Rocket Kapre – Fantastic Filipino Speculative Fiction

Still adjusting to my new schedule, and trying to balance Metakritiko editing/writing duties with Rocket Kapre and my own fiction, and couple that with my Internet outage (attributable to my router dying apparently) and that means I’ve been a bit behind on my news-of-relevance-to-Pinoy-SF… but that’s nothing a Chained Links post can’t fix!

Philippine Spec Fic News:

• Lola: A Ghost Story (with a story by J. Torres and art by Elbert Or) is a graphic novel from Oni Books that tells the story of a boy who returns with his family to the Philippines for the funeral of his grandmother. Elbert says it should be out in comics stores this week, so you all know what you’re shopping for this weekend. You can check out some reviews at School Library Journal and Comic Book Resources, or check out the 17 page preview at the sites Elbert mentions here.
• A list of indigenous tribes and languages of the Philippines by F. Blumentritt which briefly describes each tribe’s location, culture and religion. Handy resource eh? (Filipiniana.net)
• Project 20:10 is a project with the two-fold mission of drumming up support for local creators, and increasing the amount of local content in fiction, comics, animation and gaming. I’ll have an interview with project organizer Ria Lu (of Talecraft fame) at Metakritiko soon, so watch out for that.
• Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels Seminar by Glasshouse Graphics from January 30-31. You can find the details here – warning, the site has audio. (via Komikero)
• Speaking of comics, komiks creator macoy (I recently reviewed his “Ang Maskot“) posts embedded video of a Kubori Kikiam motion comic (which is obviously NSFW) and an animated mock opening to “The Metro” by Jerome Jacinto –which, I confess, I’ve never heard of before, but it looks awesome.
• The Philippines’ second solar car (there was a first?), aptly named Sikat (see what they did there? *nudge*) is embarking on a nationwide tour. (Good News Pilipinas)
• Spirit Photography is the topic of a recent blog post of Spec Fic author Yvette Tan . Speaking of Yvette, have I mentioned that she plugs our Ruin and Resolve anthology here?
• Trese 5000: No, that’s not a far-future story arc, it’s a sales figure estimate for books 1 and 3. Congratulations to Budjette, Kajo and Visprint on the continuing success of Trese.

Genre and Fandom:

• The Bibliophile Stalker Awards 2009 went up last January 13, in case you missed it.
• Neglected Books and Authors get some love over at Tor.com
• Fandom, Participatory Culture, and Web 2.0 is the title of a course which I’d love to take up, but as that’s unlikely to occur anytime soon, I’m glad that Professor Henry Jenkins has posted his syllabus at his site.

Reading and Writing:

• Bookrun 2010 is taking place on January 31, 2010.
• Charles Tan talks about publication and patience in his Stalker’s Notebook column for BSC. A couple of posts on language: Ekaterina Sedia discusses the “exoticism of language” and the issue of translation (via the World SF News Blog) and an ongoing discussion on some difficulties with language is going on a Catherine Batac Walder’s blog here and here.
• Over at her new blog, Spec Fic author and Vibal officer Tin Mandigma posts some thoughts on publishing in the Philippines in the wake of El Indio.

To those of you who have a copy of today’s (27 November 2009) Business World, you might be surprised to find a familiar piece of awesome SF artwork in the Weekender section… yes, opposite the articles on Susan Boyd and Adam Lambert ^_^:

Johanna Poblete of Business World has a feature on Rocket Kapre and excerpts from an interview with me, as well as her review of Usok 1. For those of you who can’t snag a copy of the paper, you can catch the article and the review at Business World’s site here. The review comes after the feature article. As with any print interview, there was more to the conversation than what made it into the final version, so when Johanna puts the full Q and A up on her site, I’ll let you all know.

While most of the sites/publications mentioned in the article should be familiar to you guys, for any newcomers to the site drawn here by the article (welcome lords and ladies!) here’s a quick rundown:

• The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories edited (usually) by Kenneth Yu
• The Philippine Daily Inquirer (and my Youngblood article)
• SF Signal
• Bibliophile Stalker run by Charles Tan
• The World SF News Blog
• Locus Online
• Angry Robot Books
• Io9
• Clockpunk Studios
• Fantasy Magazine
• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
  

Yvette has written for different publications on a variety of topics from personalities to food to finance. Her fiction has garnered Don Carlos Palanca and Philippine Graphic/Fiction awards. She has also appeared on TV magazine shows whose topic deal with myths, urban legends, the paranormal, and food. She has just recently published Waking the Dead, her first book of short fiction, under Anvil Publishing. She loves steak.

Table of Contents:

* The Startbox by Crystal Koo

* The Saint of Elsewhere: A Mystery by chiles samaniego

* Mouths to Speak, Voices to Sing by Kenneth Yu

* The Coming of the Anak-Araw by Celestine Trinidad

* The Child Abandoned by Yvette Tan

~ Coverart by Kevin Lapeña

Psyched yet? I know I am.  See you all tomorrow at 11 for the launch! See issue #1 here!

