Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories by Jessica Zafra (Book)

Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Filipino author Jessica Zafra. It was first published by Anvil Publishing in 1992. The collection contains 15 stories including Portents, the story that won first place in the 1991 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in the short story category.

The stories featured in the collection are:

1. The Word-Eaters
2. Portents
3. Manananggal Terrorizes Manila
4. Face in the Crowd
5. What's In Your Glass
6. Scylla and Charybdis
7. Romeo, et. al.
8. "_____ Was Here"
9. Ten Thousand Easters at the Vatican
10. Doppelganger
11. The Ouija Board of Thomas Edison
12. The Wide Open Eyes of Madness
13. Kind of Brown
14. My Dog Is Dead
15. Through a Time Warp, With a Paddle

The blurb at the back of the book:

Jessica Zafra writes a column, "Womenagerie" in Woman Today and her articles have appeared in Metro. Her story, "Portents" won first place in the 1991 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards fpr Literature. She was a UP Summer Writers' Workshop Fellow in 1985.

Jessica was a scholar at the Philippine High School and moved on to the University of the Philippines to major in Comparative Literature.

Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories by Jessica Zafra

Other books by Jessica Zafra:

1. The Age of Umbrage

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse by Mila D. Aguilar (Poetry Book)

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995) is a poetry collection by Filipino author and poet Mila D. Aguilar. It was published by the University of the Philippines Press and the Creative Writing Center on March 15, 1996. The book contains an Introduction by National Artist for Literature Francisco Arcellana, Sr. The Introduction was written in verse form and so was the Preface by the author.

The blurb from the book's back cover:

"This book is not only an autobiography in verse; it is the history of a society in radical transition. Mila D. Aguilar, without realizing it at the time she was writing her poetry, has chronicled the most significant turn of events in Philippine society in the last half of the twentieth century, as it affected a Filipino woman of the petty bourgeoisie, in her prime.

Mila D. Aguilar was born in 1949, a baby boomer strongly influenced by her father, who won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his pioneering work on the community school.

In the late 60s, when stirrings of the world revolutionary youth movement started, she was in college at the University of the Philippines, hotbed of dissent. When activism broke out in 1970, she was a young teacher and journalist, assigned to cover the youth front. When martial law was imposed in 1972, she had already gone underground.

She saw it all. In 1983, her revolutionary party's response to the Ninoy Aquino assassination convinced her that it was time to leave her beloved movement. Arrested and imprisoned in 1984, she was released in the midst of the jubilation over the EDSA Revolt in February, 1986.

What became of her after that? Her poems will tell you."

Journey: An Autobiography in Verse by Mila D. Aguilar

Preface:

"The poems in this collection constitute a journey launched early in my teens in quest of the meaning of life. It was a journey that necessitated - without, of course, my knowing so at the start - the discovery of three major actors in my life: Self, Society, and Maker. It took me more than thirty years to unravel the correlation between the three, and even now I suppose I should be wary to say that I already have.

Yet the feeling grows on me everyday that I have. As I review these chronologically arranged poems, I begin to see a pattern of thought and feeling that has followed my trail through the years, wherever I have been buffeted. It is aa consistent, persistent pattern outside of my control that has inexorably spiralled from my finite Self to an expansive Society, and from there to an immeasurable, awesome God.

I present these poems to the public with trepidation and not a little sadness, for going through them makes me feel that I am at the end of my rope: I have said all I can about life on earth - that is, as far as my limitations can carry me - and now all I have left to discover is life in heaven.

I guess I will continue to exist on this planet only if something remains to be done."

Dear Distance: Stories by Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak (Book)

Dear Distance: Stories is a collection of short stories written by Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak. The book was originally published by Anvil Publishing in 2016. The collection contains 20 stories. Katigbak died on April 20, 2016 at the age of 41, shortly after the first publication of Dear Distance.

Here are the 20 stories in the collection:

1. Subterrania
2. Visitors
3. It's Not Me
4. Little Fears
5. Passengers
6. Knowledge
7. Afterlife with Astrid
8. More Than I Ever Wanted Anything
9. Silences
10. Day Devoid
11. Tell the Sky
12. The Girl on the Bus
13. We Built This Robot
14. The Editorial Meeting
15. Tell Me Do, Something True
16. Robot Boy and Hepa
17. Sabado, 1995
18. Planetarium
19. And You Tell Me '87
20. Dear Distance

About the Author (from the book):

Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak (26 July 1974 - 20 April 2016) was the author of The King of Nothing to Do (Milflores Publishing, 2006), a collection of essays, and Happy Endings (University of the Philippines Press, 2006), a collection of short stories. Both were nominated for National Book Awards by the Manila Critics Circle. He won numerous honors for his writing, including four Palanca Awards, a Philippine Graphic Prize, and a Young Artists' Grant from the NCCA.

Luis worked in TV and advertising, and taught creative writing at the University of the Philippines. He was associate editor for Esquire Philippines from 2011-2015, and was also a well-known music critic. He wrote a weekly column for the Philippine Star, called "Senses Working Overtime".

Luis was hospitalized in December 2015 for complications from diabetes, and passed away on April 20, 2016 at the age of 41, shortly after the publication of Dear Distance.

At the end of the book, Katigbak wrote a section called "Some Notes on the Stories" where he talks about his inspirations for the stories in the collection. Here's that section:

Some of these stories were sparked by sights or sounds by other people, some of them approach the character of collaborations.

"Visitors" was inspired by an exhibit by Gabby Barredo; "Tell the Sky" was inspired by the work of Yvonne Quisimbing; "Little Fears" by the photographs of Frankie Callaghan. I asked Noelle Pico to dash off some lyrics to suit the lost fictional '80s rock star of "More Than I Ever Wanted Anything". "Tell Me Do..." was inspired by an illustration by Dave Yogore. "It's Not Me" was inspired by the album Identity Theft, by the band Drip (Beng Calma, Ian Magbanua, Malek Lopez, Caliph8, and Mark Laccay, at the time). "Sabado, 1995" was inspired by the Eraserheads song "Sabado" and "1995", and the '90s in general.

Many of these stories drew more directly from personal occurrences, from my life, and the lives of loved ones. If you know me in real life, you may recognize an incident or anecdote here and there. For everything borrowed without permission, you have my utmost gratitude, and, where appropriate, my sheepish apologies.

Dear Distance: Stories by Luis Joaquin . Katigbak

Dear Distance: Stories by Luis Joaquin . Katigbak

Dear Distance: Stories by Luis Joaquin . Katigbak

Imelda And The Clans: A Story Of The Philippines by Beatriz Romualdez Francia (Book)

Imelda And The Clans: A Story Of The Philippines is a book written by Beatriz Romualdez Francia. It was published in 1988 by Solar Publishing Corporation.

From the back cover:

Beatriz Romualdz Francia is an award-winning poet who has written a musical play, worked as a journalist, and written several columns. She has been described by Adrian Cristobal, president of the Writers Union of the Philippines, as being among the foremost women writers in the country.

Since age ten, she has been one of her aunt Imelda's closest observers and was jailed by the Marcoses in '72 for her fiercely independent writing.

She opened Cafe Los Indios Bravos, Manila's first literary cafe in the '60s, helped found a film society, ran her own art gallery in San Francisco, and was the librettist and co-producer of Mahal, a rock musical ("mind-blowing." according to one review) which ran at the CCP theatre and was televised as a TV special.

In San Francisco, Beatriz worked for a Republican think-tank, the Institute for Contemporary Studies.