I Became a Writer by Marra Pl. Lanot, from How I Became a Writer 2

 

Marra Lanot 1944-2026

 

The book,  How I Became a Writer: Essays by Filipino Writers 2  (Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, published by Vibal 2026) will be released in September 2026. The book will be launched in Cebu (9/5/26 - 3 P.M. Lost Books) and Manila. (9/12/26 - 5 pm MIBF, Vibal Booths) - see schedule below

I am sharing this personal essay by Marra Pl. Lanot who unfortunately passed away on Sunday, August 16, 2026.  As the literary community grieves for her, I think Marra would like her words heard as a way of comforting us.  Rest in Peace, Marra, and thank you for everything!  ~ Cecilia Brainard, Editor

Marra Pl. Lanot is a poet, essayist, and a freelance journalist, who writes in Filipino, English, and Spanish. She has several books of poems, profiles, and a collection of essays. She has been a delegate representing the Philippines in various literary events, and has been anthologized and translated in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Indian and Melayu. Her teleplays have also been locally produced. Her recent book is Poesia Completa en Lengua Espanola (Edicion de Isaac Donoso, Visor Libros, Madrid). 

I BECAME A WRITER

copyright 2026 Marra Pl. Lanot

Curiosity has bugged me since I was three years old. At three, I wondered where my parents went, why they didn’t take me along, and would leave me with my aunt. I would peer into the darkness, look at the night through window bars, and silently ask unanswered questions. In anger, I took a pair of scissors and snipped my hair in random fashion until I felt sleepy.

When my parents arrived, they were shocked to see my hair in disarray and scolded my aunt for not watching over me. From then on, my parents took me with them whenever they went out, partying with friends and enjoying evenings of musical soirée.

As an only child for eight years, I travelled with my parents to pre-Mao Tse Tung China, Hawaii, California, New York, and Chicago. My Mom, Gloria Licad Lanot, persuaded my Dad, Serafin Lanot, a school dropout, to take up Speech at Columbia University in New York City. For his final paper, his adviser, upon learning that my Dad was a journalist in the Philippines, asked him to submit his writings as his dissertation requirement. He obtained a degree with flying colors. We stayed in Chicago for four years. My Mom finished her MA in Piano at the Chicago Musical College. Her graduation recital was received with a standing ovation.

In Chicago, I was enrolled at the International School, was on the front page of Chicago Tribune with my classmates of different nationalities.

Book Launches for How I Became a Writer 2: Essays by Filipino Writers

 

I am happy to announce that the anthology, HOW I BECAME A WRITER 2: ESSAYS BY FILIPINO WRITERS, (Vibal 2026, Ed Cecilia Manguerra Brainard) will be launched in Cebu and in Manila:

Saturday, September 5, 2026, 3 pm - Lost Books Cebu, CAO Mercado Bldg, Osmena Blvd, Cebu City - Editor Cecilia Brainard and Contributor Danton Remoto will be there;

Saturday, September 12, 2026, 5 pm - Vibal launch at the MIBF, Vibal booth (Booth Nos. 189–193 and 204–209, Aisles K & L) Manila International Book Fair 2026 at SMX Convention Center Manila.

Further, book signings by contributors are scheduled on September 12 at the MIBF from 1 until 6 pm.

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I am sharing my Introduction to the collection. Check out Vicente Rafael's contribution and a review of the first volume of How I Became a Writer - see Read also at the bottom. The names of the 25 contributors and the blurbs are on the back of the cover, above. 

INTRODUCTION

copyright 2026 by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

THE FIRST VOLUME OF How I Became a Writer: Essays by Filipino Writers, which was released in 2025, grew out of my personal curiosity about how other writers discovered their gift for writing. I wondered how they developed their talent to become the noted writers they now are. I invited my literary writer friends to share in my blog their personal journeys. The 22 authors’ personal stories by established writers revealed a lot about the creative process and at the same time, taught others “how to do it.”

Validation of the strength of the collection came in different forms. Vibal picked it up for publication; it is one of their best sellers. Philippine National Artist in Literature, Resil Mojares, who is reputed for his straight-talking, praised it saying: “How I Became a Writer: Essays by Filipino and Filipino American Writers offers intimate, fine-grained accounts in the making of what constitutes contemporary Philippine literature, provided by a remarkable set of Filipino writers in the Philippines and abroad, It is a book to be treasured.”

