Report from FilBook Fest 2011

Let us begin at the beginning: last Thursday evening at Eastwind Books of Berkeley for a FilBook Fest pre-event, "The Places We Call Home." Because birthday girl Rashaan has such a nice recap at her blog, I'll just add some of my personal highlights:

A few weeks back, Dean Alfar was kind enough to send me several copies of Philippine Speculative Fiction 5 (I'm sending a care package of books in return!), which includes my story, "The Left-Behind Girl." I never thought I'd have the opportunity to read that piece to an audience, so I'm truly grateful to Dean for the books, and to Bea & Harvey for giving us the time and space to share our work at Eastwind.

I was super excited to read with everyone, but especially with Oscar Bermeo and Sunny Vergara because it's the first time I've ever read with them. Here we all are, post-reading, quite happy to be together.

Afterwards, some of us headed over to Burger Meister to eat greasy things and solve all the problems of the world. Of course, much of the conversation revolved around the upcoming weekend's FilBook Fest, which we were all participating in in one way or another.

For my part, I had worked with Cecilia Brainard to put together readings for both days of the festival (I emceed one day, and read on the other; same for Cecilia). They were dubbed, "Hot Off the Press," and a total of 20 writers were featured, each reading and/or presenting for no more than 8 minutes. If you think wrangling 20 authors is easy, well then, Sir, you would be mistaken. Nevertheless, the effort went off nearly hitch-less, and we had a good-size audience both days. Here I am with two readers from the first day, Pacific Rims author Rafe Bartholomew (have you not read Pacific Rims yet? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I'm serious: FIX WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU) whose pleasant expression here belies the discomfort he no doubt felt by my insisting every ten minutes that HE IS MY NEW BEST FRIEND. Also pictured is my pal Sunny Vergara, aka The Wily Filipino, who read from his sure-to-knock-everyone-on-their-ass novel-in-progress:


By the way, here is Sunny's excellent review of Pacific Rims.

I spent much of my time in Cecilia's Philippine American Literary House booth, where bookselling was brisk. The crowd wasn't as enormous as it should have been, but those in attendance were eager to chat and buy, so you'll hear no complaints here. Want to see what it looked like from my seat? I bet you do:


The first day of the festival ended with Barbara Jane Reyes and R. Zamora Linmark's reading and, as per their standard operating procedure, they killed it. How can it be that the "Tourist Tips" from Leche get funnier every time I hear them? And I thrill to the first lines of Barbara Jane's "Aswang" (from her book Diwata) no matter how many times I hear them: I am the dark-hued bitch; see how wide my maw, my bloodmoon eyes / And by daylight, see the tangles and knots of my riverine hair. Here they are after their reading. Here, too, are everyone's shoes (you know I love shoe photos):



Afterwards, we set off for Tasty Bear to drink sangria (or, you know, Diet Coke) and eat tapas. There is no proper way to capture in words the hilarity that ensued; it requires a sort of loopy silent film-type treatment, complete with slipping on banana peels, close-ups of women mouthing, "Oh, MY!" and a seance scene where auras and past lives take center stage. Here is a picture of some of my fellow diners—Barbara Jane Reyes, Zack Linmark, Oscar Bermeo, Sunny Vergara, and Kiko Benitez:


For me, day 2 of the festival began with the Hot Off the Press reading, where I was happy to present Angelica's Daughters. I was in the good company of several other women, including (l to r) Cecilia Brainard (Vigan & Other Stories), Sam Sotto (Before Ever After) Tilay Angbetic (Love & Other Firsts), Dr. Lilia Rahman (For the Sake of Louise), and Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto (Traje de Boda). Angela Narciso Torres (Associate Editor, RHINO: The Poetry Forum) is in the back row with me, your Nesting Ground Mistress. Not pictured is the lovely Karen Llagas, who read so beautifully from her book of poetry, Archipelago Dust:


And now I'm suddenly remembering the woman who said to me, "You're married to an American, correct?"

"Yes," I said.

"So what's that like?"

"Um...what part?"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

And I'm also remembering the delightful young volunteer, an MFA student somewhere in Southern California, who helped me procure my swag bag. "What's your name?" she said.

"Veronica Montes."

