Fiction – Page 3 – Rashaan Alexis Meneses

March 24, 2011February 14, 2012

Swinging into Spring with Upcoming Events

Paper presentation at Yale on “Engaging First Generation Students with Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality”

Paper Proposal: Clearly an outsider looking in, Jean-Jacques Rousseau exploits the adversity and hardships he’s faced as an exile, turning his experiences and observations into a source of empowerment and a means for enlightenment. In “A Discourse on Inequality” Rousseau’s rhetorical strategies, his critical view on hierarchy, and his refusal to accept the status quo, demonstrates for First Generation college students invaluable methods of critique and cognitive processes. First Generation students may often feel over-whelmed and estranged within institutions of higher learning, and a close reading and discussion of Rousseau provides a critical point of connection, shedding light on our own agency of power. While his contemporaries insist on entitlement, Rousseau reveals our own empowerment by illustrating how to engage critically within our community.

Frontispiece and title page of an edition of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (1754), published by Marc-Michel Rey in 1755 in Holland.

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Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 7:30pm
Reading with Rosemary Graham and Rashaan Alexis Meneses for Saint Mary’s College Creative Writing Series,

at Soda Center, Saint Mary’s College of California, 1928 Saint Mary’s Road, Moraga, CA.

Rosemary Graham holds a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Virginia. She is the author of Thou Shalt Not Dump the Skater Dude and My Not-So-Terrible Time at the Hippie Hotel. Her third novel, Stalker Girl, was published in August of 2010. She is a professor of English at Saint Mary’s College of CA.

rashaan meneses

Rashaan Alexis Meneses earned her MFA from Saint Mary’s College of CA, where she was named a 2005-2006 Jacob K. Javits Fellow and awarded the Sor Juana Indes de La Cruz Scholarship for Excellence in Fiction. She has recently published in Pembroke Magazine and Growing up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults.

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Keynote speech for Saint Mary’s College of California’s Tenth Annual Asian Pacific American Graduate Celebration

Saturday, May 14, 2011

2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Le Fevre Theater

Reception to follow in Delphine Lounge

January 6, 2011February 14, 2012

Sightings Elsewhere from the Blogosphere

Your Salonniere is grateful for such wonderful colleagues and supportive friends who have lent their time and virtual space to give some shout outs. Many thanks to Jennie Durant and Veronica Montes for coverage on your sites!

From Veronica Montes’ Nesting Ground, “The Post Where I Recommend Two Stories, Announce an Event, and Explain My Non-Participation in NaNoWriMo”:

Speaking of brave and wonderful writers, I would like to draw your attention to two excellent stories. The first is “In My Country,” by Tony Robles; the second is “Like Fish to Ginger,” by Rashaan Alexis Meneses. Take a few minutes out of your Internet surfing and enjoy; I know I did.

From Jennie Durant’s “La Cucina Orgasmica: When delicious food meets delicious writing….”:

My talented friend and fellow M.F.A. graduate Rashaan Meneses recently wrote “Like Fish to Ginger” a lovely and haunting story about a Thai immigrant and the complex chemistry of food and romance. Read the first few paragraphs here, then click on the link for more. It’s a beautiful read. The only downside is that now I’m dying for a bowl of curry…

Steamed Fish with Ginger and Scallions (Ging Zheng Yu)

Photo: Christie Johnston

October 20, 2010February 14, 2012

New Fiction on UC Riverside’s “The Coachella Review” Fall 2010 Online Issue

Once in a blue moon, mountains are moved, seas are shifted, and your Salonniere gets lucky enough to have a piece published. If you like Thai food, love/hate Los Angeles, or enjoy quirky short fiction, please check out my short story, “Like Fish to Ginger” included in The University of California, Riverside’s The Coachella Review Fall 2010 online issue. Many thanks to SMC Fiction MFA’ers for helping to make this possible. And, if it strikes your fancy, please pass the word along to friends, family, colleagues, students, blogs, tweets, Facebook, etc. Thanks for all your wonderful support.

Try a taste:

Like Fish to Ginger

By Rashaan Meneses

Before I set out to make my mark in Los Angeles, I chased Sunee. We met in a steamy noodle house in the Dusit District of Bangkok where I elbowed my way from dishwasher to sous chef. Sunee worked as hostess. Both seventeen, she knew exactly what she wanted, and it wasn’t me. Like with a delicate soup, I had to know when to stir and when to let the ingredients meld on their own. For seven months I coaxed her to me, savoring every minute of it, the taste of falling in love. This was all ages ago when cooking was like breathing.

