HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST sponsored by MERITAGE PRESS

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Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

TENTH ANNUAL HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST

Sponsor: Meritage Press (www.meritagepress.com)
Judge: Beatriz Tabios
Deadline: December 31, 2010

Permanent Link Info: http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments. Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be shared without your names to judge Beatriz Tabios, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit — it doesn't matter whether you're established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. By Filipino, we include part-blooded Filipinos. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of Dec. 31, 2010.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).

12/03 - 12/04/2010: Karen Tei Yamashita's I-HOTEL: a theatrical staged reading

Time: 12/03/2010 - 7:00pm - 12/04/2010 - 3:00pm

Location: Manilatown/I-Hotel Center, 868 Kearny St. @Jackson St.

Bindlestiff Studio in collaboration with the Manilatown Heritage Foundation presents

LAST NIGHTS: Key Words is both a community theatrical reading of National Book Award nominee Karen Tei Yamashita's I Hotel

(as part of the Last Nights event restaging the UNTIL TODAY: Spectres for the International Hotel exhibition currently on view through December 4, 2010).

RSVP: reserve your free ticket on Eventbrite: http://ihotelprojectkeywords.eventbrite.com
WHEN: Friday December 3, 7:00-9:00pm and Saturday December 4, 3:00-6:00pm

(Artist talk@3:00; Reading at 4:30 followed by a QnA with Karen Tei Yamashita in attendance)

WHERE: International Hotel (I-Hotel) 868 Kearny Street at Jackson, San Francisco, CA

12/04/2010: PAWA Arkipelago Series

PAWA, Inc. in conjunction with Filpino Book Festival, Arkipelago Books present PAWA Arkipelago Series

Saturday December 4, 2010
6:00 PM
Bayanihan Community Center
1010 Mission Street, San Francisco

Featuring:
Florante Aguilar is an accomplished guitarist and composer, he has recorded several CD's including his latest: The Manila Galleon Guitar Music (Music from the Philippines and Latin America). He is currently producing a full-length documentary on one of his specialties: Harana.

Patricia "Trish" Jetson is a writer based in Oakland, California. She has created pieces reflecting the history of the African American Community in Oakland.

Karen Llagas is a recipient of the second Filamore Tabios, Sr. Memorial Poetry Prize, and her first collection of poetry, Archipelago Dust, was published by Meritage Press last August. She has an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers.

Joel Barraquiel Tan is a writer, visual artist, editor, & curator. He is the author of Type O Negative (Red Hen), Monster (Noise) and has edited three anthologies of erotica.

Michelle Robles Wallace curates The Kaleidoscope Reading Series in San Francisco. She is currently finishing her MFA in Creative Writing at Mills College.

Lourdes Figueroa will read poems from a collection of "work in progress". She is in the USF MFA program.

A free event to be followed by the PAWA Holiday Gathering

If you are planning to attend and would like to contribute to the potluck, please visit http://www.pawainc.com/potluckdecember2010.html and indicate what you would like to bring. There is a link to the current list of food/drink items on that page.

Call for Poems: Carlos Bulosan's 97th Birthday

From Asia Writes:

"We are multitudes the world over, millions everywhere;
in violent factories, sordid tenements, crowded cities;
in skies and seas and rivers, in lands everywhere;
our number increase as the wide world revolves
and increases arrogance, hunger disease and death."

...If you want to know what we are,
WE ARE REVOLUTION!

In this time where the Revolution has been defined for us by the corporate control over culture, there is an increasing need for the Revolution to counter this and take back the culture into its hands and define itself. Carlos Bulosan's poem "If you want to know what we are," provides a detailed definition of the Revolution that trancends his time onto the present. In commemoration of Carlos Bulosan's 97th birthday, we are calling on everyone to submit an piece of art that is inspired by a line or a part of his poem "If you want to know what we are." It can be of any form - a painting, a song, a poem, a video. It can be from an individual or a collaboration between a group of people. All the works will be gathered together into a website which would show the world what we are - WE ARE REVOLUTION!

For submissions and more information, please email: wearerevolution.bulosan@gmail.com

We will also be launching a website soon. The website is under construction but is now functioning: http://wearerevolution.net/

Guidelines for submissions here.