Further validation came when my Brazilian publisher picked up the book for translation into Portuguese. 

Gratified by the response to Volume 1 of How I Became a Writer, I went on to collect personal essays for Volume 2 of How I Became a Writer. I wanted this second volume to offer something different from the first volume. Aside from testimonials by fiction writers and poets, I wanted to hear the personal stories of non-fiction writers, including journalists, historians, and others, about their challenges and developments, as well as their contributions to Philippine writings.

I sought them out, but I quickly learned that one cannot box writers in categories; writers will write in different genres: a historian can be a journalist, a poet, a playwright, a memoirist, a fiction writer. This anthology includes such authors who write in various genres. The collection also includes playwrights, a chick-lit novelist, and a comic-book writer. The reader will find an amazing collection of testimonials by established Filipino writers from different parts of the world, who have something to say about their creative process and work.

PEN Int'l Congress Barcelona & Santiago de Compostela - 1992, 1993, PEN USA West

 

Photos taken at the PEN International Congress in Santiago de Compostela, September 1993, with Salman Rushdie. I'm on the far right. 

The writers group, PEN USA West, which was/is part of the PEN International group, has changed over the years, and I found no information about the years I served as an Executive Board Member. I  represented PEN as a Delegate to the International Congress in Barcelona (April 1992) and in Santiago de Compostela (September 1993).

As secretary of the Executive Board, I used to have more materials -- newsletters and such, but they are mostly gone. I found the following and am sharing here. 

During the time I served in the Executive Board, the Director was Walter Bray. He was later replaced by a woman named Sheryl (?) . Carolyn See had recruited me to be on the board. Other active PEN board members were Joanne Leedom-Ackerman, and Harriet Rochlin

I will add in this post, information and pictures that I find in my files about PEN USA West, especially since the current PEN USA West and PEN New York seem to have no archival material about PEN USA West at that time.

Following is a PEN newsletter about the Barcelona Congress, including a separate write up.

 

***

Freedom to Write Committee article about Mila Aguilar

***

Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia -- Dr. Charlie Veric Interviews Cecilia Brainard

 

Perspectives in the Arts and Humanities Asia  16:1 (2026)

On Writing, Diaspora, and Translation: Interview with Cecilia Manguerra Brainard by Dr. Charlie Samuya Veric

For complete transcript, click on link below:

https://archium.ateneo.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1481&context=paha

Born and raised in Cebu, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the awardwinning author and editor of over twenty-two books, including the novels When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Magdalena, and The Newspaper Widow, and her Selected Short Stories. Brainard has worked with Asian American youths for which she received a Special Recognition Award from the Los Angeles Board of Education. She has also received awards from the California State Senate, 21st District, several USIS Grants, a California Arts Council Fellowship, an Outstanding Individual Award from the City of Cebu, Philippines, Brody Arts Fund Award, a City of Los Angeles Cultural grant, and many more. The books she has written and edited have also won awards, the Philippine National Book Award, the Gintong Aklat Award and the International Gourmand Award, among others. Her novels and Selected Short Stories have been translated into Arabic, Azerbaijani, Greek, Japanese, North Macedonian, Portuguese, Serbian, Turkish, and Slovenian, ranking her among the Top Translated Filipino Authors of the Philippine Works and Translation Data Base. 

Some short stories of hers have been translated into Finnish. She runs a small press, PALH or Philippine American Literary House. What follows is a transcript of a public interview by Charlie Samuya Veric, which preceded an open forum and the launch of the reprint of Linda Ty-Casper’s A Small Party in the Garden. These events were funded by the Kwan Laurel Fund for the Humanities and organized by the Literary and Cultural Studies Program of the Ateneo de Manila University, in cooperation with the Ateneo Archive of Philippine Literature in English, the Ateneo Martial Law Museum and Library, the Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings, Kritika Kultura, the Ateneo Department of Fine Arts of the Ateneo de Manila University, and the student literary organization Plume.  

Continue in Ateneo de Manila link.

The talk was on February 19, 2026, 5 pm at the NGF Conference Room, Horacio de la Costa Hall, Ateneo de Manila University, QC.  

