That We Know But Have Never Seen

One, I just want to give a shout-out to my online buddy Jayaprakash Satyamurthy of India (or JP as people call him) who's put all his fiction online for free up at the blog Empty Dreams.

I've known JP-- who's even more of a bookhound than me-- ever since the now-dissipated forum days with the infamous rabble-rouser Gabe Chouinard. Moreover, JP 's erudite and cutting declarations at his blog is only rivaled by his discerning book taste (some which can sampled at Gabe Llama's cozy little forum Gambols & Frolics).

Go check it out.

Two, another shout-out I'd like to give is for those local writers who're interested in submitting to Alternative Alamat by Paolo Chikiamco of Rocketkapre. Paolo's looking for new stories (or new ways of telling old stories) of local legend and he plans to put the anthology up for sale as an ebook on his site, one of Rocketkapre's offerings to the world.

Mind, he's not referring to the usual Filipino monster tropes like the manananggal, the aswang, the tikbalang or the dwende. He's looking for alamats or myths and legends, which our country has in great abundance. It's a good idea: after all, one can only take so much nth iteration of the aswang in the city.

So go forth and submit. We need more of our stories out there.