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.
Then, my parents transferred me to the Brown School across from the apartment where we were staying. All my classmates were Black. Every time someone would go in front and recite, the kid would go back to her or his seat, and I would silently wonder why the backboard was wet just where the kid’s head had been. Months later, I found out it was because my classmates applied pomade to straighten their kinky hair. The pomade left a smudge on the blackboard.
When I was a toddler, I didn’t read Shakespeare or Homer or Aristotle. Nope, not a reading wizard tot. I read Mother Goose rhymes and sang Filipino folk songs in the privacy of our home.
I love to dance, and I even danced ballet on toe shoes on stage at the Chicago Musical College. A shy introvert, I chose ballet as my self-expression, which didn’t require me to make eye contact with the audience or entertain strangers with polite chit-chat.
On our return to the Philippines, we lived in Sampaloc, Manila. Then, we transferred to a newly-built house in Quezon City. In my parents’ house was a study room that served as a library and music room. I would read while listening to classical records on vinyl played on a hi-fi turntable. My father bought the records in the early ‘50s in the United States—baroque music, Beethoven symphonies 1-9, Brahms, Chopin Waltzes and Etudes, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Strauss, Marian Anderson, Wagner, Verdi, etc. We watched up close the best performers of that time at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera House.
As a teenager, I read poetry, biographies and autobiographies, philosophies, mythology, and detective stories. Hardy Boys and Earl Stanley Gardner. I devoured mysteries and comic books such as Brenda Starr and Supergirl. And then came the Tagalog komiks—Mars Ravelo and Pablo S. Gomez.
I was no child prodigy, just an ordinary little girl who was awed by the singing of musical instruments and by opera sets and lighting. These were drama and dream reality.
Curiosity had always been my hat.
At the University of the Philippines High School, somebody on the staff of the school organ UP Highlights asked me to submit a poem for publication. It was my first published work ever, but the title escapes me now.
In high school, I would listen to Papa’s memories of his stint as a journalist. Writing poetry was and is a solitary sojourn. Being a journalist, on the other hand, seemed an adventure, exploring places, meeting all sorts of people. My father said both criminals and presidents are human beings with virtues and imperfections. Same with the poor and the rich. Many times, the downtrodden approach poverty as a matter of survival, while the rich strategize ways of stealing wealth. A reporter must investigate, not with preconceived judgment but with an open mind, instinct, and insight.
I thought of feeding my expanding curiosity. I was a good listener like when you welcome all types of music. I may list down the key questions until they become second nature, adding spicy tidbits or updates. When the subject turns more relaxed and opens up, I mentally jot down the sense of fashion and hair style, the shift in tone, the nuances in facial expressions and body language.
The time I decided I would try journalism, Joe Luna Castro of The Manila Times asked me to do an article on WAC, or Women’s Auxiliary Corp, then the first batch of women in the Philippine Army.
I did research, I interviewed a few WAC, and I finished the article. It never saw print because I held an eight-hour job at UP as graduate assistant, and the only time I could attend to my article was in my spare time. I missed the deadline, but I submitted my article anyway.
Carolina S. Malay had been a star reporter of The Manila Times until she, “Bobbie,” began writing in Pilipino for Taliba as part of her activist, nationalist stand. I guess Joe Luna Castro was looking for her replacement. A tall order! I missed my chance, and thought my dream of becoming a journalist dissolved.
The First Quarter Storm, or FQS, and the bombing of Plaza Miranda on August 21, 1971, in Quiapo, Manila, during the Miting de Avance of the Liberal Party hastened the deterioration of Philippine politics.
Two grenades were hurled onto the stage, resulting in nine deaths and close to a hundred injured, including those among the 4,000 attendees. LP candidates such as Senator Jovito Salonga were seriously injured. Suspects in the bombing included Jose Ma. Sison, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and Marcos himself.
President Ferdinand E. Marcos found an excuse to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, and announce martial law a month later.
My husband Pete Lacaba had covered the protest rallies of the First Quarter Storm, largely composed of students from different schools, as an assignment for the Philippines Free Press. Martial law clamped down major newspapers and magazines. Pete was forced to go underground. I stayed behind as I had to take care of my one-year-old baby. Curfew was imposed, arrests and salvaging were rampant, people panicked. I imagined how difficult it would be to move from one hideout to another.