READ ALSO:

Ateneo Students Reponses 2026- Linda Ty-Casper's Book Launch 

Cecilia Brainard & Linda Ty-Casper Events at Ateneo Literary and Cultural Studies Program 
Released: Linda Ty-Casper's A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition 

Was Linda Ty-Casper Really a Saling-Pusa - Article about Ty-Casper in Postively Filipino

Gardens and Mountains of Philippine Literature by Charlie Samuya Veric 

Cecilia Brainard Fiction: The One-Night Stand at the Frankfurt Book Fair  

            Cecilia Brainard Fiction: After the Ascension 

            Cecilia Brainard's The Journey

            Celebrating Translations of  Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's Fiction

Tags: #booksphilippines #martiallawphilippines #marcosdictatorship #Filipinonovels #Ateneodemanila #ateneouniversity

Writing Amid the Babel of Books by Vicente L. Rafael - How I Became a Writer 2

The book, How I Became a Writer : Essays by Filipino  Writers 2 (Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, published by Vibal 2026) will be released in September of this year. The book will be launched in Cebu and Manila; details are forthcoming.

I am sharing this essay by Professor Vicente L. Rafael who unfortunately passed away last February 21, 2026.  He had sent his essay soon after I put out the Call in December 2025. Dr. Rafael is one of 25 contributors to the collection, How I Became a Writer 2 ~ Cecilia Brainard, Editor

VICENTE L. RAFAEL (1956-2026)

BIO:  VICENTE L. RAFAEL was Professor of History and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. His research and teaching focused mostly on the comparative political and cultural history of the Philippines, the United States and Southeast Asia.

He wrote The Sovereign Trickster: Death and Laughter in the Age of Duterte (2022). The rest of his books include Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule (1988/1993), White Love and Other Events in Filipino Histories (2000), The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the Technics of Translation in the Spanish Philippines (2005), “Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language Amid Wars of Translation (2016), all published by Duke University and co-published in the Philippines by Ateneo University Press.

He also edited Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays in Filipino Cultures (1995) and Figures of Criminality in Indonesia, the Philippines and Colonial Vietnam (1999).  Rafael also wrote the Introduction to a collection of Nick Joaquin’s stories, The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic published by Penguin Classics (2017). 

Rafael also writes op-ed columns for Rappler, The Daily Inquirer in the Philippines, and has written for The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books in the US. He waw the recipient of numerous awards both abroad and in the Philippines, including a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Social Science Research Council Fellowship, a Ford Foundation fellowship, and residencies at the Stanford Humanities Center, Univ. of California, Irvine Humanities Center, East-West Center in Honolulu, and several others. After graduating with a PhD in History and Anthropology from Cornell Univ., he taught at the University of Hawai’I at Manoa, the University of California at San Diego, Stanford University and the University of Washington, Seattle.

Vicente L. Rafael passed away on February 21, 2026, five days after his 70^th birthday. He was married to Lila Ramos Shahani. He submitted the following article in December of 2025. Copyright 2026 by Vicente L. Rafael. Reprinted with his permission.

***

 

WRITING AMID THE BABEL OF BOOKS

My practice and habits of writing have always been shaped by my reading. And most of the books I have read come from my explorations of various libraries. I could not imagine writing without the sheltering space of libraries and the enabling generosity of librarians. So let me start with an account of how libraries have been important to my writing.

Taste of Home: Cebu Longaniza by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

 

My article "Taste of Home: Cebu Longaniza" was published by Sunstar Lifestyle on June 8, 2026.  

I used Plantation Bay's recipe by executive chef Lee Mathew Ramas.

Here's the link to the article:

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/.../taste-of-home-cebu-longaniza

Here is the recipe of Chef Lee Mathew Ramas:

Plantation Bay Home-made Pork Longganiza 

From Executive Chef Lee Mathew S. Ramas, courtesy of Chef Lee and Plantation Bay:

 (makes 21 dozen)

Ingredients: 

1. Pork Shoulder Butt – 5.5 kgs 

2. Pork Back Fat – 4.5 kgs 

3. Iodized Salt – 230 g 

4.White Pepper – 85 g 

5. Paprika – 45 g 

6. Praque Powder – 20 g 

7. Brown Sugar – 2.1 kgs 

8. Fresh Garlic (Ground) – 950 g 

9. Cayenne – 10 g 

10. Knorr Seasoning – 810 g 

11. Water – 750 ml 

12. Pork Casing - used to hold the sausage mixture and form the traditional longganiza links. 

Casper, Leonard. “BACK-AZIMUTH Filipino Writers Abroad.” Kinaadman XXVII (2005): 69–82.