"Angelica's Daughters!" she said. "I'm reading it right now!" Later, she said I reminded her of Evelina, and I don't know if she meant celebrated writer Evelina Galang or not, but I'm going to pretend she did.

Finally, here is one of my favorite photos, snapped by Cecilia Brainard. I love talking to everyone, really, but maybe especially to the younger ones. Here I am with some college students who are holding, kindly note, a copy of Growing Up Filipino II:

Wow. That was long.

At the LA Times Festival of Books

A few weekends ago, I had one of those experiences that re-energizes the writer in me. Books—the kind you can touch—are supposed to be on life support, but you'd never know it from the crowds at the LA Times Festival of Books. "It's like Disneyland for books!" said Zack Linmark, author of the new and fantastic novel Leche (this is a link to an interview about how Leche came to be. Cheeeek it out!).

I mean, look at this college student who purchased something like six books at the Philippine Expressions booth! I have no doubt she picked up many more at other spots:

Here's a shot of the booth itself. There was a strong and steady (and therefore heartening) stream of customers, many declaring their Filipino or partially Filipino heritage. People were looking for books to comfort their ailing grandfathers; books for their mothers (Cecilia's classic When the Rainbow Goddess Wept was snapped up by a man whose mother lived in the Philippines during WWII); books to shore up a curriculum or a dissertation; books for kids; and, of course, books for personal enjoyment. Cecilia, Zack, and I sat side-by-side chatting with browsers, making suggestions, and signing books.

Here are Zack and Cecilia Brainard. I basked all weekend in the glow of their literary starpower, I tell you.

Around lunchtime, Zack and I snuck off for a quick lunch, first hightailing it over to—where else?—the food area. Unfortunately, it was packed and lines of people were snaking haphazardly all over the place. Bringing all our resources to bear, and working up quite the sweat now, we headed off-campus where our eyes alighted on a bright yellow Denny's sign. "Hmmmm," Zack deliberated. "They're racist." True enough. Our search ended at last when a Burger King came into view. "YES!" we screamed.

And guess what? No lines! Except for in the ladies room. So you know what I did for the first time ever in my whole entire life? I used the men's room. It was disgusting; I will never do it again.

Finally, Whoppers and fries in hand, we sat down to wolf down our joyfully unhealthy lunches. And it was so effing fantastic because I got to hear all about the long and winding road Zack took towards the publication of Leche. And we talked about our mutual love of Daly City, and about life in Hawaii and Manila. On our way back to campus, he impressed me with his uncanny ability to recall exact lines from the classic 80s movie offerings St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink ("You break my heart," he rasped, just like Demi Moore. "But then again...you break everyone's heart."). We objectified Andrew McCarthy, after which Zack performed a spot-on impression of Andrew's character being thrown up against a school locker. He screwed his face up sideways and went all cockeyed, and I pretty much died laughing right there on the USC Campus ("Ally Sheedy is an alum," he pointed out in yet another dazzling display of pop culture knowledge). As we got closer to our end destination, we passed a booth whose awning announced "Self-Realization Books." "I'm going to write a self-realization book," proclaimed Zack. "It's going to be called I am I. Get it?" Hahahahahaha!

I would totally buy that book. And of course I bought a copy of Leche. I suggest you do the same, immediately. I started reading it on the plane home, and I felt sorry for the woman sitting next to me because I was laughing so uncontrollably that I think I scared her: she kept a tight grip on her pretty Prada bag and didn't dare fall asleep.

Our day at the LA Times Festival of Books was preceded by a very fun Authors Night, also hosted by Linda Nietes and Philippine Expressions Bookshop. You can read all about it (and see more pix!) here at the Re: Angelica's Daughters blog.

