Against the Gray Issue

No. 40 • Contributors

Dinah Roma-Sianturi, an associate professor of literature at De La Salle University, is the director of its Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center. Her first collection of poetry A Feast Of Origins (2004) was given the National Book Award by the Manila Critics' Circle while her recent work Geographies of Light (2007) won a Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature. Dinah obtained her MA in Comparative Culture from Kyoritsu Women’s University in Japan and her PhD in Literature from De La Salle ,and is currently research fellow of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

Rofel G. Brion, Ph.D. is professor of interdisciplinary studies, literature and creative writing at the Ateneo de Manila University. His first book of poems, Baka Sakali (Maybe by Chance), won the National Book Award in 1981. His other books are Story (UP Press, 1997), and Sandali: Mga Pili at Bagong Tula (Ateneo de Manila University Press). He has been fellow at various literature and writing festivals, among them the Berlin International Literature Festival (2005) and the Mildura Writers Festival (2009).

Francis Macansantos is a poet, cultural worker, and literature teacher, and a frequent winner of Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He obtained his MA Creative Writing at Silliman University and has taught English and comparative literature at various times in Mindanao State University, Silliman, and UP Baguio. Francis was the local fellow for poetry at Likhaan: UP Institute of Creative Writing in 1999. His epic, Womb of Water, Breasts of Earth, won the 2003 NCCA Writers Prize.

Peter Handley was born in March in a village in middle England at the latter end of the nineteen sixties. After a comprehensive education he trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has worked in theatre in Europe, Scandinavia, Africa, and India as director, manager, or actor. He is also storyteller. Most latterly he has been working in Indian Cinema as an actor, script consultant, and media whore. His poetry and infrequent journalism has been published online and in various luminary literary magazines.

Emeniano Acain Somoza is looking forward to the launch of a poetry anthology from Kilmog Press in New Zealand, where "A Fistful of Moonbeams" is the title piece. His stories & poems have appeared in Haggard & Halloo, Moria Poetry Journal, Salt River Review, The Gloom Cupboard, Troubadour 21, Philippine Studies, ANI, Philippine Graphic, and Philippines Free Press. He works as a Communications Officer at a steel manufacturing multinational in the Middle East.

Francezca C. Kwe has won the Palanca Award for her fiction and the USTetika Prize of the University of Sto. Tomas where she obtained her journalism degree. Her works have been published in the Sunday Times, the Philippines Free Press, Story Philippines, and Philippine Speculative Fiction Anthology Vol. 1. She is currently taking her master's degree in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines. She is fond of large dogs and small people.

Toy Llaguno has been writing and drawing and painting copiously and feverishly since his college days at the Aquinas University and the Divine Word College in Legazpi City. Then he worked for a government information agency, and later for the local government of Daraga, Albay, his hometown, and went into self-imposed anonymity, before hieing off to Burbank, California and resurfacing on Facebook.

Rafael San Diego obtained his AB in English Literature at the Ateneo de Manila University and went on to write and read his poetry almost every other week for the Happy Mondays Poetry Night at the defunct (recently, lamentably) café section of Mag:Net Katipunan Gallery. He has accumulated enough, it is estimated, for a fulsome first book. He writes in his Facebook bio that is paid to be a geek (a product specialist) at a wireless company in Makati City.

Michael Caylo-Baradi works in California. His poetry and essays have appeared in Tertulia Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, elimae, Kartika Review, XCP:Streetnotes, Underground Voices, Otoliths, Prick of the Spindle, Mannequin Envy, Our Own Voice, Galatea Resurrects, and PopMatters. He occasionally contributes op-ed pieces to the Daily Californian and the Los Angeles Daily News. 

Luisa A. Igloria is the author of Juan Luna’s Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009), which received the Ernest Sandeen Prize; Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), and eight other books. She is currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at  Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. When she isn’t writing, reading, or teaching, she cooks with her family or hand-binds books. For more of her work, visit www.luisaigloria.com

Alfred A. Yuson is the Philippines’ foremost version of the writer’s writer, or the poet’s poet. Also known as Krip, he has authored 19 books, including novels, poetry collections, short fiction, essays, and children's stories, apart from having edited various other titles, and maintaining a weekly arts and culture column at the Philippine Star. He has won several literary distinctions, including the SEA Write Award from the Thai royalty, the Palanca Hall of Fame, Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan (Stalwart of Art and Culture) award from the City of Manila, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant for a residency at the Bellagio Study and Conference Center in Italy.

