The Torture Sessions

Listening to Red (Taylor’s Version) in the Tuna Capital

General Santos is hot in a way that I’ve only ever experienced in my parents’ hometown, where a glass (or two) of ice-cold Coca-Cola in the afternoons is a staple not just for its sweetness but for the relief it brings from the relentless heat. But unlike Tarlac or Pampanga, there’s a vastness to this city that reminds us how close to the sea we are–the car drives down the highway and kicks up…

What does the zine mean in 2019?

As we get ready to put out Blonde, a new zine (I say we because it’s a collaboration with a friend of mine, Raph, and his friend), on May 18th, I can’t help but think about how different zine-making is now than it was eight years ago, how different the thing that is “putting out a zine” seems to mean. Of course, this fact seems straightforward enough: eight years is a long time, comprised of…

The Story Shop: An Experiment

A few months ago, Conchitina Cruz (aka Chingbee) wrote an entry entitled On Writing & Value which talked about how poetry is perceived in the Philippine setting and how the value of poetry (and literature in general) is often equated to nil because “value equals money” is the mainstream form of thought when in truth what literature has to offer is something more than that; the money is beside the…

All In Threes: Writing Updates!

I don’t usually do these types of posts because I fear that they are too self-indulgent but I haven’t posted a writing update in ages so I don’t feel too irked putting this up. The older I get, the better I feel about both rejections and acceptances for publication. I remember being fretful and dreading clicking the “Submit” button because back then everything felt like a critique not just of the…

These days, I can’t stop reading: the thought of leaving even an hour to spare between finishing one book and beginning another gives me the same amount of anxiety that you would expect from walking on a tightrope in a skirt without underwear on a windy day. The thing that everyone tells you about losing a parent is true: you never get used to it, you simply distract yourself. I’ve been missing…

Coffee & Flowers: It Draws A Line

The thing about loss and grief is that it draws a line: not just between the dead and those left living but also between the living and those around them. Lately, I’ve been thinking about my Dad’s death not just as the death of my father but as the death of my father: something that now belongs to my family and in part, on a more personal level, to me. Inevitably, I think, death brings up (or…

On The Nature of Disappointment

In the midst of the BLTX preparation madness, filming videos, reading, and working on more stories to send out/funnel into projects that have been in the works for a long time, real life has managed to worm itself into the back of my mind. This past week, my boyfriend ended up being hospitalized (he’s fine now) and so I took the week off work to look after him; most of the four days, he was…

All of Time & Space // Inking Adventure

I have been waiting to get this tattoo for what feels like ages. Last year, I fell in love with Doctor Who and was charmed by Doctor after Doctor after Doctor (also breaking my heart time after time after time). One of the most difficult things for me was to move on from loving the Tenth Doctor and into loving the Eleventh–not because 11 was hard to love, but because the situation was quite the…

Sunning A Mattress @ the Southern Pacific Review // Fiction

This story is one that was very difficult for me to write. It was both a return to and a stepping out of something: in the recent past, I feel that I’ve dipped my toes (or perhaps fallen headlong) into the strange, the fairy tale-but-not-quite; I’ve tried more and more to challenge myself by writing based on certain guidelines or prompts (e.g. without mentioning a certain word, by using words as…

Maybe We Can Drive Around This Town // Sweet Ecstasy Burger Run

I spend most of my time indoors. It is just in the nature of the things I do, I suppose. Day job: research analyst for supply chain-related matters, passion: writing fiction, other “job”: vlogging/blogging about books, hobbies: reading books, watching films, playing with makeup. So. There you go. In an attempt to catch up on creative work and things as well as to use up my allotted non-refundable…

On The Other Side // A Katipunan Adventure

This month (September) has dragged on for what feels like forever. I feel a little bit unnerved because I still have so many things to write, read, and review/film for my channel–this whole month has felt like something’s gotta give and yet nothing has so here I am. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Katipunan with the rest of Plural to attend/panel at a talk hosted by Kritika Kultura. The main…