Making Awesomeness

I miss being here. I miss my blog. I sometimes justify my absence (to myself, I mean) by noting how the pace of life seems to have quickened and I have no time to sit in this meditative state (because that's the state I'm in when I'm typing into this little box on my screen) for whatever it is—fifteen minutes, thirty minutes—writing mostly about nothing at all. But then I think: how could the pace of life be any more quick than it was when I had three children under the age of three? All of which is to say that I have no reason whatsoever to not be sitting here for a few moments. So I'm sitting here. For a few moments. And what I'd like to say is this:

• This weekend Cecilia Brainard and I will be representing Angelica's Daughters (and Cecilia will also represent her new collection Vigan and Other Stories, which I'm looking forward to snatching up) at the LA Times Festival of Books and Philippine Expressions Bookshop's Author Night. All the details here on the Re: Angelica's Daughter's blog! If you're in the area, come to the Festival; it's so fun. You know what else is fun? The Festival logo:

• Don't laugh at me. You mustn't laugh. I'm taking a dance class. And, well, you know what? Go ahead and laugh; I don't care. Because it's super fun. And extraordinarily sweaty. And about 40 kagillion times better than engaging with a piece of machinery whilst being forced to stare at a bank of televisions that are probably all telecasting Donald Trump's face, and more specifically his mouth, out of which spews ridiculous allegations about the President. I would much rather be dancing while Jennifer Lopez exhorts me to "go hard and get on the floor." And then she gets very clever and says, "If you're a criminal kill it on the floor," and so I kinda do pretend I'm a criminal. I draw the line, however, on her directive to "pick your body up and drop it on the floor." I'm too old for that shit. And for some reason, all of this is reminding me of the time Gura Michelle photoshopped my face onto Shakira's body.

• I'm back to writing grant proposals for school because guess what? The need for outreach doesn't disappear, and the need to bring our Spanish-speaking families into the fold of our school culture doesn't disappear, and the need for their kids to receive the help they need to succeed at school doesn't disappear. Unfortunately, what has disappeared is the money that anyone can spare us to do the work. So, grants. I just wrote a big one, and we'll hear in July.

• I, your Nesting Ground Mistress, am working on a biiiiiig project. Something out of my comfort zone (seems to be a theme with me these days. see: dancing), something that could succeed brilliantly or...not, something I've been working on for 18 months. Let's just say I feel the need to make. So I'm making this thing. And I'll tell you all about it in soon. Meanwhile, I will share my mantra for all this:

That's pretty good advice for just about anything, actually.

Getting Things Sort Of Done

On the one hand, I am ever-grateful to the inventor(s) of Daylight Savings, for it has meant the end of this Fall's relentless march of soccer and baseball practices and, in fact, the end of the "Fall Ball" season entirely. On the other hand, my sleep is completely wrecked: I can neither fall asleep nor wake up. I'm in a perennial state of half-wakedness which, thank God, has nothing to do with half-nakedness, and thus unable to perform tasks with any sort of elan. I am simply s l o g g i n g.

And yet, and yet...things do get done. The lunches are made, the house is standing, homework is neatly completed, and the kids and I take turns reading to each other after dinner. Lately, Ri likes to read from her own writing: stories set in Sweden for no apparent reason, sunsets the color of "orange sorbet," and characters who like to "ponder" quite a bit. It's hilarious. Her sisters listen attentively and offer appropriate praise when she's done. Vi likes to read out loud from Stone Soup (remember Stone Soup?!), which is filled with stories and art by kids who are around their age. And Lea is into Jack Prelutsky poems—clever little rhyming pieces about "homework machines" and gigantic pizzas and whatnot. Last night—miracle of miracles!—they requested I read from Gombrich's A Little History of the World, and then they asked for Rex Warner's Men and Gods: Myths and Legends of the Ancient Greeks (the NYRB edition with Edward Gorey illustrations!), and after more than an hour of this I had to have been the happiest mother in the world.

Then they all wandered off humming Katy Perry songs and arguing about who would get to log onto Woozworld first, and I was forlorn. But you know what? We got some good stuff in, right? I've decided that I will use the same rule of thumb I use for their eating: as long as they consume leafy greens every day, I'm okay with some Halloween candy.

In other news of the world, Cecilia Brainard came to San Francisco to join me for the PAWA-hosted book launch of Angelica's Daughters. I turned my report around quickly, and you can read it here (with pictures and everything!). Cyndi Vasallo, who joined us and read a wonderful story, also blogged about the event. Anyways, I can't think of a more pleasant way to spend an early Saturday evening than hanging out with folks who write, enjoy, and support Filipino and Fil-Am literature, so high-fives all around.