoy (or, better still, “Intsik”, a fraught term Charlson has called for reclaiming). 

Philippine Folktale - Los Siete Pecados, by Filomena Alesna Cuenco

Filomena Alesna Cuenco

Message from Cecilia Brainard: I am happy to feature a retelling by my maternal grandmother Filomena Alesna Cuenco, of a popular folk tale from the Philippines, called Los Siete Pecados, which translates into the Seven Sins.  It is an origin story of seven small islands near Iloilo in the Visayas area of the Philippines.

I came across this folk retelling by my maternal grandmother when I did research about the families of my mother and father and found a wealth of old newsclippings now archived in some libraries. The retelling by my grandmother was originally published in Bag-ong Kusog, January 22, 1932.  This periodical was ran by my great-grandmother Remedios Lopez Cuenco, the widow of Mariano Albao Cuenco. They were the parents of Senator Mariano Jesus Cuenco (my maternal grandfather), Archbishop of Jaro Jose Maria Cuenco, Representative Miguel Cuenco, Remedios Cuenco Borromeo, and other children many of whom died at infancy.  

Mariano Albao had founded the Imprenta Rosario (the printing/publishing press), but when he died, leaving Remedios widowed at the age of 39, she took over the publishing business. Her children helped her run the business. 

From my mother's stories, I had been under the impression that Filomena Alesna Cuenco was quiet and spent most of her time in the kitchen, away from the more bombastic and loud Cuenco clan.  When I came across this folk tale retelling by Filomena, I had to mentally adjust my image of her: she too helped run the Imprenta Rosario.

Filomena's retelling was in deep Visayan;  Alfredo Zanoria translated my grandmother's work into English. Alfredo is a retired Geologist, formerly with the California EPA. 

LOS SIETE PECADOS

A Memorable Tale of Seven Maidens in the Story about the Isles of the Seven Sins

by FILOMENA ALESNA CUENCO

First published in Cebuano in Bag-ong Kusog

 IF WE STUDY THE MAP of the Philippines, we will notice that not far from Guimaras Island and just across Iloilo harbor are seven little islands protruding out of the sea.  These are known as LOS SIETE PECADOS or SEVEN SINS based on a story from the ancient past.

An Afternoon with Exploding Galaxies, with Carlos Bulosan Book Club, PALH

 

Some photos taken at the book launch of Wilfrido Nolledo and Linda Ty-Casper's novels -- An Afternoon with Exploding Galaxies, Nov. 16, 2024, sponsored by the Carlos Bulosan Book Club and Friends of the Echo Park Library of LA.

Top photo - Seated: L-R. Cecilia Brainard, Blanca Nolledo , Velinda Rockello, Myrla Baldonado

Standing: L-R James Castillo, Noel Alumit, Ruel Nolledo, Orlando Nolledo, Jaime Geaga, David Rockello

Next photo - seated left is Swapna Pawar

Third photo shows Mrs. Nolledo talking to Belinda Rockello

Fourth photo shows Ruel Nolledo, Cecilia Brainard, and Mrs.Nolledo.

Here's the link to the video of the literary event: An Afternoon with Exploding Galaxies, launch of novels by Linda Ty-Casper (Three Cornered Sun) and Wilfrido Nolledo (But for the Lovers);

 

https://youtu.be/8wIDXqBsdHk?feature=shared

How I Became a Writer - Paulino Lim, Jr - Filipino FilAm Series #2

 

 

Paulino Lim, Jr. Copyright Paulino Lim, Jr.

From Cecilia Brainard: I am proud to share Dr. Paulino Lim's Essay on HOW I BECAME A WRITER. All articles and photos are copyrighted by the individual authors. All rights reserved. Cecilia Brainard and PALH have permission from the authors to use their materials here. 

 ***

DR. PAULINO LIM, JR was born in the Philippines on August 23, 1935. He is an emeritus professor of English at California State University, Long Beach. In 2016 he was the recipient of a Philippine Presidential Award for Outstanding Filipino Individuals Overseas, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from his alma mater University of Santo Tomas, Manila. 

***

***

SEÑORA MUÑOZ, daughter of a conquistador, conducted a kindergarten school for the children in the neighborhood, me included. I was five-years-old at the time. She taught us the alphabet, how to combine letters, and speak out the syllables: b, a, ba; l, e, le.

Señora lived with her family in a two-story mansion in Camalig in the province of Albay, Philippines.  Across the street was a plaza that fronted a 17th-century church. It was a joy to see in print the syllables and words that you hear. Because the American colonizers had decreed English to be the medium of instruction in public schools, with the indigenous language of the region (Bisaya, Bikol, Ilocano, Tagalog) taught as a subject, the pupils read bilingually.

There were more texts in English than Bicol, my native language. My Catholic high school St. John's Academy had volumes of the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Zane Grey, and Tarzan series. It also had copies of the National Geographic, with pictures of naked natives whose breasts were blotted out with black ink.

