At the beginning of 2023, I wrote a short essay that was so very near and dear to my heart and submitted this little essay to 47 different literary reviews and mags, after which the rejections kept streaming through my inbox. A year later, the piece finally found a home. I’m so very grateful to Write or Die Magazine, not just for believing in these words that became “Tribute to a Lost Star”, but for nominating this work for the Sundress Best of the Net Anthology.
The piece is about literary and cinematic influences that strike us in our adolescence only to shape our sense of self and the world around us as we evolve. I hope to write more pieces like this.
No registration is required. The festival is free and open to the public.
Sonoma State University is located at 1801 E. Cotati Avenue, Rohnert Park. General Parking is $5.00, Reserved Parking in Lot D is $8.00. The passes can be purchased in the lots or at the booth at the entry to campus.
This time last year, I was surprised to find myself grieving over the loss of a movie star. During some of the most catastrophic atmospheric rivers to hit California in recorded history, one of my teenage idols was lost in the mountains in Southern California. Julian Sands went missing in January 2023, and I found myself obsessively following the news for updates.
Antonio Gramsci illuminates the idea of how we’re influenced by an infinite number of people, places, events, and artifacts, urging us to track the “infinity of traces” that make us who we are. In the days, weeks, and then months that followed when Julian Sands was first reported missing, I began to trace the infinity of traces sparked when I accidentally came across the film A Room with a View as an adolescent. That happenstance evening has made me the writer I am today.
Please check out this short and very personal essay so near and dear to my heart (and soul) about cinematic crushes recently featured inWrite or Die Magazine. Click link here.
Come celebrate and support AAPI Heritage Month by joining us for Beverly Parayno’s book launch “WildFlowers.” I’ll be reading with Tamim Ansary, Tony Robles, Olga Zilberbourg, Veronica Montes, and Aileen Cassinetto on Saturday, May 27, 2:30-4:30pm @ Sentro Filipino: The San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center, 814 Mission Street. Let’s congratulate Beverly and PAWA Press as she shares work from her new story collection, available for pre-order at http://www.wildflowersbp.com/page1/
Wildflowers Book description:
In these nine unforgettable stories, spanning several generations and traversing the Philippines, the Bay Area, and Ireland, Parayno illuminates the emotional and psychological journeys of Filipino and Filipino American girls and women experiencing fear, desire, loneliness, and despair. Wildflowers speaks to everyone who has ever had to find a strength and resiliency they never knew they had.
So honored to represent Mineral School at a AWP Off-site event on Friday, March 10, 5-7pm at Seattle University. Can’t wait to reunite with the wonderful peeps of this special writing retreat.
And! At our panel discussion “Impossible Balance” on Saturday, March 11, 3:20-4:35pm (Room 327, Summit Bldg), I’ll finally get to meet one of my Orion writing group members John Messick, who has a new book out Compass Lines by Porphyry Press, which I’ll definitely be picking up at the conference book fair.
Hope to see some friendly faces in the coming days!
The last time I was at AWP, I was still in graduate school, renting an apartment, and unsure about what came next post-MFA. Italy won the World Cup, and Gnarls Barkley was top of the charts with “Crazy.” It’s been more than awhile (17 years–ouch!), so much so, that I’m now a mother, a professor, a homeowner, who still feels just as lost with so much still up in the air only now I get to chat about this lostness and all the many balls in the air with fellow parent-writers. I am both nervous and truly excited to be sharing a panel discussion with fellow writers John Messick, Keema Waterfield, Sean Prentiss, and Ukamaka Olisakwe.
For those attending AWP, I hope you can join us at this panel “Impossible Balance” on Saturday, March 11, 3:20-4:35pm (Room 327, Summit Bldg), where we attempt to put into our words the crazy-making, acrobatic experiences of parenting [small children] and writing [during the pandemic]. I would love to catch up and meet fellow writers, readers, and lovers of word in Seattle, so please drop me a line and see you there!
I’m honored to be a part of the return of the Filipino International Book Festival this weekend, October 15-16 at the San Francisco Main Public Library, where I’ll be hosting Ink Storm #3 with luminaries:
Marianne Chan Liza Gino jxtheo Alan Samson Manalo Veronica Montes Vicente Rafael Lara Stapleton Kenneth Tan Host: Rashaan Alexis Meneses Koret Auditorium, Basement
The 6th Filipino American International Book Festival returns to the San Francisco Main Library on Oct 15-16 after a three year hiatus. It is a spectacular lineup of writers and publishers from around the US, the Philippines, and Europe, celebrating the theme of “Hiraya/Emergence.”
The festival will open with a live performance from “Larry the Musical,” a much anticipated production about labor activist Larry Itliong. It will feature headliners Gina Apostol, Erin Entrada Kelly, and Meredith Talusan, panels, author readings, book signings, a free writing workshop, and a books + comics marketplace. We’ll close with a pre-recorded interview with Nobel laureate Maria Ressa and journalist Ben Pimentel.
For the families and teachers, we’re offering a Kids + Teen program. We’ll offer slime-making, a zine workshop, author readings and signings, a puppet show, a giveaway of 80 book bundles, and more for all ages. And if you love YA and MG, catch our authors in discussion with National Book Award finalist Randy Ribay.