12/05/2010: Ladies Who've Launched (KSW, SF)

From Kearny Street Workshop: 

SW and APICC celebrate the recent releases of innovative books by poets Shailja Patel and Barbara Jane Reyes with a reading and party! Patel’s Migritude puts her celebrated solo performance into print form, unpacking mothers, migration, violence, and empire, while unpacking the poet’s trunk of saris. Reyes’ Diwata communes with Filipino and Western fairies and demons, speaking through their voices and trying to understand the cultural hinges on which immigrant dreams and nightmares swing.

There will be refreshments, and a chance to buy Migritude and Diwata, as well as other books from Kaya Press, APICC, and KSW merchandise. Please join us!

Kearny Street Workshop
ARC Studios & Gallery
1246 Folsom St., SF

Sunday, December 5
6:00 – 9:00 pm
FREE and open to the public

Read more.

12/02/2010: Miguel Syjuco at Asia Society (NY)

Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado
Thursday, December 2, 2010 @ 6:30 P.M.

 

Michael Syjuco's Ilustrado won the Man Asian Prize before it was even published, and has been called a "literary landmark for the Philippines and beyond" by Booklist. Mixing fiction with nonfiction, Ilustrado is a family saga of four generations tracing 150 years of Philippine history forged under the Spanish, Americans, and Filipinos themselves. Woven into Miguel's accounts of his return to the Philippines is a history of the postwar Philippines, revolution, social change, heroism, cowardice, regret, faith, exile, nationalism, and the narrator's coming-of-age story. According to the New York Times, "Ilustrado is being presented as a tracing of 150 years of Philippine history, but it's considerably more than that...Spiced with surprises and leavened with uproariously funny moments, it is punctuated with serious philosophical musings." Syjuco will be in conversation with Luis Francia, author of History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos, in an intimate look at how a novelist can write history and mystery, write away from one's without the pitfalls of exotification.

Miguel Syjuco received the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize and the Philippines' highest literary honor, the Palanca Award, for the unpublished manuscript of Ilustrado. Born and raised in Manila, he currently lives in Montreal.

Luis Francia is a poet, journalist, and nonfiction writer. His semiautobiographical account of growing up in the Philippines, Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago, won both the 2002 PEN Open Book and the 2002 Asian American Writers literary awards. He is co-editor of Flippin': Filipinos on America and of Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999.

@ The Asia Society
750 Park Avenue
at 70th street

11/27/2010: Jo Canion CD Release Party (Lodi, CA)

From Carlos Zialcita:

Hello everyone...

From our family to yours - our best wishes for a very Happy Thanksgiving.  If you would like to get away for part of the weekend we would like to suggest a beautiful venue in the wine country of Lodi, CA where a very special event will take place on Saturday November 27th.

Saturday Nov. 27th - 7:30PM - Wine & Roses  2505 W. Turner Road  Lodi, CA  - Jo Canion CD Release Party - Tickets: $20   She was a major hit with the audience at the 3rd Annual SF Filipino American Jazz Festival on Oct 10th at Yoshi's SF where she debuted her CD, Lifelong Friends.  It's an instant jazz classic by one of the Bay Area's very best.  This is going to be quite a party!   Many friends, former bandmates, and fans will be there to congratulate Ms. Canion on her new release.  Her musically talented family will also be there to perform and add to the fun!

Wine & Roses is a beautiful hotel, restaurant, and spa in Lodi.  We are sure that you will agree that it's a perfect spot for this very special celebration of Jo Canion's artistry and her new CD.  For tickets and dinner reservations call 209-371-6117  For directions and more infomation - you can go to www.winerose.com.  You can hear some of Ms. Canion's CD on MySpace at www.myspace.com/jocanion.

We truly appreciate your love and support and look forward to seeing you again!

Carlos and Myrna
www.sfpinoyjazzfest.com

11/21/2010: Annual Philippine Cultural Arts Fall Festival (Oakland)

Annual Philippine Cultural Arts Fall Festival
November 21 at 01:00 pm

The American Center of Philippine Arts (ACPA) and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center invites you and your family ACPA Quarterly S.E.E.D. Recital & Arts Festival.  This will be an exciting afternoon filled with dance, art, music, food, and lots of activities for the whole family.  This event is FREE TO THE PUBLIC.

For more information, please visit ACPA's website.

