Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Come One, Come All!

Today's the start of the Taboan: Philippine Writers' Festival, which is supposed to run until Friday. Looks very interesting, with some panels talking about Philippine spec fic and its relation to the current literary landscape.

dean posted the schedule here as he's one of the 40 Under 40 Writers included in the festival (as well as adam, dom, ian, and joel). I'll highlight some of the items:

DAY 1, FEBRUARY 11, WEDNESDAY
University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City

ATBP: WRITING OFF THE MAINSTREAM. Gay/lesbian literature, chick lit, "spec fic", Chinoy lit , and all that jazz. What alternatives exist to straight, realist, mainstream lit? Is this kind of "pigeonholing" good or bad—or, when is it good, and when is it bad?
Panelists: Dean Francis Alfar, Jhoanna Cruz, J. Neil C. Garcia, Jaime An Lim, Tara FT. Sering
Moderator: Danton Remoto
Venue: CNB Room 309

DAY 3, FEBRUARY 13, FRIDAY
Cubao X, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City

FICTIONAL SHOWDOWN. This is a friendly showdown between the realms speculative fiction and “non-speculative” fiction—its advocates, practitioners and its subject matter. Also up for discussion: attempted definitions, blurred boundaries and common goals.
Panelists: Dean Francis Alfar, Adam David, Jonathan J. Siason, Alvin B. Yapan, Prabda Yoon
Moderator: Ian Casocot
Venue: Kolektib 1

The last one is amusing as it's supposed to be a "showdown" of sorts. For myself, I'll definitely be attending the Friday events. Let's hope my work schedule clears up by then.

In other news, one of my past stories just made it to don's Low 5 List of 2008! Hell yeah! Talk about going two for one on that story as adam generally shot down this collection of stories also. (To be exact, he said reading the "erotic" stories didn't make him feel like masturbating afterwards.) As I said before, bad reviews don't bother me and don did get my attempted stylings on the story down pat (though I gotta say: Tarantino? Saw? Moi?). So it's all good.

5 comments:

Ryan said...

maybe you should get your inspiration from true life and not from books and movies?

Anonymous said...

isn't "books and movies" part of true life? move on. just write.

banzai cat said...

ryan: heh logovore was based on real life, didn't you know. ;-)

anon: ditto.

Ryan said...

inspiration can be had from different sources, of course, and i do highly enjoy works inspired by stuff that is out there, such as the whole superhero genre. a good example is "the incredibles" or even the comic book reboots (which i know is not as popular a choice)

when not done well, however, it is, well, derivative. (ex.
1990s image comics)

anonymous: you should encourage broadening horizons rather than hold people back with your limited world view.
read between the lines and understand when someone is trying to help

banz: i think you should break the gaiman influence in your work & have something more original. or at least push the envelope.

banzai cat said...

no but seriously, ryan. hold on, lemme dig up that talk I did in la salle...

...here it is:

http://estranghero.blogspot.com/2008/03/very-long-and-boring-post-yes-i-have.html

the gist of that post is that a lot of fiction goes down easier in the writing if I base it on actual events.