Gémino H. Abad is an eminent poet, critic, and friend of poets and writers of various colors. He earned his B.A. English from the University of the Philippines, his Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Chicago, and has lectured internationally on various grants. He served the University of the Philippines in various capacities: as Secretary of the University, Secretary of the Board of Regents, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Director of the U.P. Institute of Creative Writing. Apart from his poetry, Dr. Abad has anthologized the most comprehensive collections of Filipino poetry and prose written in English from the 1900s to the present.

Melissa Nolledo, or Mimi, our featured artist, is a photographer and digital artist based in Eugene, Oregon. Her work has graced numerous magazines and book covers and has been featured in several exhibitions on both the east and west coasts of the United States. She is the daughter of Blanca and the late great Filipino writer, Wilfrido D. Nolledo. Mimi is very active in Filipino cultural organizations is the U.S.

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The Catch-Up Issue

No.39 Contributors

Donato Mejia Alvarez is an award-winning and much sought-after book designer and well-anthologized poet. He has won the Palanca Awards and has designed books for many poets, including Victor Peñaranda, Marjorie Evasco, and this author.

J.v. D. Perez, this issue's featured artist, is a writer, photographer, graphic designer, and computer programmer. He writes his fiction in Hiligaynon and has won the Palanca Awards and the Gawad Komisyon ng Wikang Pambansa.

Michael Caylo-Baradi works in California watches Tagalog movies and television programs through Netflix. His poetry and essays have appeared in Tertulia Magazine, Eclectica Magazine, elimae, Kartika Review, XCP:Streetnotes, Underground Voices, Otoliths, Prick of the Spindle, Mannequin Envy, Our Own Voice, Galatea Resurrects, and PopMatters. He occasionally contributes op-ed pieces to the Daily Californian and the Los Angeles Daily News.

Aileen Ibardaloza is a poet and memoirist who first trained as a molecular biologist. She grew up in Manila, and lived in parts of Asia and Europe before joining her family in the United States in 2000. Aileen and her husband are based in Northern California with their two cats. She is also the Associate Editor of Our Own Voice Literary Ezine. Her first poetry collection is Traje de Boda.

Aidan Rooney lives in Hingham, Massachusetts and teaches at Thayer Academy. His poems are collected in Day Release (2000) and Tightrope (2007), both published by The Gallery Press.

Jose Marte Abueg won the University of the Philippines Centennial Prize for poetry in 2008, with his collection Bird Lands, Rivers, and Other Melancholies (UP Press, 2009). He is a freelance finance and economics journalist who started writing poetry in 2001 “to be a better man.”

Vijulet Jusi, from Batangas province, currently works with IBM while studying at Law at the University of the Philippines. She graduated in UP with a degree in Psychology.

Pasckie Pascua is a poet, journalist, cook, community organizer, and leader of the mobile arts/music organization called The Traveling Bonfires. Formerly of Baguio, Manila, and New York City, Pasckie currently calls Asheville, North Carolina his “home barrio.”

Vicente Soria de Veyra has written eight collections of poetry which he publishes online at http://vicentesoriadeveyra.com/. Poet, fiction writer, social, cultural, and music critic, and “rock music dilettante,” Jojo was leader of the defunct band, Groupies Panciteria.

R. Torres Pandan, poet, fiction writer, and lawyer, is Dean of the College of Law of the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod City. He recently resumed writing his first novel and has collected his poems in a book titled Days of Grace (USLS Press, 2005).

Robin Lim is a grandmother, poet, and midwife. Following in the tradition of her Filipino lola, Vicenta Munar Lim, a hilot, she sits at the doorway between life and death, gently tearing and biting angel’s wings. Robin lives with her musician husband and eight gifted children in the traditional village of Nyuh Kuning, Ubud, Bali. In 2006 she was given the Alexander Langer International Peace Award. Her novel, Butterfly People, was released by Anvil in Manila 2009.