11/20 -11/21/2010: FACINE17 CELEBRATES FILIPINO CINEMA IN A SHOWCASE OF NEW WORKS (SAN FRANCISCO)

From Mauro Feria Tumbocan, Jr.'s page on the event.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=151816414863791&index=1


FACINE17 CELEBRATES FILIPINO CINEMA IN A SHOWCASE OF NEW WORKS ON NOVEMBER 20-21 IN SAN FRANCISCO

Saturday, 10:30am - Sunday at 1:00pm
Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Main Library
100 Larkin Street @ Grove Street
San Francisco, CA

The longest-running festival of films by and/or about the Filipino highlights a documentary on Filipino master, Celso Ad Castillo and short works from the Philippines, the US, Puerto Rico, Korea and the Middle East

The 17th annual filipino american cine festival reels off with three full-length films and the screening of eleven short works on Saturday, November 20 ( 10:30 am-5:30 pm) and Sunday, November 21, 2010 (1-4:30 pm) at the San Francisco Main Library, Koret Auditorium. (100 Larkin Street @ Grove Street, Civic Center, San Francisco)

All screenings are free to the public. (Please see schedule below.)

The yearly festival, which is the longest-running event in the US, is organized by FACINE or Filipino arts & cinema, international, a not-for-profit media arts organization based in San Francisco that aims to promote and develop Filipino American as well as Philippine national cinema.

Byron Bryant's The Cinema of Celso Ad Castillo is a vital and long-overdue tribute to a Filipino film master whose important films (Nympha; Burlesk Queen; Ang Pinakamagandang Hayop sa Balat ng Lupa/The most beautiful creature on earth) are considered cultural and cinematic touchstones of Philippine cinema.

Milo Sogueco's Sanglaan/The pawnshop is a highly accomplished melodrama that reflects on the lives of small people affected by financial crisis.

Sari Dalena & Keith Sicat's Rigodon, expressionist in style, follows the spiritual journeys of three Filipino immigrants in New York City whose lives intertwine in the age of racial profiling and government crackdowns.

A wide array of new short works by filmmakers from the Philippines, across the US and other parts (Puerto Rico, Korea, Middle East) in different formats – documentary, narrative feature, experimental – on varying subjects, will be presented in different programs.

The US-based filmmakers include Lisa Yuchengco, Pio Candelaria, Brian Adrias, Victoria Donato and Ian Allen Lim (Puerto Rico). The Philippine-based filmmakers include Byron Bryant, Milo Sogueco, Christopher Gozum, Joni Gutierrez, Sigrid Bernardo, Rianne Hill Soriano and Sari Lluch Dalena & Keith Sicat.

The festival is co-presented with the Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Main Library. For information, please contact, Mauro Tumbocon, Director, FACINE at (415) 756-7331 or email: mftworks@hotmail.com

Call to Participate: A Place of Her Own 2011

Call to Participate: Info Session Dec. 5, Proposal due Jan. 18

A Place of Her Own is a multi-disciplinary arts project by the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA) that invites artists and the public to respond to the question, “If you had a place of your own, what would it be?” Asian American women artists will examine and create their individual responses in various media, including 2D and 3D visual art, performance and literary art. The artists’s proposals will be selected by guest jurors.

This exhibition will be co-presented with API Cultural Center (APICC) as part of their annual United States of Asian America Festival in May 2011 at SOMArts Cultural Center's Main Gallery. Cynthia Tom will head up AAWAA's curatorial team.

The Rationale
A Place of Her Own grants women permission to examine and express what is most important in their lives. In giving voice to their responses, the exhibit invites them as well as visitors to mentally sweep away all extraneous rules and expectations to discover what has significant meaning to them. The process of answering this question within a multi-disciplinary arts platform poses a thought-provoking challenge. It garners deep internal and external dialog amongst our artists and the community. The question provides inspiration for powerful work and for important conversation.

Eligibility
A Place of Her Own is open to visual, literary and performing artists of Asian American descent who identify as women. Artists must possess the willingness and skills to interact with the public and discuss their creative process. Artists will be expected to work closely with the AAWAA curatorial team.

Call for Submissions from Asian Women Writers: Urban Confustions

From Asia Writes:

Deadline: 10 February 2011

Urban Confustions invites Asian Woman writers living in the United States to submit Fiction, Non-Fiction and Poetry for their bi-annual literary journal. Urban Confustions is seeking woman writers who share a global perspective of society and are not restricted or limited by one reality or concept of “home”.

Occasionally we do accept submissions from American authors who have spent a significant amount of time outside the United States.

