Issue 10 Contributors

Victor Peñaranda, a Palanca Award winner and more recently of the Philippines Free Press Awards for poetry, has traveled extensively in the Philippines for his development work and lately to Bhutan and now to Macedonia on long assignments. Together with Alfred A. Yuson, he edited the now defunct but sorely missed broadsheet-format New Age and literary magazine called Ermita, which brought together the best Filipino literary and artistic talents during its existence of a little more than a year. But Bimboy, as he is known to friends, is first and foremost a poet of a broad consciousness that is however fully grounded on social realities. His many readers await the next to his first book, Voyage in Dry Season, which won the Manila Critics Circle’s National Book Award in 1996.

After almost a decade of working as a freelance photographer in Europe, Maurice Oliver returned to America in 1990. Then, in 1995, he made a life-long dream reality by traveling around the world for eight months. But instead of taking pictures, he recorded the experience in a journal which eventually became poems. And so began his desire to be a poet. His poetry has appeared in numerous national and international publications and literary websites including Potomac Journal, Pebble Lake Review, Taj Mahal Review (India), Dandelion Magazine (Canada), Stride Magazine (UK), and online at thievesjargon.com, interpoetry.com (UK), kritya.com (India), blueprintreview.de (Germany), and is forthcoming in The Arabesques Review (Algeria). His forth chapbook, "One Remedy Is Travel" was published in August '07 at Origami Condom. The editor of the ezine Concelebratory Shoehorn Review (www.concelebratory.blogspot.com) he lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works as a private tutor.

Argee Guevarra, or Roberto (nickname from his initials), is a poet, activist, newspaper columnist for Business World, and lawyer for various activist causes and organizations. As one of the legal counsels of Sanlakas Party, a national coalition of peoples organizations working for the protection of people's rights and welfare, and supporter or legal counsel for opposition personalities, Argee has found himself many times at the receiving end of state harassment including actual arrests and detention. A fellow of the U.P. National Writers Workshop, Argee's first book of poetry is Salimbayan, (Swoop, Sipat Publishing, 1994 ), co-authored with Neal Imperial and Jim Pascual Agustin (also a contributor of this magazine).

Aberjhani, poet, historian, journalist, blogger, and novelist, is one of the most versatile African-American authors writing today. He is co-author of the award-winning Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts On File); and author of The Wisdom of W.E.B. Du Bois. The recently published Bridge of Silver Wings is his third book of poetry; and Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World his first novel. He is currently at work on the completion of a 17-year book project, titled Elemental: the Power of Illuminated Love, featuring the work of the critically acclaimed award-winning artist Luther E. Vann with poetry and prose by Aberjhani. In addition, he is founder of the popular Creative Thinkers International website.

Jose F. Lacaba, "the poor boy from Pateros [a town near Manila] who went to the rich people's school on a scholarship," the Ateneo de Manila, dropped out on his fourth year as an English major to write for the leading news magazine the Philippines Free Press, under the editorship of the great Nick Joaquin and publisher Teodoro Locsin Sr. He was hired as "proofreader/ copyreader/reporter," and as the last he came into his own politicization. As reporter, he covered the student beat "when the students were involving themselves with the farmers and workers, the people were agitating against the Marcos regime, and the stage was being set for what is now known as the First Quarter Storm." In fact he became the Free Press star reporter and later collected his reportage in the book Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage (1982). He has since then become a professional and consummate journalist, having edited a succession of magazines, including Filipino Free Press, Asia-Philippines Reader, National Midweek and Philippine Graphic. Apart from being one of our foremost poets in Filipino, with four books of poetry and one translation, Pete is one of our finest screen playwrights, having written several award-winning films (locally and internationally) for the great director Lino Brocka.

Neil Doloricon has been a Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines and is one of the leading social realist painters of the Philippines. He has mounted numerous solo and group exhibits and is lately experimenting with digital art. He is also a superb printmaker who works adorn book covers, gallery and collectors' walls and rally streamers and placards.

Heber Bartolome is a poet, song writer and painter, and more popularly known as the leader and founder of the nationalist folk and rock group Banyuhay (Metamorphosis). Together his borthers Jess and Levi, they led a resurgence of nationalist popular music which was also both innovative and respectful of Filipino musical traditions. Heber's Banyuhay songs include the immortal Tayo'y mga Pinoy, Nena, and many others. He continues to compose and cut records for both his new and loyal fans.

Saira Peñaranda is the daughter of Bimboy and Jo Peñaranda.