Alma Anonas-Carpio writes us that she is "Journalist first, last and always. Married with children. Labandera, yaya, cook when there is a lull in work. Oh, yeah, I also write poetry. And play computer games. Sleep is for the weak."

Nick Carbó’s fourth book of poems is Chinese, Japanese, What are These? (Pecan Grove Press, 2009). He is currently earning a PhD in creative writing at the University of Manchester (U.K.).

Marne Kilates edits this online journal and is a poet and translator.

Victor Peñaranda, peripatetic poet and researcher for community organizations, recently came home and settled in the lakeside town of Bai, Laguna. His books are the award-winning Voyage in Dry Season (1995), the new collection Pilgrim in Transit (Anvil, 2010), and Lucid Lightning (poems written in Bhutan and with photographs), which is awaiting publication.

Rio Alma (Virgilio S. Almario) was named National Artist for Literature in 2003.

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No.38 • Summer|Thunder|Childhood

No.38 Contributors

Victor Dennis Nierva, our cover photographer, says of himself, “I teach, act, direct, create graphic and digital artworks, design websites; I sing, crowd the broadcaster's booth on Sundays, write ocassionally for local papers, give failing grades. I am a self-confessed techgeek and a coffee and tea-addict. I cook a little.” Vic has published the bilingual (Bikol an English) poetry book Antisipasyon, which your editor helped translate, and works with Department of Media Studies, Ateneo de Naga University, in Naga City, Bikol.

Joel Toledo hosts the long-running Happy Mondays Poetry Night at Mag:Net Café & Gallery, which has just completed its 76th installment. A literature professor at Miriam College in Quezon City, Joel also holds a masters’ in creative writing from the University of the Philippines. His awards include the Palanca, Free Press, Meritage Press, and the Bridport Prize. His latest book of poems is The Long Lost Startle (UP Press, 2008).

Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is a multi-genre writer and marketing professional living in New York City. She is the author of an upcoming chapbook of poetry from Modern History Press titled Kaleidoscope: An Asian Journey of Colors. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and anthologies across the US, UK, Canada, and India. She is a graduate of Columbia University in New York.

Mark Anthony Cayanan teaches writing and literature courses at the Ateneo de Manila University. He was a fellow for poetry in English at the UP National Writers' Workshop in 2007. His works have appeared in Ideya, and Sunday Inquirer Magazine, among others, and have won for him a Palanca Award in 2009 and an honorable mention for the Maningning Miclat Award in 2007. He is in charge of the literary section of Kritika Kultura, a refereed academic journal of ADMU.

Vijulet Jusi is from Batangas province, and currently works with IBM while studying at Law at the University of the Philippines. She graduated in UP with a degree in Psychology.

Rodrigo V. de la Peña Jr has been a fellow for poetry in various writers’ workshops in the Philippines. His poems and stories have been published in the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Mud Luscious, Sunday Inquirer Magazine, Philippines Free Press, and other journals and anthologies. He has received several awards, including First Prize in the 2008 Meritage Press Poetry Contest, Second Prize in the Embassy of Japan's First Pinoy Haiku Contest and Honorable Mention in the 2003 Maningning Miclat Poetry Awards. He is currently working in a marketing communications firm, where he has learned how to be a functional extrovert.

Ruth Mostrales writes us that should her poem “Strangers” get published by us it would be her first as a poet. She has published her essays in ANI, the literary journal of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and in the Youngblood section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.




Mesandel Virtusio Arguelles works for a book publishing company and has published his poetry widely. He is a fellow of LIRA (Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo), has attended the UP National Writers Workshop, and has published four books of poetry. He has won the Gawad Collantes, Gawad Komisyon sa Tula, Maningning Miclat Award for Poetry, and Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.




Judith Balares Salamat teaches English and Literature at the Central Bicol University of Agriculture (CBSUA) in Pili, Camarines Sur. She has won various awards, including the Bikol Premio Tomas for Writer of the Year. Judith holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, major in Regional Literatures, minor in Cultural Anthropology, from the University of the Philippines. She writes a column for the Bikol Reporter and is the current treasurer of the regional literary organization, Kabulig-Bikol.




Dennis P. Sto. Domingo, a graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University, attended the first batch of the Rio Alma poetry clinic, LIRA, and became its first president. Going back to his native Davao, he became manager of the Mindanao operations of Tricom Dynamics, Inc., and only lately resumed writing poetry.