CALLING FOR SUBMISSIONS FOR OUR SPRING ISSUE !

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS FEBRUARY 10TH 2011.

Call for Poetry: Women Artists' Datebook (people of color encouraged to submit, pays $125)

From Writers Afrika:

Deadline: 15 January 2011

We are seeking art that complements activism...art that challenges the powers that be...that informs and educates... celebrating our efforts to change the world. Submissions from people of color and from artists not living in the USA encouraged. Unfamiliar with our work? Visit SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com or get our catalog.

WOMEN ARTISTS DATEBOOK

Art, poetry and quotes by women. Deadline: Jan. 15 for following year’s datebook. Previously unpublished work preferred, but not necessary

ARTWORK: Vertical format 4 3/4” x 7”, spiral bound. A brief description of artwork context is welcome. Cover artwork: $300 (+$100 if also used inside), plus 8 datebooks.

Inside artwork: $125/image, plus 4 datebooks.

POETRY: 8 poems may be submitted, 30-line maximum per poem with name and address on each page. $125 plus 4 datebooks.

DATEBOOK ARTISTS & POETS may purchase additional datebooks at a 40% discount; 15 or more at 50%.

Send to:

Art Dept., Syracuse Cultural Workers,
PO.Box 6367, Syracuse, NY 13217
tree@SyracuseCulturalWorkers.com

More information here.

12/05/2010: Book of Spirits: Nara Denning film showing and fundraiser

For more information, go to:
http://www.indiegogo.com/The-Pendulum-Heart

11/20/2010: Filipinotown, USA (Los Angeles)

From Carlene Bonniver:

SHOUT IT OUT!

We want stories about the quirky, heartbreaking, or maddening people you know or heard about--who live/lived/were somehow connected to the Filipino areas downtown Los Angeles.

YOU are invited to participate in the second community gathering to discuss and continue the exciting work we began at SIPA on November 6th. Our community writing project (free writing workshop) is on its way. Join us this Saturday, November 20th.

“FILIPINOTOWN, USA - Collected Stories and Neighborhood Maps, Los Angeles.”

This event is convened by a daughter and son of Los Angeles' Historic Filipinotown, Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier and Gerald G.Gubatan, and sponsored by Philippine Expressions Bookshop.

WHEN: November 20, 2010 (Saturday) at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: Manila Terrace Apartments
(Social Hall on the First Floor)
2328 W. Temple Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026
Southwest corner of Temple Street and Rosemont Street
Next door to the Bahay Kubo Restaurant
No on-site parking available; street parking only

View participation invitation on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVrMGzyH3qo

Contact: Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier or Gerald Gubatan
cbonnivi@gmail.com gxgg@att.net
714-860-9275

Kundiman Poetry Prize 2011

Kundiman and Alice James Books are accepting submissions of poetry manuscripts for The Kundiman Poetry Prize electronically and by regular mail through February 11, 2011. The Kundiman Poetry Prize welcomes submissions from emerging as well as established Asian American poets. Entrants must reside in the United States.

The winner receives $1000, book publication and a New York City feature reading.

Alice James Books is a cooperative poetry press with a mission is to seek out and publish the best contemporary poetry by both established and beginning poets, with particular emphasis on involving poets in the publishing process.

Guidelines for Electronic Manuscript Submission

Kundiman and Alice James Books are pleased to announce that, in addition to submitting your manuscript via regular mail, you may now enter your manuscript to The Kundiman Prize electronically.

Visit this link to submit electronically to The Kundiman Prize: http://www.kundiman.org/prize/

Guidelines for Print Manuscript Submission

1. Manuscripts must be typed, paginated, and 50 – 70 pages in length (single spaced).
   
2. Individual poems from the manuscript may have been previously published in magazines, anthologies, or chapbooks of less than 25 pages, but the collection as a whole must be unpublished. Translations and self-published books are not eligible. No multi-authored collections, please.
   
3. Manuscripts must have a table of contents and include a list of acknowledgments for poems previously published. The inclusion of a biographical note is optional. Your name, mailing address, email address and phone number should appear on the title page of your manuscript. MANUSCRIPTS CANNOT BE RETURNED. Please do not send us your only copy.
   
4. No illustrations, photographs or images should be included.
   
5. Send one copy of your manuscript submission with two copies of the title page. Use only binder clips. No staples, folders, or printer-bound copies.
   