 

Dr. Leonard Ralph Casper

Casper, Leonard. “BACK-AZIMUTH Filipino Writers Abroad.” Kinaadman XXVII (2005): 69–82.

Analysis by Dr. Leonard Ralph Casper, of Filipino American and other authors' writings.

 Mentioned are: Marianne Villanueva, Virginia Cereno, Jessica Hagedorn. Ninotchka Rosca, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Tess Uriza Holthe, Geraldine Barangan Korten, Brian Ascalon Roley, Noel Alumit, Nadine L. Sarreal, Eric Gamalinda, 

READ ALSO:

Book Reviews of Linda Ty-Caspers Will You Happen and Lives Remembered 

Ateneo Students Reponses 2026- Linda Ty-Casper's Book Launch 

Cecilia Brainard & Linda Ty-Casper Events at Ateneo Literary and Cultural Studies Program 

Released: Linda Ty-Casper's A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition 

Was Linda Ty-Casper Really a Saling-Pusa - Article about Ty-Casper in Postively Filipino

Introduction to Linda Ty-Casper's A Small Party - Gardens and Mountains of Philippine Literature by Charlie Samuya Veric 

Tags: Filipino American Literature, Academic Study Philippine Literature, Philippine Studies, Filipino American authors. 

Amazing American South West - Cecilia Brainard Report

 

My family and I visited Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. and had a very enjoyable time. I will add pictures in this post, so please check back. 

Our first stop was Las Vegas just to break the long driving trip. We stayed at South Point Hotel where we had a great prime rib meal at Primarily Prime Rib restaurant. I do not eat a lot of beef but tried their prime rib. It was one of the best prime rib dinners I ever had.  Prior to dinner, we had cocktails at the adjoining Mexican restaurant and had a fun conversation with Danny Hofer, a writer from the Bronx (Tales from the Widows and Remembrances of a South Bronx Cop).  He comes from the same Bronx-community as our dear friends Elizabeth and Pat. 

 

From Las Vegas, we made our way to Utah, to see Zion National Park.  Temperatures were over 100 degrees, but we went ahead and parked outside the Park (recommended as parking is limited in the Park itself), and we took the free shuttle. The shuttle rides to get into the park and within the park are free. There is also a tram ride (paid) that you can take for a more leisurely look at some sites. There are numerous hiking trails in the park to allow you to see waterfalls, cliffs, and surreal rock formations.  

American Bison (buffalo) - seen outside the Park, on our way to Arizona 

We stayed outside the Park, and discovered a wonderful restaurant in Hurricane Utah, the Main Street Cafe.  The Cafe has a gourmet menu that includes a wide selection of great dishes.  We ate our dinners there and tried their Linguine with shrimps, scallops and salmon in a creamy white sauce; Hamburger with gorgonzola cheese and sweet potatoes on the side; Chef Salad; Crab and Shrimp Ravioli with mushroom sauce. If you are near this area, I highly recommend the Main Street Cafe n Hurricane, Utah, near Zion National Park.

Our primary destination was Sedona, Arizona, where the family gathered. We have visited Sedona in the past, and the contrast between what it had been and what it is now is startling to me. It has grown and has become a main tourist spot now, meaning there are more houses and shops, and many tourists. It remains beautiful. Then and now, Sedona is famous as a mystical place, with vortex sites, UFO sightings, amazing sunsets and views, great food and shopping, and other interesting goings-on.  It was very hot so it was best to move around first thing in the morning (the hikers left at 5:30 am), and last thing in the afternoon (to catch the sunset), and evening (to look at the stars, shooting stars, and possible UFOs).

Book Review of Linda Ty-Casper's A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition

 

Book Review

A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition by Linda Ty-Casper

Review by Eileen Tabios, The Halo-halo Review

(PALH, 2026, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, check Baybayin Bookshop in the Philippines)

May 19, 2026, Reprinted with permission of Halo-Halo Review

BOOK LINK 

Though I didn’t read it until this year, I’d long known that Linda Ty-Casper’s A Small Party in a Garden, first published in 1988, critiqued Ferdinand Marcos, Sr.’s Martial Law rule. (Reviews of that First Edition are featured HERE.) But one advantage to reading her novel in 2026 is seeing the prescience with which the novel hearkened what since has happened in the Philippines. Simplistically, political leadership has not risen to its responsibilities of good governance such that the country has suffered from, among many other elements, the events and effects of Marcos, Sr.; Rodrigo Duterte (currently on trial at the International Criminal Court at the Hauge for charges of “crimes against humanity”); and always corruption corruption and corruption.