As seen on the PGS Blog. Congratulations everyone!

Wonderful (and belated) news!

My thanks too to The Bibliophile Stalker for sending PGS and other local fiction publications abroad!

Things were a bit crazy for the past week, but here’s a round-up of recent news that you guys might find interesting:

• The deadline of the Pinoy Story Writing Contest has been extended to October 17;
• Pinoy Transgressive, a website devoted to the publication and promotion of “transgressive literature” has launched, with words by Carljoe Javier, Jonathan Jimena Siason, Karl de Mesa, Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon, and Norman Wilwayco;
• Spec (and all-things-experimental) Fic author Adam David has been nominated in the National Book Awards in the Best Book Design category;
• The Bookbabble podcast interviewed Filipina Spec Fic author Crystal Koo.
• Underpass, a new graphic novel anthology from industry heavyweights such as Gerry Alanguilan, David Hontiveros, Ian Sta. Maria, Budjette Tan, Kajo Baldisimo, and Oliver Pulumbarit will make its debut at the Komikon. You can also check out a list of other komiks launching at komikon at the Komikero blog;
• In other komiks news, Trese #3 has been printed and should be in the grubby hands of pre-ordering fanatics (like myself) some time this week;
• Wired points out some functions which will not be present in the International Kindle (if used outside of the US from what I gather);
• John Scalzi is running a quick writing contest on his AMC blog;
• Via technovelgy, we’ve got word that parts of The Periodic Table of Science Fiction (a collection of 118 rather short stories by Michael Swanwick) are now online.
• I’ve also received word via Yvette Tan’s Twitter that the special Horror Issue of Philippine Genre Stories (which she guest edits) is ready, although the Charles Tan informs us that the issue doesn’t appear to be out in the wild yet. Hopefully the news at least means that the release is imminent;
• Speaking of Yvette, her story “Seek Ye Whore,” which came out in Rogue magazine’s July 2008 issue was long listed in Ellen Datlow’s new annual horror anthology. She’s also guest-editor at UNO Magazine (a men’s magazine so searching it out may be NSFW) this month, has an interview at the FHM (also a men’s magazine) website and has a feature on “”Waking the Dead” in Garage magazine. She does get around doesn’t she? ^_^
• EDIT: Whoops almost forgot this–we can expect a new book on Philippine Folklore (can never have enough of those) soon, as the book proposal of Dianne de las Casas and Zarah Gagatiga was approved.

Yvette Tan’s fiction and non-fiction has appeared in so many venues online and offline that I truly believe she could put together an entire magazine all by her self. Her stories have been recognized by the Palanca Awards, the Philippine Graphic Fiction Awards and the 2008 Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror Anthology. Her first short story collection, “Waking the Dead,” was released just last month to stellar reviews, and when she agreed to this interview, I decided to ask her one question for each of the stories.

The Child Abandoned: Have you ever attended the Feast of the Black Nazarene?

[Note: You can see a flash photo-essay of the Feast (with audio) at the GMA News website.]

The nearest I’ve gotten to the feast is watching it on TV. There’s something raw about it, something that transcends time. Sure, the celebrants are all wearing t-shirts and pants and have cellphones (which, for their sake, I hope they left at home), but you get the feeling that they could be wearing pelts. They have that sort of energy. People have gotten killed during the festival and yet it endures, as glorious as ever. Right now, I don’t think I want to attend the festival for real (mostly because my mom would have a conniption if she found out) but should I get a chance to do so, I would not say no.

It’s tough to choose just one because I’ve interviewed so many interesting people. If my high school self saw me now, she would be squealing with delight. Here are the first 3 that comes to mind:

Pilita Corrales - One of the most amazing people I have met. She used to be a big star, and still is in some parts of the world. Did you know they named a street after her in Sidney? An interview consists of you sitting down and her telling you about her life story in fascinating detail.

Gary Barlow - One of the guys from the now defunct Take That. He called me at my house. I took the call in my parents room like a giggly teenager. He was very nice. Answered all questions about himself, his music, his family. Knows how to make fun of himself, too. The thing with a lot of foreign artists is that they take themselves too seriously, refuse to answer questions that don’t have to do with whatever it is they’re promoting at the time. Gary wasn’t like that.

Imelda Marcos - I didn’t really interview her but I got the chance to interact with her for the Terno episode of the first season of Project Runway Philippines. What a fascinating woman! She revolutionized the terno, taking it from a bulky three-piece into the streamlined one piece that is our national costume today. She my not have come off as nice in “The Bridge” but really, the story is more a tribute than anything else. If I like you enough, I’m going to make you a monster.

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