Jim Pascual Agustin spent his early years in a communal house, where he struggled to remember all the names of his numerous cousins. His family was forced out of their land to make way for the construction of a highway named after the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. With the help of an Irish Jesuit, Fr. James O'Brien, Jim was able to enter Ateneo de Manila University. He was a Fellow of the University of the Philippines Writers Workshop and the Iligan Writers Workshop. In October 1994, he moved to Cape Town, South Africa.




Joel Pablo Salud, a fiction writer, journalist, and occasional poet (as he describes himself), is an editor at Philippine Graphic magazine.





Alma Anonas-Carpio is, she writes us, "Journalist first, last and always. Married with children. Labandera, yaya, cook when there is a lull in work. Oh, yeah, I also write poetry. And play computer games. Sleep is for the weak."


J.V. Perez is a writer, artist, photographer, and graphic designer. He writes his fiction in Hiligaynon and has won the Palanca Awards and the Gawad Komisyon ng Wikang Pambansa. He is a member of the Sumakwelan Iloilo, a society of hiligaynon writers, the Photo Artists League of Iloilo, and he works with the editorial team of Yuhum Hiligaynon news magazine. He is currently employed as a computer programmer of the Iloilo Provincial Government. His other passion is table tennis. 



Jun-Jun Sta. Ana, who generously lends PPB from his broad collection of digital and photographic images, is based in Chicago and has exhibited extensively in the US and the Philippines before he left. Among the latest are “New and Improved 2” at the LA Center for Digital Art, and “Viewpoint” at Center on Halsted, Chicago, Il.


Pablo Picasso has several “L’Absinthe” paintings, two of which we’ve seen at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The great painter was apparently another devotee of absinthe. The “Green Fairy,” (Artemisia absinthium), locally, artamisa, with its bohemian and romantic associations (favorite among Baudelaire and the culture of the poetes maudit) has exaggerated psychoactive properties. Banned by 1915, it has experienced a revival in the 199os in Europe (Wiki).

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No. 37 • Penitent|Carnivalesque

Contributors

Mario Mercado is a nature photographer, multimedia artist, and a retiree from the American art and design industry (specif. in rugs, carpets, tapestries, and photography) where he counted among his clients Hollywood actors, even including Air Force One, Volvo, General Motors, American Express, Waldorf Astoria. He enjoys his retirement, with wife Joni and several dogs and cats, at Canopus Hollow, Putnam Valley, New York. Mario attended the School of Visual Arts for advertising design, and the Art Students League (for fine arts) of New York.

R. Torres Pandan is a poet, fictionist, lawyer, and recently resumed writing his first novel. He has published his poetry and fiction in various Philippine publications and has collected his poems in a book titled Days of Grace (USLS Press, 2005). He has been a fellow at the Silliman and UP Writers workshops, and a senior fellow at the USLS Iyas Writers Workshop. He is presently Dean of the College of Law of the University of St. La Salle and lives in Bacolod City with his wife and three children.

Kristian Dalao, who has completed the MFA Creative Writing program of De La Salle University, “works as an Internet cafe caretaker in the morning & as an online ESL mouth in the evening. In breathers he designs sound installation projects whose demos are uploaded in some MySpace page.”

Mikael Co, who also signs his works as Mikael de Lara Co, is one of our younger leading poets who are bilingual and widely published. He has won both the Palanca and the Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. He graduated with a BS in Environmental Science from the Ateneo de Manila, and he is supposed to be working on his MA in Panitikang Pilipino, Malikhaing Pagsulat, in the same university. His interests range, he writes, from literature and the martial arts to basketball and beer and rock music, the environment, post-colonialism and cultural studies, philosophy and political communications. He works with the office of Senator Mar Roxas.

Judith Balares Salamat teaches English and Literature at the Central Bicol University of Agriculture (CBSUA) in Pili, Camarines Sur. A fellow of the 1997 Iligan National Writers Workshop, she has went on to win awards, including the Bikol Premio Tomas for Writer of the Year and for an essay on teaching and creativity, and a Civil Service essay writing contest, first place. Judith holds a PhD in Comparative Literature, major in Regional Literatures minor in Cultural Anthropology, from the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. She writes columns for a local weekly, the Bikol Reporter, and is the current treasurer of the regional literary organization, Kabulig-Bikol.

