Call for submissions for DOCUMENTS: A Biannual Youth & Beauty Brigade Publishing Project

(From Adam David)

"We are looking towards publishing books by young, unpublished authors with brave, new, and vibrant works we are both befuddled by and believe in. 

"The guidelines:

• The book should be about an investigation: implicit, explicit, inner or outer, about any and all – a family member’s suicide, flood control protocols, a detective novel, history of the evolution of the logo of a multinational company, etc etc – as long as something is being detected, uncovered, found, as long as the investigation is refracted through art’s lens;
• The book should fit 48 pages, all in, from 9”x9” to 6”x6” to 4”x4”, counting the front and back matters, i.e., title page, copyright page, dedication, acknowledgements, endnotes, etc etc;
• The book need not be pure prose or pure poetry: any multimedia and extraliterary form is welcome, as long as it can be fitted and printed within the 48 pages.

"The terms:

• Three books will be chosen to be published for release at the upcoming BLTX XMAS event, and subsequently every six months after that;
• Ten copies of each book to be printed, each copy to be sold at P300;
• All earnings from the first ten copies straight to the authors;
• All three available for pre-order, 50% of earnings beyond production cost going straight to the authors (that’s potentially P12.50+/- per book);
• Print rights remain with the authors, this deal merely for this project only, so if ever the authors decide to pull out, they can easily pull out, no strings attached.

"Send any and all submissions in whatever language, in whatever appropriate format – PDF, RTF, DOC, JPG, GIF – and also questions, et al, to ybb.books@gmail.com. Selected manuscripts will be prepared for publication by the Youth & Beauty Brigade in full consultation with the authors. The deadline for the initial entries is 20th of October, 2012. 

"The Youth & Beauty Brigade is still off-the-books, still utterly shoestring, still the extremely young and incredibly beautiful book design-and-publishing outfit still operating within and around the immediate Cubao area. There are many of us in spirit, but it is run primarily by Adam David and Conchitina Cruz."

24 Hours on Twitter: An Index of Terms

Abadilla, Alejandro....................................23

#adulthood.................................................1

advance directive, how to write an.............12

Ako ang Daigdig (poem).............................22

Alejandro, Rachel........................................18

#ambition.....................................................1, 19

antibiotics.....................................................7, 50

#anyare........................................................1

araw, at nasaan ka.......................................17, 55

#atsomepointItunedout.................................15, 25, 38

Awards, Palanca...........................................20

ayaw............................................................7, 49

bantay..........................................................5

bed, I miss my..............................................5

Carreon, Shane...........................................20

choice, motherhood should be a...............33

#chos............................................................48

common cold...............................................2

Daddy (poem)..............................................1, 48

doctor, guwapo ba si...................................6

done, after all I had ............................13

drama queen, maybe I’m just a...................11, 42, 52

dramatic monologue...................................14, 39

end, the...................................................40, 57

fatigue......................................................41, 56

flood alert.................................................45, 52, 54

gamot, ayaw inumin ang..........................8, 51

Guy, Ako na ang Ate................................11, 43

Habagat....................................................54

Hagibis......................................................29

hahaha........................................................7, 11, 37

himala, walang............................................10

hospital........................................................1

#ikawna........................................................24

inis, hindi nakatulog sa................................9, 32, 37

#justincase...................................................11

Katawan, ingatan ang inyong.......................4, 28

Legs legs legs...............................................30

messenger, don’t shoot the...........................10, 51

Nakapagtataka (song)...................................18, 37

naman, confessional na................................46

naman, women na.........................................47

“no”, the body says........................................3, 30, 37

pasok, walang................................................27

persona..........................................................7, 50

Plath, Sylvia...................................................49

pneumonia, complications..............................2

policy, honesty is the best...............................10, 46

#rhbill..............................................................32

right, I know....................................................33

Safe Sex, not...................................................36

Saved Sex, but................................................37

#shanecarreonikawnaforeverteh....................21

treatment, silent..............................................14

ulan, walang tigil ang.......................................2, 16, 26, 44, 53

water, like writing on........................................45

wonder, can’t help but......................................18, 38

you, done for..................................................3, 11, 13, 37, 58

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Nerdy p.s.: Not the 'index poem' referred to in the previous post (this one is way more fun), but an exercise to figure out how to write that one. Constraint imposed: Material taken from my twitter feed over a 24-hour period. 

Books for breakfast

My Hollywood, by Mona Simpson

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I thought Claire was tedious, petty, and so completely boring. But playing this character off Lola (yes, 'lola', in Filipino, 'grandmother'--not Low-lah, though the non-Filipino characters would have pronounced it that way) made for an interesting and poignant (toward the end) book. I appreciate that it was, at all, written.

I did have trouble with time shifts, especially in the first half or so--but maybe this was because the point was to make Claire seem sort of unhinged by everything?

In spite of running the text through 'Elma Dayrit' (to whom the book is dedicated) and 'Denise Cruz', the diction of Lola and the other Fil-Ams was pretty uneven in parts--early on, Lola actually waxes poetic (too obviously the author's hand), when in parts, she sounded like a Chinese amah. Also, Lola was supposedly from a really well educated family (which lost its money some-when) but her grammar and syntax (particularly in the beginning of "Lola" chapters) indicated someone from a less affluent background (but by the middle of the chapter, the diction changes yet again, supported by words, grammar, and syntax that are more mainstream, less "immigrant". Even as someone thinks that "the greatest innovation" of this novel is Lola's "invented...patois" (here--except for this, I agree with most of the points in this review) I agree with this other reviewer that this "invention" comes off as patronizing. (Note to would-be authors: Doing a Junot Diaz is a tough challenge--particularly if you're drawing up a character who is not of your own ethnicity. Attempt at your own risk.)