When you read, you become aware of how words are put together to express an idea. An idea may be an object you perceive and give it a name or a word that you, perhaps, already know, e.g., lily. You name its color “white” and compare its shape to a “trumpet,” that evokes the sound of a cavalry or jazz music. The cavalry and jazz create images in your mind, or imagination.

Imagination is one of the mind’s faculties as perception, memory, speculation, and judgment. Imagination creates mental images in the same way a painter creates visual images, or a jazz musician produces aural images.

Memory recalls past events or persons and awakens feelings and emotions. Speculation looks at a future event and its possible outcomes. Judgment looks at evidence, as in the courtroom, resulting in a certainty of it being true, but subject to revision when new evidence turns up. 

Carlos Roxas Interview of Cecilia Brainard re Frankfurt Book Fair

 

The Visayan group, from left: Kris Porio from Komiket, Jerrold Madridano, Susanne Rexrodt-Madridano, Hope Sabanpan-Yu , Julius Relampagos; Front row, l-r Cecilia Brainard, Dinah Roma.

 

Following are the articles by Carlos Roxas, published in Sunstar Cebu. Many thanks to Inigo Carlos Roxas for his zoom interview and writeup. 

 Correction: Cecilia Brainard was part of a panel entitled "Can Fiction Change the World"; RM Topacio Aplaon is the correct name - apologies

Part 1

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/cecilia-brainard-join-historical-frankfurt-book-fair-2024

l-r: Eliza Victoria, Khavn de la Cruz, Cecilia Brainard, RM Topacio Aplaon 

Part 2

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/cebu/cecilia-brainard-joins-historical-frankfurt-book-fair-2024-conclusion

 

READ also Cecilia's Report re Frankfurt Book Fair 2024 

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2024/10/cecilia-brainards-travel-report-of-fbm24.html 

Watch Excerpt from LitProm's Glimpses into Philippine Writing and Publishing - Cecilia Brainard Talks about her novel, The Newspaper Widow  

A Book Fair to Remember (And Get Ready For), by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Positively Filipino 

More pictures from FBM24 

 

Photo of delegates after Turnover from Italy to the Philippines

 

photo courtesy of NBDB, l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Ned Parfan, Butch Dalisay, Beng Dalisay

 

Philippine reception, l-r: Hope Sabanpan-Yu, Senja Pozar (standing), Cecilia Brainard, Prashant Pathak

 

l-r: Anthony Balisi, Consul Mary Luck Hicarte, Cecilia Brainard

l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Barbel Becker, Petra Hardt 

l-r: Karina Bolasco, Ambeth Ocampo, Hope Sabanpan-Yu, Cecilia Brainard

l-r: Hope Sabanpan-Yu, Mara Coson, Cecilia Brainard, Ester Tapia

Group photo with Patricia Evangelista, author of Some People Need Killing -- Seated l-r: Ned Parfan, Patricia Evangelista; Standing l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, Karina Bolasco, Stephanie Coo, Rica Bolipata Santos, Ivy Banzon Abalos (Consul General).

Photo after the Philippine Press Conference, l-r: Jacobo, Kristian Cordero, Neni Sta. Romana Cruz, Karina Bolasco, Cecilia Brainard, Nida Ramirez, Guest, Guest

Philippine Reception l-r: Cecilia Brainard, Senja Pozar, Zala Stanonik, Mara Coson

Photo courtesy of NBDB l-r: Mara Coson, Ned Parfan, Senja Pozar, Cecilia Brainard, Zala Stanonik

l-r: Ned Parfan, Senja Pozar, Zala Stanonik, Cecilia Brainard, Mara Coson

l-r: Petra Hardt, Dimistri Tsoukatos, Cecilia Brainard, Senja Pozar, Zala Stanonik

Cecilia Brainard and Renato Tranquilino with Wiki Germany folk

Cecilia Brainard and Gene Alcantara

Paolo Herras and Cecilia Brainard

Charisse Aquino Tugade and Cecilia Brainard

 

Cecilia Brainard and Patricia Evangelista

Tina Pangan, Cecilia Brainard, Dimitri Tsoukatos

l-r: Arvin Sia, Cecilia Brainard, Gina Soriano, Edna Santos

l-r: Yasmin Arquiza, Cecilia Brainard, Hope Sabanpan-Yu

l-r: Eliza Victoria, Khavn de la Cruz, Cecilia Brainard, RM Topacio Aplaon

L-r: Khavn de la Cruz, Eliza Victoria, RK Topacio Aplaon, Dominator Buhain, Cecilia Brainard, Kristian Cordero, Sonia Santiago

l-r: Hope Sabanpan-Yu, Julius Relampagos, Cecilia Brainard

photo courtesy of NBDB l-r: Ester Tapia, Charisse Aquino Tugarde, Cecilia Brainard, Hope Sabanpan-Yu

Hope Sabanpan-Yu and Cecilia Brainard

Tags: #FBM24,  Frankfurt book fair, Philippine delegation to Frankfurt Book Fair