J. Neil Garcia is one of our most accomplished poets in English, teacher of creative writing and comparative literature, writer of numerous books of poetry collections, literary and cultural criticism, postcolonial studies, and editor and advocate of Filipino gay writing, especially of the famous Ladlad series. He earned his A.B. Journalism, magna cum laude, from the University of Santo Tomas in 1990; M.A. in Comparative Literature in 1995, and Ph.D. in English Studies: Creative Writing in 2003 from the University of the Philippines. He is currently a Professor of English at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines, where he also serves as Associate for Poetry at the Likhaan: U.P. Institute of Creative Writing. He has won numerous awards, including the Palanca and the National Book Award, and has lectured and received grants and fellowships internationally.

Romulo P. Baquiran, Jr. has two books, Mga Tula ng Paglusong (1992) and Onyx (2003), which won the National Book Award for poetry in 2003, and has published his essays and stories in various anthologies. His other awards include the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, and Talaang Ginto. He has translated Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, and Auguste Strindberg. He has edited many books, among which are the new editionof Urbana at Feliza (1994, 2007), Pablo Neruda: Mga Piling Tula with National Artist Virgilio Almario, ASEANO (1995), and Kuwentong Siyudad with Roland B. Tolentino and Alwin Aguirre. Currently he is Assistant Professor for creative writing and literature at the College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines.

Victor Dennis Nierva says of himself, “I teach, act, direct, create graphic and digital artworks, design websites; I sing, crowd the broadcaster's booth on Sundays, write ocassionally for local papers, give failing grades. I am a self-confessed techgeek and a coffee and tea-addict. I cook a little.” Vic has published the bilingual (Bikol an English) poetry book Antisipasyon, which your editor helped translate, and works with Department of Media Studies, Ateneo de Naga University, in Naga City, Bikol.

Jose Marte Abueg won the University of the Philippines Centennial Prize for poetry in 2008 with his collection that has now been printed as Bird Lands, Rivers, and other Melancholies by UP Press (2009). Mart is an editor and journalist specializing in finance and economics (he is a graduate of the UP School of Economics) with no formal training in writing. He started writing poetry in 2001 “to be a better man.”

Rio Alma (Virgilio S. Almario) was proclaimed National Artist for Literature in 2003.

Simeon Dumdum, Jr., award-winning poet and essayist, has read his poems in gatherings here and abroad, and has published them in three collections. His poems are included in many international anthologies. His most recent work, Ah, Wilderness! A Journey Through Sacred Time, a book of essays, meditations, and “homilies,” was published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. Jun works as a Regional Trial Court judge in Cebu City.

Salvador Ching is a Fine Arts graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, Major in Painting, and made it early as one of the Five Philippine Representative to the ASEAN Youth Painting Workshop & Exhibitions in Indonesia. After a string of awards and citations, he moved on to the Asia Biennial Art Exhibition in Havana, Bangladesh, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Vietnam. He has had seven solo shows, and has participated in many cultural outreach projects in many provinces. He has been an official of various art associations, including the Society of Philippine Sculptors, CAP, and a member of the NCCA visual arts executive committee.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) had a career production of over 1, 500 paintings, a dozen sculptures, and countless drawings and various other projects which included an animated cartoon for Walt Disney, a TV commercial for Lanvin chocolates, and the Chupa Chups logo. (Wikipedia)

Carlos Botong Francisco (1912-1969) is said to have dreamed of his death—a huge funeral procession in his hometown of Angono, which he followed wondering who it was being buried. He was posthumously conferred the title of National Artist in 1973.

Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575), called “Long Peter” because of his height, was a Dutch historical painter. He was born and died in Amsterdam, painted there and in Antwerp, though his genre scenes were influential in Italy. (Wikipedia)

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No. 36 • Contributors

Federico “Boy” Dominguez is a muralist, designer for the stage and publications, illustrator, and overall freelance artist. A serious student of his own roots in the Mandaya culture of Siargao Island and Mindanao, and the ethnic Tagalog groups, Boy’s almost naïf renderings convey their lush and exuberant spirit as much as their simple lives that need to be preserved as well as protected from outside exploitation. Boy has exhibited extensively in the local art scene as well as in Europe, the Netherlands, Australia, and France.