6. The Kundiman Poetry Prize is judged by consensus of the members of Kundiman's Artistic Staff and the Alice James Books Editorial Board. Manuscripts are not read anonymously. Learn more about our judging process.
   
7. For notification of winners, include a business-sized SASE. If you wish acknowledgment of the receipt of your manuscript, include a stamped addressed postcard. Winners will be announced in June 2011.
   
8. Entry fee for The Kundiman Poetry Prize is $28. Checks or money orders should be made out to Alice James Books. On the memo line of your check write The Kundiman Poetry Prize.
   
9. Mail your entry to:
   Kundiman
   P.O. Box 4248
   Sunnyside, NY 11104

Checklist for entry:

• One (1) copy of manuscript enclosed, with acknowledgements and two (2) copies of title page
• $28 entry fee
• Business sized SASE
• Stamped addressed postcard
• Postmarked by February 11, 2011

Film Review of "Sister Stella L" BY ALLEN GABORRO

On the face of it, mixing love, religion, and politics sounds like a grand and praiseworthy proposition. But no one really knows where such a combination can lead to. To be exceedingly generous, the criterion, if we can call it that, for ascertaining the positive efficacy of trying out this amalgamation of these three powerful, and combustible, concepts is fundamentally inadequate. Historical scholars have rightly noted that even in the best of outcomes, blending love with religion and politics is a recipe for upheaval. But it has also produced some beneficial results as well.

Film director Mike De Leon wraps his 1984 classic “Sister Stella L” around the vital themes of love, religion, and politics as all three jump out at the viewer from the movie’s beginning to its very end. A haunting reminder of life in the Philippines under the Marcos dictatorship, “Sister Stella” is known to be an iconic work among a variety of socially-active occupations in the Philippines: the clergy, labor unions, journalists, leftists, political activists, etc. At the same time, it has been a bane to corporate management, traditional politicians, and the economic elite.

The socio-political drama in “Sister Stella” takes place against the drift of the Marcos dictatorship’s repressive view of dealing with recalcitrant labor unions and defiant nuns. By the time of the film’s production, even the mighty dictatorship could not silence the voice of the unions and their dedicated supporters among the Roman Catholic clergy for long. By 1984, when “Sister Stella” was made, the Marcos regime was nearing its breaking point a year after the momentous assassination of Ninoy Aquino and just two years before the EDSA I revolt that toppled the dictatorship.

The burden of carrying De Leon’s film is placed on its title character, Sister Stella Legaspi who is performed with quiet strength by distinguished actress and now-politician Vilma Santos (Santos is well-supported by solid performances by Jay Ilagan, Gina Alajar, and Laurice Guillen). A reluctant activist at first, Sister Stella slowly begins to have a very different idea of how Christian teachings could be understood from what the Roman Catholic establishment would consent to. This stance was in line with Pope John Paul II’s ostracism of socio-political activism amongst the Catholic clergy.

Confronted with this newfangled interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and with the social, economic, and political realities that were alienating the Filipino people from their leaders, Sister Stella embarks upon the path of commiserating with and espousing the cause of the underprivileged classes of Philippine society. This inner makeover, in contrast to her Virgin Mary-like state of docility, is permanently on display as Sister Stella willingly wades into the debate between being a part of an apolitical clergy as opposed to a politicized clergy by taking a prominent spot on a labor picket line outside a large factory.

The struggle between the exploited workers and the factory proprietorship is insensitively dramatized in “Sister Stella” as a good-versus-greedy dichotomy in which the underdogs, in this case the workers, are favored by the viewer to prevail over the capitalist excesses of the owners.

It is interesting to note that in the film, we don’t see much of the factory management or the police forces that have been assigned the task of bottling up the strike by violent means if necessary, nor of the hired hoodlums whose job it is to intimidate the strikers. It was as if they were being portrayed as distant and shadowy entities who were risking their humanity by the coldness and vindictiveness of their actions. This is a pretty good indicator of where director Mike De Leon’s sentiments lie.

What on earth does it mean to make a meaningful Tagalog movie anymore? There are some extremely good and important Tagalog films out there, but few reach the social, intellectual, and spiritual level that “Sister Stella” did in 1984 and continues to do so today even in a day and age when the frivolous comedy or the tear-jerking, but otherwise vacuous, melodrama dominates Philippine cinema.

