Wednesday, January 24, 2007

And Now A Good Word from Butch Dalisay...

Eminent writer Butch Dalisay gives two-thumbs up on the launch of The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories.

The article can be found in the January 22, 2007 issue of The Philippine Star. Some quotes:
Kenneth’s project, while decidedly modest, has the advantage of its focus on what’s been called “genre fiction.” “Genre” means category, and genre fiction involves specialized categories like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mystery, romance, historical fiction, and detective and crime fiction. It’s a kind of writing that, perhaps ironically, used to be mainstream fiction, or the stuff everyone loved to read, before “highbrow” fiction pushed it aside and relegated it to the entertainment book bin as second-class literary fare. That’s an unfortunate misimpression. There’s no doubt that genre fiction is entertaining and often aims to do little more than give us an hour’s escape from the drudgery of daily living, but we forget that much of the kind of “classic” fiction we discuss in graduate seminars today started out as popular fiction, written to thrill the ordinary reader and to pay the writer’s rent. That’s what Poe and Chekhov were doing. That they wrote some memorable masterpieces along the way is for us a happy bonus.
And his opinion?
Bravo, Kenneth, and all the best to you on this brave new venture.
You can read the scanned images of his column here: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i noticed mr dalisay didn't comment on the stories themselves. did he mention anything about that to you in private? wouild be really interested.

8:31 AM  
Blogger pgenrestories said...

Hi, anonymous.

No, he didn't mention anything about the stories even in our private correspondence. Mostly we talked about the Digest itself. He did say, and I did echo, that one day it would be nice to finally meet each other in person. When that happens, I will ask.

Thanks!

9:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Congratulations! I do hope more established lit figures will take note of the Digest in the future :)

6:36 PM  
Blogger banzai cat said...

We thank you :-)

12:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

we do indeed. you're opening a lot of doors for people here. congrats!

crystal

10:30 PM  
Blogger pgenrestories said...

Thanks corsarius and crystal. Please help spread the word about the Digest and pick up a copy yourselves. Hope to one day see your submissions too!

Thanks also to banzai cat for helping in keeping this website together!

9:07 AM  

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