Rodrigo V. de la Peña Jr is the sole winner of the 2008 Meritage Press Annual Holiday Poetry Contest. It was announced on February 16 this year. Igor has been published locally and abroad.
Jim Pascual Agustin has two books of poetry and is living in Cape Town, South Africa with his wife and two daughters.
Marjorie Evasco has published several books of poetry and literary and art journalism, traveled on many fellowship grants and is a full professor at the De la Salle University department of literature.
Pete Lacaba is one of our leading poets and journalists. He has numerous books of poetry and reportage and is currently busy performing or watching his salinawit songs (adaptations into Filipino of classic and popular standards) being performed by many singers.
Aberjhani, co-author of the award-winning Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, is the founder of the U.S. based Creative Thinkers International, an online network of creative people.
Maurice Oliver is the founder and editor of Concelebratory Shoehorn Review, a website of contributed poetry, art, and reviews, which is one of the inspirations of poet’sPicturebook. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Frank Peñones Jr recently finished his MFA, with distinction, at the San Jose State University in California. He is one of the respected leaders of the Bikol resurgence in literature.
Fidel Rillo is one of our leading poets writing in Filipino. He has won awards not only for his poetry but for his book design, since he is a much sought-after professional book designer.
Juan Rafael Belgica Jr has two books of poetry in the Bikol language and was hard and work and collaborating with Raffi Banzuela almost unannounced before the advent of the current wave of Bikol writing.
Raffi Banzuela, together with Jun Belgica, has been a diligent researcher of Bikol poetic forms and other writings. He is also a veteran broadcaster. He is at present the university secretary of the Dominican Aquinas University of Legazpi City.
Joi Barrios has a PhD in Literature from the University of the Philippines (2003) and is one of today’s leading feminist and activist poets and playwrights. She presently resides in the United States.
Eric Gamalinda teaches literature in New York City and has published four books of poetry and a similar number of novels. His novel, My Sad Republic (2000), which won for him the 1998 Philippine Centennial Literary Prize.
Gemino H. Abad has authored dozens of books of poetry, fiction, and criticism and has edited landmark anthologies in the history Philippine literature in English, including Man of Earth, A Native Clearing, and A Habit of Shores. He is professor emeritus and was a centennial fellow at UP.
Rio Alma has written more than twenty books of poetry and literary history and criticism, all in the Filipino language. He is founder of the Linangan sa Retorika at Arte (Lira), was a two-term dean of the UP college of liberal arts, and was named National Artist for Literature in 2003.
Joel Toledo has won the prestigious Bridport Prize from the UK. His second book, The Long Lost Startle (UP Press, 2009), was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Awards.
Sid Gomez Hildawa was a poet, visual artist and professional architect. He was working as a full-time as director for the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Visual, Literary, and Media Arts Department when he died in 2008.
Kristian Cordero is a literature professor at the Ateneo de Naga and currently taking graduate courses at the Ateneo de Manila. He has three collections of his award-winning poetry and is at the head of the current Bikol literary renaissance.
Victor Peñaranda, or Bimboy, has returned recently from long assignments in Asia and Europe on his development work. He recently launched his much awaited second book of poems, Piligrim in Transit (Anvil, 2009).
Cirilo F. Bautista, one of our foremost poets in English, is also a fiction writer, painter, and educator. He is Professor Emeritus of Literature at De La Salle University, where he obtained his D.A. in Language and Literature. Dr. Bautista was elevated to the Hall of Fame of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 1995.
Ana Maria (Mookie) Katigbak finished her BA at the Ateneo de Manila University and her MFA at the New School University, New York. Her first book of award-winning poems, Proxy Eros, was published by Anvil in 2009.
Cesar Ruiz Aquino is poet, fictionist, and professor teaching at Silliman University and sitting at the panel of its famous literary workshop. He has published several books and was the SEA Write awardee in 2004.
Lourd de Veyra is a poet, journalist, musician, and winner of several Palanca Awards for his prose and poetry, and the NCCA Writers Prize. He is also the leader of the notoriously irreverent first-class rock band, Radioactive Sago Project.
Marie La Viña’s collection, “The Gospel According to the Blind Man,” won third prize in the 2008 Palanca Memorial Awards for poetry. She recently came home from a study grant in Belgium.
Jose Marte Abueg is a finance journalist, editor, and poet, whose collection "Bird Lands, River Nights and Other Melancholies" won for him the Grand Prize in Gawad Likhaan: The University of the Philippines Centennial Award, for poetry in English.
Chanelle Jieyong-Kim received a gold for her outstanding thesis in literature when she graduated at De La Salle University. Its title is “The Poetry of Gustatory Desires: Writing Poetry about Food.”
Myrna Peña-Reyes, one of our finest poets in English, taught literature and creative writing at her alma mater, Silliman University. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of Oregon where she met her husband, poet William “Bill” T. Sweet. Her books are Almost Home: Poems and The River Singing Stone.
Edgar B. Maranan has just completed his long stint as press officer of the Philippine diplomatic corps in London and is back to full time writing. This poet, essayist, fictionist, playwright, translator, and writer of children stories has won a total of thirty prizes for his works in English and Filipino.
