TRAVELS (and more) WITH CECILIA BRAINARD: May 2017

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

#KababayanToday with G. Tongi with writers Noel Alumit & Cecilia Brainard

Noel Alumit and Cecilia Brainard were guests of G. Tongi host/producer of #KababayanToday. We talked about Filipino Literature in the context of Raymond Chandler's quote, "Cute as a Filipino on a Saturday night." We also discussed Alex Tizon's "My Family's Slave" - our reactions and thoughts on this posthumous piece.

Watch the program on May 30, at 3:30 p.m. California time on LA 18 in Los Angeles and Hawaii.

It was a very lively discussion. Thanks G. Tongi for the interview.

#Philippines #Literature #FilAm Noel Alumit G. Tongi Kababayan Today

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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's official website is ceciliabrainarddotcom. She is the award-winning author and editor of 22 books, including When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena, Selected Stories, Vigan and Other Stories, and more. She edited Growing Up Filipino 1, 2, & 3, Fiction by Filipinos in America, Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America, and other books.. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish; and many of her stories and articles have been widely anthologized. Cecilia has received many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has lectured and performed at UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. She has served in the Board of literary arts groups such as PEN, PAWWA (Pacific Asian American Writers West), among others.

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Book Launch Brainard's Magdalena and Other Titles University of Santo Tomas Publishing House

Here's a picture of Ralph Semino Galan accepting a copy of my novel, Magdalena, at the book launch last April at the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House. He is flanked by Ailil Alvarez and my publisher, Jack Wigley. I couldn't attend but was delighted Ralph could be there on my behalf. Here are some pictures at the event.

For further information about Cecilia Brainard’s novel, Magdalena, please contact the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House at G/F Beato Angelico Building, University of Santo Tomas, Manila, Philippines, tel: +62-2-731-3522.

CLICK HERE TO READ AN EXCERPT OF MAGDALENA
CLICK HERE TO READ A BOOK REVIEW BY WORLD LITERATURE TODAY, April-June 2003
CLICK HERE TO READ A BOOK REVIEW BY BABAYLAN SPEAKS, March 2003
CLICK HERE TO READ A BOOK REVIEW BY Rhodora G. Magan in the GSTF Journal of Law and Social Sciences Vol. 4, No. 2, October 2015
CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO BOOK REVIEW by Luisa Igloria for MELUS, Vol. 29, No. 1, Spring 2004

CLICK HERE TO READ Rhodora G. Magan's'scholarly paper, Eve and Her Beings: A Chopin-Brainard Simulation, delievered at the Asidan Conference on Literature & Librarianship, April 2-5, 2015, Osaka, Japan.

tags: #Philippines #literature #Filipino

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Cecilia Brainard's Reaction to Alex Tizon's "A Slave in My Family"

The confessional/memoir "My Family's Slave" by Filipino American writer Alex Tizon has caused a great stir, one might even say uproar, since it first appeared in The Atlantic earlier this week. The piece was published posthumously because Tizon died last March.

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

#Travel Cruise to Bordeaux France

We took an 8-day Viking Cruise to Bordeaux, which included sailing to the Gironde, Dordogne and Garonne Rivers. It was also a wine cruise, which meant we visited vineyards and sampled wines and food that went with the drinks.

Some of our companions bought bottles of wine to ship back to their homes, but since California has good wine, we did not bother. We did learn more about wine-making and drinking. For instance I had thought that old oak casks were desirable for ageing wine. I was wrong. New oak barrels impart the oak flavor to the wine, which explains why a new barrel costs 100 times more than an old barrel.

I also learned to look at the color of the wine, to sniff it to detect the different scents, and to sip it in a way that the liquid lingers in the taste buds.