No Better Weather
Penmanila, Sir Butch Dalisay, writes about his recent trip to New York here. An excerpt:
I HAD a very fruitful trip out to the US these past couple of weeks, mainly to participate in the 5th PEN World Voices Festival in New York, a gathering of about 160 writers from more than 50 countries. The festival was focused on the theme of “Evolution/Revolution”—the political, social, and economic changes taking place around the world, both fast and slow, and their impact on literature (or, conversely and perhaps more hopefully, the impact of literature on societies and governments at large).
I was, I was told, the first Filipino to be invited to the World Voices Festival, thanks to the efforts of Filipino-American novelist Jessica Hagedorn—who was, unfortunately, too burdened with teaching duties to attend the festival herself. But in three separate events, I had a chance to meet and interact with fellow writers from all over—as well as to touch base with New York-based Fil-Am writers like Luigi Francia and Angel Shaw, and even the traveling Robby Kwan Laurel, who just happened to be attending a conference upstate at the time.
Like true Pinoys, the US side of the family—my mom Emy, daughter Demi, sister Elaine, sister-in-law Mimi, nephew Toto, and niece Eia, not to mention Beng, who followed a day later for a surprise reunion with everyone else—all trooped to New York to attend my talks and readings, soon to be joined by Pinoy expat-friends including the photographer Dominique James and artist Kim Bello.
Click the above link to read the whole blog entry.
I HAD a very fruitful trip out to the US these past couple of weeks, mainly to participate in the 5th PEN World Voices Festival in New York, a gathering of about 160 writers from more than 50 countries. The festival was focused on the theme of “Evolution/Revolution”—the political, social, and economic changes taking place around the world, both fast and slow, and their impact on literature (or, conversely and perhaps more hopefully, the impact of literature on societies and governments at large).
I was, I was told, the first Filipino to be invited to the World Voices Festival, thanks to the efforts of Filipino-American novelist Jessica Hagedorn—who was, unfortunately, too burdened with teaching duties to attend the festival herself. But in three separate events, I had a chance to meet and interact with fellow writers from all over—as well as to touch base with New York-based Fil-Am writers like Luigi Francia and Angel Shaw, and even the traveling Robby Kwan Laurel, who just happened to be attending a conference upstate at the time.
Like true Pinoys, the US side of the family—my mom Emy, daughter Demi, sister Elaine, sister-in-law Mimi, nephew Toto, and niece Eia, not to mention Beng, who followed a day later for a surprise reunion with everyone else—all trooped to New York to attend my talks and readings, soon to be joined by Pinoy expat-friends including the photographer Dominique James and artist Kim Bello.
Click the above link to read the whole blog entry.
posted by pgenrestories at 9:49 PM
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