Help us by spreading the word, or volunteering with us. Share this email with a teacher, bring a friend, bring your kids, bring yourself! All events are 100% free.
Counting down for the return of the the Filipino American International Book Festival, happening Saturday and Sunday, October 15 & 16 at the San Francisco Main Public Library. This year brings a stellar roster of authors, artists, and panelists, listed below, and yours truly will be hosting one of the events on Sunday, October 16, so please mark your calendars. There’s plenty for readers of all ages, including special events for kids & teens. Can’t wait!
Featured Interview Maria Ressa
Featured Keynote Speakers and Authors Gina Apostol Erin Entrada Kelly Meredith Talusan
Philippines Ani Rosa Almario Gideon Lasco Ian “Taipan” Lucero, panelist
United Kingdom Candy Gourlay
France Reine Arcache Melvin
USA California Ramon Abad Cyra Africa and Fae the Waray Puppet Erina Alejo Marielle Atanancio Tracy Badua MIchael Caylo-Baradi Joi Barrios Jason Bayani, moderator Debra Belali, moderator Steve Belali, panelist Conrad Benedicto Bayani Books mg burns, panelist Jaena Rae Cabrera, moderator Melissa Chadburn Catherine Ceniza Choy Dara Del Rosario, moderator Diwata Komiks Zoe Dorado Troy Espera, moderator Laurel Flores Fantauzzo Liza Gino Kristian Kabuay, panelist Karen Llagas, moderator Edwin Lozada, moderator, host Zach Lewis Maravilla Alan Samson Manalo Earl Matito, moderator Lisa Melnick, moderator Rashaan Alexis Meneses, Inkstorm host Veronica Montes Michelle Peñalosa Ben Pimentel, moderator Maxie Villavicencio Pulliam Mae Respicio Barbara Jane Reyes Randy Ribay, moderator Dr. Robyn Rodriguez Renee Macalino Rutledge Luna Salaver, panelist Sampaguita Press Ricco Siasoco, moderator Janet Stickmon, host Allysson Tintiangco-Cubales, panelist Angela Narciso Torres jxtheo Lorna Velasco, panelist Dr. Lily Ann Villaraza, moderator
Florida Cynthia Salaysay
Illinois Mia P. Manansala
Maryland Lysley Tenorio
Massachussetts Bren Bataclan Sabina Murray
New York Sophia N. Lee Lara Stapleton Isabel Roxas
Ohio Marianne Chan
Oregon Jason Tanamor
Washington Cookie Hiponia Ube Books Vicente Rafael
On the second day in senior seminar we speak about Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and I can’t help but nudge them to the subject of illness. We wonder who is truly sick, Gregor or his family? Who is truly human? What does it mean to be healthy? How does time pass differently when healthy or ill?
As a mother of a six-year-old, I’ve spent the last four years catching every cold and flu on a near-monthly basis. Sickness became routine, and time paced differently from one illness to the next. I hold onto their questions and insights as if they are keys to unlocking some truth. No one mentions Covid-19. That illness all too present on everyone’s mind.
What seems like a lifetime ago, back in February, I traveled to Bainbridge Island, WA as a 2020 Resident at the Bloedel Bunkhouse with Seventh Wave Magazine. There, nestled among cedar trees and ferns, an essay I’d been mulling over for a couple years got lovingly nurtured. No one among the fellow residents and editors thought the idea of braiding together themes on language, identity, and eucalyptus trees was too crazy. No one thought it wouldn’t fly.
At Bainbridge, co-founders of Seventh Wave, Joyce Chen and Brett Rawson along with Featured ArtistMalaka Gharib (yes! I got to chat and collaborate with this talented genius and author of I Was Their American Dream. *Swoon*), co-created a community of deep intention and loving purpose. The Bainbridge Residency, and the experience of working with Seventh Wave has been nourishing and eye-opening in so many ways. During this time of lockdown, of uncertainty, of rage, the fellow residents and brilliant writers, Anne Liu Kellor, Frances Lee, Kofi Opam provided not just shining light but imaginative and meaningful ways of creating, ways of knowing, and ways of being. They’ve all taught me how to take risks creatively and politically.
You can experience the risks they’ve taken, the challenges they pose for us, as readers and active agents in our communities, by peeping out their work:
I’m honored and inspired to be a part of this fellowship. So very grateful for the experience of writing and dialoguing with Seventh Wave, which helped bring to light my latest essay, “Foreign Domestic”. The piece started as a hazy attempt to reflect on language and my mixed race experiences. Written when shelter-in-place was enacted statewide in California, when the college classes I was teaching were suddenly shifted online, and when our four year-old’s preschool closed, Seventh Wave and my fellow Bainbridge residents pulled me through the chaos, the vertigo, the mad hustle, and kept me writing.
So very grateful for this opportunity to mediate on the first lessons my paternal grandma taught me about nature, on eucalyptus trees in California, and how the loss of language doesn’t necessarily equate to loss of identity or culture. Have a taste of “Foreign Domestic”:
We are all nomads here.
Either forced from our ancestral homes or fixing for better breaks, each leaving behind pieces of heart and soul to feed the body and tend to kin. Displaced. Dispossessed. Estranged. Reinvented. Assimilated. Sacrificing the familiar to be marked exotic not just by others, but also turning stranger to family, and foreign to self.
Rashaan Alexis Meneses 