ABOUT THE BOOK

The essays in this book…are written versions of the presentations given by the discussants at Kumustahan 2018 [a seminar, sponsored in Tagaytay by the Likhaan: UP Institute of Creative Writing], representing writing traditions and communities across the following linguistic domains: Filipino, anglophone, Bikol, Kiniray-a and Hiligaynon, Waray, Cebuano or Binisaya, Ilokano and Tinguian, Pangasinan, and Kapampangan… A very clear realization we arrived at… is as they operate, creative writing workshops in the Philippines presuppose and require “formalism”–the teaching of literary technique–but they also complicate and transcend it. Because theories become localized as they travel, as enacted in various artistic contexts in the Philippines, the strictures of formalism, as they are required by the workshop method, have always already been appropriated and translated. — From the Introduction

ABOUT THE EDITOR

J. Neil Garcia teaches creative writing and comparative literature at UP Diliman, where he serves as a fellow for poetry in the Likhaan: UP Institute of Creative Writing. He is the author of numerous poetry collections and works in literary and cultural criticism, and was co-editor of the Ladlad series of Philippine gay writing.