Alma Anonas Carpio is a poet and full-time journalist. She is the associate editor and tech editor of Philippine Graphic, a stringer for Agence France-Presse and variously a contributor, correspondent, or correspondent for various other magazines, including Business Mirror, Cook magazine, and Medical Observer.

Edgar Calabia Samar, poet and fictionist, has received the Palanca Awards for his poetry collections and futuristic fiction, the PBBY-Salanga Writer's Prize for children’s literature, the NCCA Writer's Prize for the Novel, the Gantimpalang Collantes sa Sanaysay, and the Gawad Surian sa Tula. His latest book, Walong Diwata ng Pagkahulog, was published by Anvil in 2009, while his poetry book, Pag-aabang sa Kundiman: Isang Tulambuhay, was nominated for the National Book Award. Samar teaches Philippine Literature and Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University where he currently serves as head of the Creative Writing Desk of the Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices (AILAP). He is finishing his Ph.d. in Malikhaing Pagsulat at the University of the Philippines.

Kristian Sendon Cordero, one of our regular contributors and among the most active poets in the Bikol literary renaissance, recently won the 2009 Maningning Miclat Prize for Poetry, among many other awards including the Palanca, the National Book Award, and the NCCA Writers Prize. He teaches literature at the Ateneo de Naga University.

Robin Lim is a grandmother, poet, and midwife. Following in the tradition of her own Filipino lola, Vicenta Munar Lim, a hilot, she sits at the doorway between life and death, gently tearing and biting angel’s wings. Lim lives with her musician husband and eight gifted children in the traditional village of Nyuh Kuning, Ubud, Bali. In 2006 Lim was given the Alexander Langer International Peace Award. In September 2009 Robin's novel, Butterfly People, was published by Anvil Publishing in Manila.

Rebecca T. Añonuevo has written five books of poetry and three children’s books. Her poetry books are the poetry collections which won for her five Palanca Awards for Literature while her children’s books, published by Adarna, are winners of the Philippine Board of Books for the Young (PBBY) Salanga Writers Prize. One of her children’s books is among the top 25 bestsellers of Adarna. She has also won National Book Award for Literary Criticism from the Manila Critics Circle in 2004. Becky teaches literature and writing at Miriam College, where she has served as head of the English Department and currently as head of the Filipino Department.

Gemino H. Abad is University Professor emeritus of literature and creative writing at the University of the Philippines. Poet, fictionist, and literary critic, he has written many books and won many awards and honors, the most recent being the Premio Feronia in Italy. Apart from his own books of poetry and essays on poetry, Jimmy is also known for his three-volume historical anthology of Filipino poetry in English. In 2008 he put out the first two-volume set of his six-volume historical anthology of Filipino short stories in English; the second set is in press, while he is at work on the last set.

Rio Alma, or Virgilio S. Almario, who has written some 25 books of poetry and literary criticism in Filipino, was conferred the Order of National Artist for Literature in 2003. His latest book is Muling Pagkatha sa Ating Bansa or Re-imagining Our Nation (UP Press, 2010) launches March 5, 2010.

Leonardo Aguinaldo is a self-taught painter born in Baguio whose interests range from his cultural roots to the environment and the planet. An active member of the Baguio Arts Guild, he has taken part in various community cultural and art projects as well as local and national art shows. Leo is a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award, a finalist at Sea Art Festival of the Busan Biennale in South Korea, the Grand Prize winner of the Asean Art Awards in 2004 sponsored by Philip Morris in Bangkok Thailand.

Stevesantos exhibited at a very young age in show arranged for him by his teacher Roberto Chabet. Since then he has held almost 20 solo exhibits, has won the AAP national competition, the BF Goodrich Filipiniana painting contest, and the National Shell Art Contest. Steve is the son of the noted artist, Mauro Malang Santos. In commercial design, Steve has been a book designer, a web designer, and art director for local and international magazines, including several Hong Kong publications such as The Asset business magazine, Asiamoney, Euromoney, Asian Finance & Executive, Lifestyle Asia, Wingtips, and Orientations

Jun-Jun Sta. Ana, who has permitted us to raid his website for many of the art works that will grace our pages in the future, is a painter, multimedia, print, and installation artist based in Chicago, Ill. Apart from his extensive local showings, Jun-Jun has exhibited in Chicago, New York, LA, and in Russia.

