Pakinggan Pilipinas, the first (I think) monthly podcast for narrated Philippine fiction, has released its first episode today, with Dean Francis Alfar’s Six from Downtown, read by Kate Aton-Osias and Blue Soon. Pakinggan Pilipinas is the brainchild of speculative fiction author Elyss Punsalan, and while these stories won’t always fall within the spec fic genre, given Elyss’ tastes, I’m betting we’ll be hearing a lot of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the just plain weird on this podcast. If the first story sounds familiar, that’s because it has been around the block a few times, having appeared in Philippines Free Press (2006), Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 2 (2006, Kestrel), Kite of Stars and Other Stories (2007, Anvil), and online as part of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler, and I think that it’s still the only work of Philippine spec fic so far to be mentioned in a post on io9.
If you’re interested in helping out with this new project, check this page to see how you can help. Congratulations to Elyss and all those involved.
Oh wow. Local Pinoy audiobooks on my MP3 player? Yes, yes, yes!