ALLEN GABORRO

11/21/2010: The Hand of God-Staged Reading (SF)

The Hand of God-Staged Reading

University of San Francisco 2130 Fulton St. (Cole), San Francisco, CA 94117 Kalmanovitz Hall Venue Phone: (415) 422-5979 Phone: (510) 520-8540
 

Sunday, Nov. 21 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. 

Ticket Pricing: Free Was St. Francis of Assisi a man of God or was he simply a mad man? This is the premise of the play "The Hand" of God by Berkeley playwright Cecilia Gaerlan which will have a staged reading at the University of San Francisco?s Kalmanovitz Hall at 2130 Fulton Street (Cole) on Sunday, November 21 at 2 PM. The joint production by Bindlestiff Studio and the University of San Francisco?s Department of Performing Arts and Social Justice will be directed by Alan Quismorio. Admission is free. 

Additional links: http://www.bindlestiffstudio.org

Publication: Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine: Essays on Literature, Film, Myth and Media

Transnationalism and the Asian American Heroine
Essays on Literature, Film, Myth and Media
Edited by Lan Dong

This collection examines transnational Asian American women characters in various fictional narratives. It analyzes how certain heroines who are culturally rooted in Asian regions have been transformed and re-imagined in America, playing significant roles in Asian American literary studies as well as community life. The interdisciplinary essays display refreshing perspectives in Asian American literary studies and transnational feminism from four continents. 

(Includes the chapter, "Merlinda Bobis: The Transnational Filipina Warrior Between the Postcolonial Exotic and the Babaylan/Catalonan" written by Marie-Therese C. Sulit.)

See Table of Contents.

Call for Entries: Asian/ Pacific American Award for Literature

From the Asia Writes blog:

Deadline: 31 December 2010

Goal: The goal is to honor and recognize individual work about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage, based on literary and artistic merit.

Award: Each award will be named and given the award seal during the 2011 APALA Literature Award Ceremony. The Winner of each category will receive a plaque during the 2011 American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans, LA. Press release will be sent to various national publications. The Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature is now an annual event.

11/21/2010: Sunday Salon featuring Luis Francia @ Jimmys 43 (NY)

WHO'S ON TAP TO READ? NYC | November 21st, 7pm

Ahhh, November brings more literary joy! The next Salon welcomes four writers who look closely at our compelling histories and gleefully delve into poetry, music, and food! Come, satisfy your hunger (and have a beer): Jimmys 43 (43 E. 7th St. b/w 2nd & 3rd Aves) at 7pm.

Luis H. Francia is the author of several books, including Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago which won both the 2002 PEN Center Open Book and the 2002 Asian American Writers literary awards. His poetry collections include the recently released The Beauty of Ghosts (performed as theater at Topaz Arts in 2007); Museum of Absences; and The Arctic Archipelago and Other Poems. He is also the author of A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos, published this year. He is the editor of Brown River, White Ocean: An Anthology of Twentieth Century Philippine Literature in English, and co-editor of Fiippin’: Filipinos on America, and Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream, 1899-1999. He writes an online column for Manila’s Philippine Daily Inquirer and teaches creative writing at the City University of Hong Kong, literature at Hunter College, and Tagalog Language and Culture at New York University.

Guest Post: Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, Pause Mid-Flight

Today's guest blog post is from Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, who tells us about the process of creating her lovely chapbook, Pause Mid-Flight.

* * *

As my chapbook Pause Mid-Flight started coming together a few months ago, I began letting people know about its release. The response was very enthusiastic both online and locally. I’ve been performing as a storyteller and publishing short pieces and poems for a few years, and many have asked to read “my book.” These moments were always a bit embarrassing because I had no book to offer, nothing to send people hunting through bookstores and online to find. Creating a book takes time, time to not only compile pieces but to write them, and I didn’t think I had enough of any one thing to create a book.

That’s the problem with being a dabbler, a writer more curious about all kinds of ways of writing but never settling on one genre for very long. Over the last decade or so, I’ve written a little bit of everything – poetry, short shorts, children’s stories, and personal essay. Just one or two pieces, some published, all attempts at trying to find a good way to tell a story. Nothing, though, that I could gather together into what could be called “a book.”