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No. 35 • Contributors

Victor Peñaranda recently launched his second collection of poetry, Pilgrim in Transit (Anvil, 2009). He has finished a third collection, which will be composed of his poems and photographs from his travels in Bhutan, some of which will be published in series in PPB.

Jose Marte Abueg won the University of the Philippine Centennial Prize for poetry in 2008 with his collection now printed as Bird Lands, Rivers, and other Melancholies by UP Press (2009). Mart is an editor and journalist specializing on finance and economics (he is a graduate of the UP School of Economics) with no formal training in writing. He started writing poetry in 2001 “to be a better man.”

Marian Balcos works for a telecommunications company and writes poetry and creative nonfiction as a hobby. While her training is in accountancy and business management, Marian says that she follows developments and current situations in Philippine literature. This is her second time to be published in PPB.

Sam Allam writes that he is an Ybanag from Isabela, is now living with his growing brood in Moonwalk, Parañaque, and works as an engineer in the energy industry. He says he is an abstract expressionist by heart and his contribution to PPB was his first attempt in poetry. “It was really a great way to unleash maybe some untapped creativity in me. I admire works of art that tend to remind us of the transient nature of human existence and that play a redemptive function.”

Sue Quirante recently turned twenty and says she has had “no formal training of any sort” in writing poetry. She has been writing verses since she was little, she writes, “most of them bad, a few of them ambitious. When she feels insecure about her writing, she calls her poems, verse. Just to be on the safe side. On other days, when she is superlative and awed, she dares to call paintings and other art pieces works of poetry, and thinks of poetry not as a form or a medium, but as a way of seeing.”

Maria Lourdes B. Abulencia is a writer and artist-teacher with 30 years of involvement in peace and human rights work. Through the fusion of art, spirituality and peace-building, she has embraced culture therapy as her life task. While promoting the theme of Soul Transformation for Peace she continues to conduct research in indigenous spirituality. She also strives to evolve the principles she has learned from Carl Jung, Roberto Assagioli and Rudolf Steiner within the context of Filipino psychology and spirituality. Maria designs and conducts training courses on leadership and conflict transformation, biography discoveries, ritual dance and community building arts. Culture therapy practice takes her around the country where she serves various sectors like children, youth, caregivers, women, peasant organizers, former rebels and NGO workers. Maria is the author of the novel Ang Panahon sa Liwanag ng Puso, and her biography, Dear Agape; dreams, letters and poems of a woman pilgrim.

Roberto Añonuevo, who has been inducted into the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards Hall of Fame (for having won five or more first prizes), is one of the most active writers of his generation. He is a poet, critic, editor, translator, and an indefatigable blogger on his popular site, Alimbukad.Com. His poetry books are Paghipò sa Matang-Tubig (1993), Pagsiping sa Lupain (2000), and Liyab sa Alaala (2004). His other awards include the National Book Awards, Talaang Ginto, and the Southeast Asia Write Award (SEA Write) in 2002.

Marjorie Evasco has received various writing residencies, including the Rockefeller in Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, and the International Writers Retreat in Midlothian, Scotland. She has published two books of poetry and several of literary and art journalism. Dr. Marj is a full professor at the De La Salle University literature department where she has held the Julia Vargas professorial chair for Philippine literature.

Patrick Rosal is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, which won the Asian American Writers' Workshop Members' Choice Award, and most recently My American Kundiman, winner of the Book Award in poetry from the Association of Asian American Studies. His chapbook Uncommon Denominators won the Palanquin Poetry Series Award from the University of South Carolina, Aiken. His work has been honored by the annual Allen Ginsberg Awards, the James Hearst Poetry Prize, the Arts and Letters Prize, Best of the Net among others. Patrick is currently finishing a new collection of poems as part of his recent 6-month Fulbright Grant during which he stayed in the Philippines. He is currently based in New York.

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