Frank Peñones Jr, one of the current leading voices in Bikol poetry and writing, is finishing his MFA at San Jose State University in California under a Ford International fellowship. At the same time, he is putting the final touches to his new bilingual poetry collection Cancion nin Tawong Lipod (Song of the Invisible Man). He was a fellow of the University of the Philippines National Writers Workshop and a study grantee of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. His first book is Ragang Rinaranga (2005) and he has won several times in the Saint Peter Baptist Catholic Mass Media Awards, the 2005 Premio Tomas Arejola Para Sa Literaturang Bikol and the Sumagang Awards For Literature and Journalism.
Jane Scott is the nom de plume of Jane Adiong-Scotchmer who was born and raised in the south of the Philippines but considers herself a child of the planet. She currently lives in the southeast of England with husband John and their lovely GSD Tjukken. She trained as an anthropologist but most of her professional life revolved around research, writing, publishing and journalism. She loves reading other people’s poetry and she hopes to give the same pleasure to others through her own work. She also writes fiction and creative non-fiction. She writes us that she stumbled upon our ezine through Our Own Voice and the U.P. Panitikan portal. Her passionate poetry indicates the she should be a regular contributor.
Edgar B. Maranan launched only last year A Taste of Home, Pinoy Expats and Food Memories, which he edited together with his daughter, Len S. Maranan-Goldstein. An award-winning poet, essayist, fictionist, playwright, writer of children’s stories, and translator, Ed has spent most of the last fifteen years in London as information officer of the Philippine diplomatic mission. Having won some 3o prizes for his works in English and Filipino, he was inducted into the Palanca Hall of Fame in 2000. His other numerous awards are for his fiction and children’s stories, including the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards and the Philippine Graphic Magazine Nick Joaquin Literary Prize. He collected his poetry in Passage / Poems 1983-2006, in October 2007, under Bookmark.
Ruel de Vera is more widely known as the young hotshot journalist who joined the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the country’s leading broadsheet daily, fresh out of college. He is associate editor of the newspaper, as well as its weekend magazine, the Sunday Inquirer Magazine. An award-winning author, poet and editor, Ruey has two poetry collections, has edited several anthologies and written a handful of biographies. These include The Zero Hour (The Personal War of Basilio J. Valdez), The Spirit Quest Chronicles (Books 1 & 2), Youngblood 2, and Writing Home: 19 Writers Remember Their Hometowns. Ruey teaches journalism at Ateneo de Manila University’s Department of Communication, and he has won the Palanca Awards, Catholic Mass Media Awards and the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. His second collection of poetry is Faulty Electrical Wiring (Office of Research and Publication, Ateneo de Manila University, 2005).
Alfrredo Navarro Salanga (d. October 15, 1988) was as versatile and gifted in his writing as he was in his short and much lamented life. Garnering honors even his undergraduate years (he received the Mulry Award for Literary Excellence when he finished his BA in Humanities at the Ateneo de Manila University), he took on many responsibilities immediately after college, starting with local journalism and column-writing in his native Mindanao, then, after a tangle with local authorities, going back to Manila to edit the Observer which later became the Independent. In Manila, together with poet-friends Gemino H. Abad, Cirilo Bautista, Felix Fojas, Alfred Yuson, and Ricardo de Ungria, he founded the Philippine Literary Arts Council. He was Secretary General of the Writers Union as well as a member of the Manila Critics Circle, PEN, NPC, PBBY. He won the TOYM for Journalism, the CMMA for Best Opinion Column, and of course, several Palanca Awards. His books include The Aglipay Question: Literary and Historical Studies (1982), The Birthing of Hannibal Valdez (1984), Commentaries Meditations Messages A Parable Cycles and Confessions (1985), Portraits (1988). Freddie also edited a number of works: Rizaliana for Children: Drawings and Folk Tales by Jose Rizal (1984), New Writing from the Philippines (special issue of Philippine Studies, 1985), Versus: Philippine Protest Poetry, 1983-86 (1986), and Kamao: Panitikan ng Protesta, 1970-1986 (1987). His posthumous books include Turtle Voices in Uncertain Weather: Poems 1980-1988 (CCP, 1989), Chronicles & Dispatches (New Day, 1991), and Buenavista Ventures (AdMU Office of Research & Publications, 1998).
Rio Alma is the pseudonym of Virgilio S. Almario, who was conferred the Order of National Artist for Literature in 2003. He has written more than 25 books of poetry and criticism. His latest book is the epic Huling Hudhud (Ng Sanlibong Pagbabalik at Paglimot Para sa Filipinas Kong Mahal), or The Last Hudhud, A Thousand Songs of Forgetting & Returning to the Philippines, Land of My Heart.
Roland Tolentino is Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines Film Institute and currently a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. He is co-editor of Transglobal Economies and Cultures: Contemporary Japan and Southeast Asia (2004). Other publications include National/Transnational: Subject Formation and Media in and on the Philippines (2001) and Saloob at labas ng mall kong sawi/kaliluha'y siyang nangyayaring hari: Ang Pagkatuto at Pagtatanghal ng Kulturang Popular [Inside and outside my shattered mall/confusion reigns supreme: Pedagogy and Performance of Popular Culture] (2001) and Richard Gomez at ang Mito ng Pagkalalake, Sharon Cuneta at ang Perpetwal na Birhen at iba pang sanaysay hinggil sa bida sa pelikula bilang kultural na texto [Richard Gomez and the Masculine Myth, Sharon Cuneta and the Perpetual Virgin and other essays on film stars as cultural texts] (2000) which was the Winner of the Best Film Criticism Book, Manila Critics Circle, September 2001.
Antipas Delotavo, in a recent conversation with a critic, still holds on to his outsider’s stance in regard to the establishment art world, despite his 14 years of practice. This practice started, no doubt, when he first won the grand prize of the Art Association of the Philippines annual competition in 1979, and later after being chosen as part of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award in 1990. But his power derives from his mastery of the portrait and his familiarity with the human figure, which enables him to give a life of visual and magnetic potency to the faceless humanity of the streets.