Is it unfair to demand this type of authenticity? It feels like this is a minor quibble. Because the feel of the rest of the text--the sense of relationship between employer and employee, the interior lives of Claire and Lola, these do feel authentic, and by the last third of the text, I find myself weeping in parts. I do have a feeling that Simpson had done the best research she could, and was ultimately truthful. It seemed to me that the project was one that aimed to create connections and understanding between two cultures (one, if you read this as an American novel) and I think it succeeded.

I wonder what Oscar Campomanes thinks/would think about this novel. ;)

Other reviews that put this novel squarely in the category of "nanny fiction"--yes, apparently it's pretty big over there-- here and here.

There's a preview on Scribd. Dead-tree version available at Powerbooks Megamall.

This afternoon

Attended the monthly LitCritters' meeting. Today's important lesson. When writing allegories and similar: The question to ask is: Does the work succeed in effecting the outcome it promises? Also: Always remember writing is also, importantly, about (re-)imagination.

South of QC

At Krem Art, Photo by Nikka Osorio; Art by Marc Gaba

Not my usual hang-out, but has been, quite recently, because of a bookmaking workshop for the little one. While she's safe and sound inside the workshop venue, I wander round the area in the summer heat. Turns out the workshop site is a block or two away from Scout Ybardolaza, where the Parish of the Sacred Heart stands. Quite delighted to figure this out, as I spent some memorable moments last year--or was it 2010?--at Krem Art, just across the church. Sadly, the beautiful jewel-box of an art gallery underneath a sampaloc tree is now a medical clinic. There's art on the walls, still, but the glass window has "Medical Clinic" stenciled on it. 

Thoughts on the train

1. No one, rich or poor, can handle more than a small life. Our experience of life is always writ small, though we carry on as though life were writ large.

2. One must learn to live without.

How was your day?

Today. Filed what needed to be filed, paid what needed to be paid, walked around the place where part of me still lives a life parallel to mine. Spent most of the afternoon drinking iced tea and sago, with the little one in tow. Spent the evening with young people studying under/with my husband.  And now I am tired, yes, tired of walking, and stepping over things, seeing, unseeing,  doing, not doing, misunderstanding, &, well you know the rest.

Here are some of the things I told the kids:

1. Some people are good for you; some are not. The trick is to find the ones who help you, more often than get you into trouble, wittingly or otherwise. It's a lot like love, I think. Some people, you love with a passion even when they never ever love you back. You can continue as before, I suppose, if you're the type of person who blooms while in the throes of unrequited love. But I am too old for all that, though I don't look it, though I don't usually feel it, as I do now.

2. So much easier to be angry (self-preservation).

The world is far more complicated than we think. We read it as though the text were black on white, when everything is in color.

3. One must never give the impression that one is the fount of wisdom, as it is bad to style oneself as an inexhaustible well. If there is anything we must learn from current events, it's this: everything is slowly revealing itself to be nonrenewable, exhaustible.

4. When I was seven, I dreamed that an angel with a flaming sword visited me and told me I would die  a virgin saint. I woke up and told my mother. She laughed me out of the house of dream.

And here is what I didn't tell them: Those older than you can tell what you know and don't; when you're trying to impress, and when you're simply trying to be.

Books for breakfast, bed; and then some

Breakfast Menu

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke (recommended by hellkitten, who is sorely missed; get well soon!)

Beditime Menu

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

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All grades in. Looks like I'll be allowed to level up. Halfway through.

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Have been following dump-mix/shake-marinate-stirfy/fry recipes from Del Monte Kitchenomics. And making sandwiches for the little one. So far, no one's complaining.

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Looking for summer classes for the little one. Checking out Adarna House and another school in QC. Otherwise: Looks like we're both stuck with each other this summer.

Also learned today that the little one's school won't be accelerating her in preparation for K-12--unlike my old school (which has done just that). Was told that the little one's school is "still studying" the DepEd's K-12 plan.  This makes me a bit afraid. S's cousins will be in grade 4 when school starts, while she'll still be stuck in grade 3. This makes me anxious. So much confusion. I hope DepEd sorts this out.

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So much to do, so little time.

[Insert witty title here]*

*with apologies to Bull Meets Frog.

Too heartsick to work with words. Attended a funeral mass this morning, and did some legal work today, then met up with speakinginhushedtones who is doing monstrously wonderful work. But I am heartsick still.

We interrupt regular programming for this important message

Ten years. 

Summer meet-ups.

All photos by Alyza Taguilaso

I should be editing two stories for my last class of the semester, but I couldn't pass up the chance to spend time with four friends who happen to write awesome poetry and fiction. The awesome Shane Carreon finished her MA in CW in record time and was in Manila to submit all requirements that would enable her to march at UP Diliman's upcoming graduation rites--including and especially her poetry collection, Travel Book. It's a beautiful collection, accompanied by an equally beautiful account of her poetics (and so well-researched too).  I also met up with fabulous poet/artist Alyza Taguilaso who is studying medicine while writing scary-beautiful poems. Glenn L. Diaz and I read her work and were so happy to see that, despite all her med school-related stress, she is obviously blooming, as far as the writing's concerned. As well as in other things. Hahaha. Glenn, who writes brilliant fiction and poetry, didn't come with his stories and poems, but told us about some little things he'd been working on, which might seem ordinary to him, but seemed interesting and compelling to the rest of us. And at one point, we had a wonderful discussion about erasures, adaptations, and other such things with gifted poet/artist Arbeen Acuna. The 8-year-old sat through it all, and actually shared with the last three of us left at the end of the day, that she had completed a story that she could show "her teachers". Glenn L. Diaz and Alyza Taguilaso graciously offered to "workshop" the piece, and while she demurred this time around, was very curious about the process. Altogether a good day.