My mother advised me not to mope. She reminded me that I had a child who depended on me for physical, emotional, mental, and material support. It was true my parents could lend financial aid, but nobody knew how long the dark days of uncertainty would last. Or until when my parents would live.
And so, even before Pete was arrested, I had started giving private piano lessons to beginners. I also took my first regular job at Alemar’s Phoenix as proofreader and copy editor. There, I met the wife of Sammy Rodriguez, one of the Huks incarcerated together with Amado V. Hernandez, Luis Taruc, Angel Baking, etc.
My next full-time job was at National Manpower and Youth Council (NMYC), which was attached to the Department of Labor, headed by Labor Secretary Blas F. Ople. I first entered NMYC as a member of the Information office. NMYC catered to the out-of-school youth and the unskilled laborers.
Then, I was promoted as Secretary in charge of the NMYC newsletter and of the minutes of the meeting attended by the entire Marcos cabinet. Most of the Cabinet Secretaries were brilliant and brutally frank. My direct boss, Director General Rony V. Diaz happily informed me that ever since I took over the Minutes, there had been no objections as to the accuracy of facts and quoted statements.
I didn’t divulge that I started as secretary of Ang Masa, the nationalist tabloid set up by my father and others with the same political leaning.
After my journalist ambition was stunted, I seemed stereotyped in drafting minutes.
Martial was coming to an end. The air was loosening up, dissipating fog. The mosquito press mushroomed. I accepted an invitation to write a column in Filipino for Ang Bagong Masa, the Filipino paper of We Forum. At first I wrote once a week, then twice, then four times a week
I never ran out of topics — women, OCW (overseas contract workers), now OFW (overseas Filipino workers), males supporting feminism, music, film, TV and book reviews, ad infinitum.
It was like coming full circle as I started writing articles in Filipino in Ang Masa.
Nearing the dismantling of martial law witnessed the birth of new newspapers and magazines like Midweek, TV Times, Focus, Who, Celebrity, Mr. & Ms.
For the longest time, I had been a freelancer, churning out articles, essays, interviews, and poems for various publications.
A time there was when the UP Center for Creative Writing picked me to be its resident fellow. After my residency, I was expected to come out with a new book to be published by the UP Press.
I collected some of my previously published works and presented the manuscript to the UP Press. Since the manuscript turned out to be so thick and since such a thick volume might not be feasible market-wise, I lumped all the profiles in one collection (The Trouble with Nick and Other Profiles), and for another book (Déjà vu & Other Essays), my essays on travel, TV, movie, music, and book reviews, the emerging women’s movement during Cory Aquino’s candidacy in the snap election. Because Cory C. Aquino is a woman, and a lot of women rallied behind her, the women’s movement blossomed.
Cory’s win and the People Power Revolution hogged the world’s limelight and unchained the grip of Marcos’s martial law.
My writing never paused. After obtaining an AB in English Literature, I had been blessed with opportunities and with an angel or muse that continued to dictate words and inspirations. Because I never had a room of my own, space has not been a deterrent. A kitchen table has served as my space, a corner in the bedroom has provided privacy enough, a desk at an office has unraveled a complete TV script, a street has often tossed an idea, an image, a sound, a line, a stanza, a whole poem, and I go home from my morning walk elated and record on paper what ticked in my mind while walking.
Writing itself is self-fulfillment. And freelancing gives one freedom to choose what to write but not necessarily to juggle deadlines.
Budding writers at times ask this ancient for advice. I am not an agony writer nor one whose works undergo a million revisions. If a period of aridity dampens my creativity, there are books to read, movies to watch, poems to translate, young talents to discover (like those of my grade school grandchildren).
Journalists who have been in the business for decades try their hand in creative writing. Some also ask for suggestions as to how to improve their skills. It’s not replies from me they need, it’s more answers to their own questions. Who’s their target audience? What’s their motive in reaching out to their readers? Do they want to preach or to entertain or to share a life from which they can draw lessons?
For me, until dictation returns—earthly, spiritual, mystical—different experiences accumulate and enrich one’s core.~
Book Celebrations of HOW I BECAME A WRITER 2
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 – Book launch of How I Became a Writer2: Essays by Filipino Writers 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.
Note that contributors to How I Became a Writer 2, will be signing at Vibal’s books on September 12, from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.
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READ ALSO:
Perspectives in the Arts and Humatiies Asia - Dr. Charlie Veric Interviws Cecilia Brainard
Writing Amid the Babel of Books by Vicente L Rafael - included in How I Became a Writer 2
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