Learning the crafts of storytelling and improvisational theater over the last four years, though, has taught me that saying “Yes” is basic to creativity and self-expression. Standing up in front of an audience while someone pitches a neutral line at you like “I’m a Tree” then coming up with something that relates to that line, frees an artist to try anything, no matter how strange or brilliant but stupid-feeling that might be. I’ve learned to loosen my need to control audience expectations, to just let moments happen as they happen and discovered that art, improvisational art especially, yields the most authentic experience for myself and my audience.

Call for Submissions: Qarrtsiluni

From Qarrtsiluni:

The editors invite submissions of poetry, short fiction, essays, visual poetry, photography, artwork and video for a translation-themed issue. The deadline is December 6, and the issue will begin to appear online after the New Year. All submissions must be made via qarrtsiluni’s new submissions manager.

In addition to work translated into English, we encourage a universal interpretation, including though not limited to movement between and within cultural fields and from signifier (code, symbol, signal) to signified (message, meaning, transcription). Translation being inherent in all acts of writing/reading, both semantic and non-verbal, we are interested in short, non-academic essays relevant to such readings and mis-readings. Please also send adaptations, definitions, conversions, and homophonic translations. Text submissions should not exceed three poems or short prose pieces, or some combination thereof, for a maximum of three single-spaced pages in .doc or .rtf format.

For translations, include originals, permission status, and a bio for the original author as well as your own. Translations from any language are welcome. We look forward to reading or viewing your work.

—Nick Admussen, Nathalie Boisard-Beudin, Nick Carbó, Alex Cigale, and Ayesha Saldanha

Read more.

Report back: Veronica Montes on the PAWA Book launch of Angelica's Daughters

Report back (with pictures!) from the Angelica's Daughters blog:

We’re so grateful to PAWA and Arkipelago Books for launching Angelica’s Daughters with an excellent event held yesterday at the Bayanihan Community Center in San Francisco. It was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which were the twenty-five or so delightful, engaged, and interesting people in the audience. The evening started with refreshments, and Cecilia and I enjoyed mingling with folks including Penelope Flores, Joi Barrios, Tony Robles (who also served as videographer), the young and lovely Hidalgo sisters (3 of them!), and others.

Read more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Hhg-YL29g

11/08/2010: PAWA/Maganda Reading and Conversation (UC Berkeley)

Save the date!

PAWA Inc. is pleased to join forces with UC Berkeley's Maganda magazine for an evening of poetry and story.

When: Monday, November 8, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
Where: 106 Wheeler Hall, UC Berkeley (campus map)
Who: David Maduli, Sean Labrador y Manzano, Maiana Minahal, and Adrien Salazar!

About Maganda

{m}aganda aims to foster critical dialogue within and across our communities through arts, literature, and education. We come from a heritage of Pilipino/American artists, writers, and cultural historians, but we extend our hands and voices to any and all who own truths that need to be spoken.

We believe in the necessity of art as a means of influencing social change. We attempt to accomplish this by providing integral spaces and opportunities for all of us to develop ourselves as creatively conscious individuals in our communities.

11/07/2010: PAGETURNER Literary Festival (NY)

From AAWW:
  
PAGE TURNER: The Asian American Literary Festival

Sunday, November 7, 2010, 11am-7pm

Hey, let's you and I create the next Asian American intellectual milieu. The Workshop's premiere festival will feature more than twenty writers to create a brainy and eclectic literary space. Hear Richard Price, author of Lush Life and The Wire, talks shop about the Lower East Side with crime novelist Henry Chang. Marvel at well-known writers reading their best work that got rejected by literary journals. And take a break at our cozy upstairs mezzanine space--we're calling it The Hangout and it's where we'll have Asian American superheroes, drunken scrabble, and more. It all shakes down at the hottest bookstore in New York. Featuring Richard Price, Susan Choi, Monica Youn, Jennifer 8 Lee, Tao Lin, Tim Wu, Hari Kunzru, Das Racist, Hari Kondabolu, and nearly thirty other writers. Special support from Amazon and Beerlao. Tickets here.
 

Call for Submissions: Women of Color's Anthology "Boundaries & Borders"

From Writers Afrika:

Deadline: 15 December 2010 (Brooklyn), 15 February 2011 (open)

The WOC Writers’ Community invites you to submit your best writing or artwork for possible inclusion in our upcoming Anthology themed Boundaries & Borders.

WOC authors are invited to present their own broad interpretations of the theme Boundaries & Borders for a new anthology. The book will be a collection of works by WOC writers showing the inside, outside and in-betweens of Boundaries & Borders; of experiences real or imagined of those things that may limit and confine us, challenge or force us to conform or rebel; of places and scenes and locations in and outside of the lines; of how people behave, are influenced, motivated, or marginalized, by these confines, that often define experiences and predict possibilities.