Reviews Linda Ty-Casper's Recent Books: WILL YOU HAPPEN & LIVES REMEMBERED

 

PALH (Philippine American Literary House) is proud to share recent book reviews of books by Linda Ty-Casper published by PALH and Bughaw Ateneo Press. These books are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. In the Philippines, check Baybayin Book shop. 

The Ateneo has copies of the Bughaw edition of Will You Happen.

***

WILL YOU HAPPEN, PAST THE SILENCE, THROUGH THE DARK?: REMEMBERING LEONARD RALPH CASPER

Perspective in the Arts and Humanities Asia, Vol 15, No 2

Review by L. M. Grow, Broward College

PALH, 2022. 346 pages; Bughaw (Ateneo Press), 2023. 326 pages.

Complete Review here:  https://archium.ateneo.edu/paha/vol15/iss2/11 - page 5

Excerpt:

As interesting and admirable as Casper’s life was, the value of Will You Happen goes well beyond biography and thus avoids the limitation of many biographies, memoirs, and autobiographies: extolling the virtues and achievements of their respective subject persons but offering readers little else. Instead, here there is a full complement of information sections about publications, interactions with literary and other luminaries, letters to and from Ty-Casper and other renowned authors, and a virtual Homeric catalogue of visitors to the Casper house at 54 Simpson Drive in Framingham, Massachusetts, and responses to Casper’s death in 2018. Although Casper’s creative writing constitutes only a tributary to literature, the brief account of his contributions to the Southwest Review (20–24) is a welcome segment of his memoir ...

This book is a very valuable contribution to both Philippine literature and American literature.

***

LIVES REMEMBERED, A MEMOIR

Perspective in the Arts and Humanities Asia, Vol 15, No 2

Review by Eileen Tabios

PALH, 2025 

 Complete review here:  https://archium.ateneo.edu/paha/vol15/iss2/12

Excerpt: 

Those who are remembered are mostly memorable because Ty-Casper felt love or affection for them. In that sense, the resonant writing in the book is apt—one can sense the burnished gold sheen of treasured memories. For example, she recalls two family portraits painted over a 177 hundred years ago: “Long ago, itinerant artists peddled partly finished portraits in the provinces, and clients chose the frame on which to have their likeness painted” (5–6)! For readers not related to Ty-Casper who are less interested in her relatives and more in the times they lived, she provides numerous vibrant and interesting details like these traveling portraitists

Lives Remembered is worth reading if only for the Harvard Law School incident that “redirected her life” into becoming a historical fictionist. At the university’s Widener Library, Ty-Casper discovered books that contained “unfair and erroneous” material as regards the Philippines and decided to write an essay refuting them. But upon discovering that some of those books had never been checked out of the library to be read—a detail that reminds how the most insulting thing a writer can experience is not criticism but indifference—she decided to “write a historical novel which might have more staying power/life outside the shelf” (71). “Just one book,” Ty-Casper recalled, “then I’d go on with my life” (71). More than one book, of course, occurred.

Linda Ty-Casper is the author of over 22 books, which generally deal with Philippine historical and political themes. She is the recipient of the SEA Write Award, UNESCO/P.E.N., Rockefeller Bellagio, Radcliffe Fellowships and other awards. Her literary work is considered a significant contribution to Filipino, Philippine American, as well as Asian American literature. Her works of fiction are so powerful that two of her novels, Wings of Stone and Awaiting Trespass, were banned in the Philippines during the Marcos Dictatorship; the books were published in London. 

Her recent books include:

 Will You Happen, Past the Silence, Through the Dark: Remembering Leonard Ralph Casper (PALH 2023: Bughaw 2024); 

Lives Remembered, A Memoir (PALH 2025);

A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition (PALH 2026). 

Fortress in the Plaza (PALH, forthcoming). 

 

READ ALSO:

Ateneo Students Reponses 2026- Linda Ty-Casper's Book Launch 

Cecilia Brainard & Linda Ty-Casper Events at Ateneo Literary and Cultural Studies Program 

Released: Linda Ty-Casper's A Small Party in a Garden: Revised and Critical Edition 

Was Linda Ty-Casper Really a Saling-Pusa - Article about Ty-Casper in Postively Filipino

Gardens and Mountains of Philippine Literature by Charlie Samuya Veric