50 young authors launch workshop anthology
By Neni Sta. Romana-Cruz
It was a virtual book launch, scheduled for early in the year, waited for healthier times that never came, so it had to happen when December set in. It was special because it honored 50 young authors who had attended the Saturday Young Writers’ Hangout sessions of Write Things at Fully Booked in Bonifacio Global City. They had written and revised enough to be part of the annual anthology of poems, essays, short stories. And this year was the sixth edition of “In Our Own Words.”
It is an anthology to be proud of—attractive with the digital art of Robert Alejandro and book design by Liza Flores, both of Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan, the country’s respected group of talented children’s book illustrators. Both are pillars of children’s book publishing.
In Our Own Words Volume 6 book cover
Why is a book launch important, or an anthology for that matter, for these young authors, they with the rage and the passion to read and write? Because as we teachers have been told many times over, students must always be presented with real-life scenarios for learning to be meaningful and relevant. And what do authors do—they write not only to have their pieces posted on refrigerator doors, classroom bulletin boards; they need to speak to a larger audience and be lauded and yes, critiqued.
It has been explained to our students that our book is a real book with an ISBN number and a copy housed at the National Library of the Philippines. Of course, they asked if it would be available in bookstores and on Amazon. Not quite yet.
Two celeb storytellers
What lent special meaning to the book launch was the attendance of two celebrity storytellers, established and well known in their respective fields. Guess who honored the authors with their presence— Lourd de Veyra and Alejandro. Their presence conveyed to the authors how their work was valued. De Veyra is a rock band singer, a TV anchor, an essayist, a poet, a political activist, and because he is all that and more, he was twice removed from us via a video message for his dramatic reading of three poems.
Lourd de Veyra read the poems with his usual flair
Alejandro is dear to Write Things not only as the artist of our attractive book cover but as the one who did the eye-catching Instagrammable murals for Manila International Book Fair in the before times. A familiar face on TV as former anchor, he is also widely admired for his delightful art lessons since lockdown began. He is also designer for their highly successful family arts and crafts store, Papemelroti.
Robert Alejandro painted the images the words gave him
When Alejandro’s turn came up and his Zoom frame turned blank, I dreaded the WiFi connectivity. He reassured us that he was just getting ready to do something different. He was going to read the three pieces assigned him and paint as the words inspired him. Trust him to have such a novel idea that impressed our Zoom audience of 50 plus. Having Alejandro on board was special to one of our authors, Yelena Maria Delena, 10, because she remembers Alejandro with the movie-star looks, as one she modeled with.
A sad note to the celebration was remembering one of our teenage authors, Juan Antonio Villar Altamira, JT, who left us at the age of 15 on Jan. 16, after a brief illness. His parents, Lani and Junji, only discovered his love for writing when they unlocked his phone and all the writing JT had been doing, including a speculative fiction piece running to 700 pages. Write Things is fortunate to have an excerpt in the anthology.
JT Altamira, 15, and gone too soon
Words of advice
Each of the 50 authors was acknowledged as regular writing facilitator Roel SR Cruz read out their names. Most of them had received their authors’ copies by then.
Our guests did not only make the words come alive from the printed pages but had important words of advice for the young authors.
De Veyra said: “Keep on hanging out, we need your words especially these days when often words are all we have.” Alejandro said: “We need your stories, your poems because we need to have more than just tweets, likes, text messages.”
Marion Chan with Newbery Medal winner, Filipino American Erin Entrada Kelly
One of the authors, Marion Chan who is a regular at our classes as she welcomes the comfort of being with kindred souls, has an ongoing project of author interviews. She has personally met Newbery Medal Winner Erin Entrada Kelly, renowned poet Jimmy Abad, Candy Gourlay. Her piece is “Ars Poetica” and captures what writing means to her:
“An everlasting scoop of ice cream / drizzled with chocolate and / peppered with chocolate chips. / The feeling of joy and wonder as / pen meets paper, the blackness of / the ink towering onto the / snowy white paper is similar to / the sensation of the first bite -/ a sliver of pure happiness. / If you jump at it, attack it, let melting…”
And now, it’s time to write for “In Our Own Words, Vol. 7”— to preserve memories of a year not to be forgotten.
This article was first published in Philippine Daily Inquirer on December 21, 2020.