Do we cross over, break out, or draw our own lines outside of other’s perceptions of how, where and why things evolve the way they do? Or do we go with the flow...?

The WOC Writers’ Community’s Editorial Committee encourages you to submit your best Writing or Artwork for possible inclusion in the Women of Color Boundaries & Borders Anthology!

Seeking a diversity of voices in all genre from WOC Writers and Artists

We aim to present new, underrepresented and captivating literary works to the world

11/12/2010: Maganda Magazine 20th Anniversary Party!

In honor of {M}aganda Magazine's 20th Anniversary,

the staff of issue 24 cordially invites you to partake in our banquet celebration! Come to celebrate {M}aganda's past, present, and future with {M}aganda's alumni, current staff, and supporters over great food and entertainment!

Friday, November 12, 2010 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM (PT)

Clark Kerr Garden Room
2601 Warring Street
Berkeley, CA 94720

http://maganda20th.eventbrite.com/

11/02/2010: JHPF FIRST TUESDAYS with R.A. Villanueva!

Hi!

Tomorrow is election day - great day for politically themed poems *wink wink*! After you vote, come by and join us at Terraza Cafe. Our next FIRST TUESDAYS open reading will be tomorrow, Tuesday, November 2, 2010, featuring poet R.A. Villanueva.

R.A. Villanueva lives in Brooklyn. A finalist for the 2010 Alice James Books/Kundiman Poetry Prize, his writing has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as Indiana Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Bellevue Literary Review, The Collagist, and DIAGRAM.

We will start a bit earlier this month, as we have a great follow-up act: Isa Alfonso will be performing as part of Terraza's roster of Latin jazz. Sign-up for the reading will start at around 6:45pm, and readings begin at 7:15-7:30pm.

Join us at Terraza Cafe - on Gleane street and Roosevelt avenue, off the 82nd street stop on the 7 Train! You can find directions here.

See you soon!
JHPF

11/20 -11/21/2010: A History of the Body, Theater/Performance, Bayanihan Community Center, San Francisco

Contact: Dianne Que
Phone: 415.239.0249
Email: program@kularts.org
Web: http://www.kularts.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kularts and the Pagbabalik Project present A History of the Body Fall 2010 Performance

SAN FRANCISCO, California – Nov 1, 2010 – Kularts presents the Pagbabalik Project's A History of the Body, a weekend of multidisciplinary performances exploring colonization, beauty, and self-love.

A History of the Body Fall 2010 Performance

Time and Date: Sat. November 20, 8PM & Sun. November 21, 6PM
Location: Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission St. (@ 6th St) San Francisco, CA 94103

Admission: $12 – 15 sliding scale @ the door, $10 Student/Senior

Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/122867

Info: 415.239.0249, http://kularts.org/calendar.php#event7

How do images in the media, from turn-of-the-20th-century stereotypes to current-day magazine ads, continue to affect perceptions of Filipina women? How do the cosmetic products marketed to women impact body image? Can we love ourselves, for who we are, in this skin? Visual artist Aimee Espiritu, choreographer Frances Sedayao, and playwright Aimee Suzara, along with actors Kat Gutierrez and Joi Barrios, explore these questions in A History of the Body, an insightful and energetic multidisciplinary performance piece in process that explores the devastating impacts of colonization on the female body. Using poetry, theater, dance, visual projection, and stage design, the work examines the powerful effects of culture, history and media on our attitudes towards skin color and female beauty. This performance is the first public installation. Post-show talkback with artists to follow each performance. Directed by Aimee Suzara and Michael Torres.

11/06/2010: PAWA Book Launch for Angelica's Daughters

PAWA INVITES YOU TO THE BOOK LAUNCHING OF

ANGELICA’S DAUGHTERS, A DUGTUNGAN NOVEL

By: Cecilia Brainard, Erma Cuizon, Susan Evangelista, Veronica Montes, & Nadine Sarreal

Saturday, November 6, 2010, 5:30-7 p.m.
Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA

There will be a literary reading, book signing, & light refreshments. The event is free and open to the public, and will feature Cecilia Brainard and Veronica Montes. They will be joined by Cyndi Vasallo and Yael Villafranca.