Check out the entire piece, about a 15-minute read, at The Coachella Review.

October 19, 2010February 14, 2012

Book Release: “Angelica’s Daughters”

PLEASE MARK YOUR CALENDAR – Saturday, Nov. 6, 5:30-7 pm, Angelica’s Daughters in San Francisco– a reading/signing of ANGELICA’S DAUGHTERS, A DUGTUNGAN NOVEL, in a PAWA sponsored event, Saturday, November 6, 5:30-7 p.m. at the Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission Street, San Francisco, California.

ANGELICA’S DAUGHTERS, A DUGTUNGAN NOVEL

Released by Anvil Publishing during the Manila International Book Fair last September, was a landmark novel entitled, Angelica’s Daughters, A Dugtungan Novel, a collaborative work written by five established Filipino and Filipino American women writers. The five authors came from different countries during the creation of the novel: Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Veronica Montes lived in California; Susan Evangelista and Erma Cuizon were in the Philippines, and Nadine Sarreal was in Singapore.

The five writers were members of an Internet writing group since 2003. After a few years of writing exercises, the group sought greater challenge and decided to write a dugtungan novel. A dugtungan is a genre of Tagalog novel popular early in the 20th century, in which each writer creates a chapter and hands it off to the next, who writes another chapter without direction.

The result is a novel about a diverse group of modern Filipinas – among them a FilAm whose marriage has disintegrated, an even younger Cebuana involved in a forbidden love affair, and a ballroom dancing Lola – who share a common ancestor, Angelica.

The novel has received praise from noted Filipino critic, Isagani Cruz, who says, ““This tale of two women living a century apart (and the women and men in their lives) told sequentially by five women is truly an ensemble performance worth a standing ovation.”

Award-winning Filipina writer, Felice Sta. Maria describes the novel as follows:

“Chick lit with a comfortable dose of smartness and historical verve. Angelica’s Daughters celebrates audacious heroines primed by deep passion and fairytale romance! Set in the heat of a 19th-century Asian revolution and what its setting becomes by the 21st Century, Angelica’s Daughters beguiles with its mythic splendor, threat of a generational curse, masterful betrayals, and female leads readers can fall in love with.
The story is a delightful read by five writers who cherish their Hispanic, Filipino, and American cultural roots.”

Brian Roley, Filipino American award-winning author likewise praises the book by saying, “Part of the pleasure of reading Angelica’s Daughters is seeing how deftly the authors deal with the challenge of writing in this resurrected literary form. The result, in this case, is an ensemble performance that contains something of the exhilaration of theatrical improv. One watches these accomplished authors inventively weave a historical romance, creating gripping heroines and turns of plot, crossing decades and national boundaries, tapping into cultural roots of the Philippines, Spain and America. Reading Angelica’s Daughters is a gripping experience.”

In the Philippines, the book is available from Anvil Publishing (www.anvilpublishing.com); in the US, the novel is available from PALH (www.palhbooks.com) and Philippine Expressions (linda_nietes@sbcglobal.net). Arkipelagobooks.com in San Francisco also has copies.

The novel has a site at www.palhbooks.com/cbrainardangelica.html, and a blog at http://angelicasdaughters.wordpress.com.

July 20, 2010February 14, 2012

At the Salon: GoodReads Review on the anthology “Growing Up Filipino II”

Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
**DISCLAIMER: This review is written by one of the contributors from the anthology. Please read with discretion.**

In her Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa writes of the mestiza consciousness: “The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be a Mexican from an Anglo point of view. She learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates on a pluralistic mode–nothing is thrust out, the good, the bad, and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. Not only does she sustain contradictions, she turns the ambivalence into something else.” The Filipino-ness, as discussed by Rocio G. Davis in his introduction and depicted by the twenty-plus authors in this anthology, develops more than a tolerance for contradictions but zeroes in on the good, the bad, and the ugly, drawing strength, voice, character, and meaning out of the ambiguity that lies at the inherent core of Filipino and Fiilpino-American experiences. Filipino history is Pluralism, and Cecilia Manguerra Brainard through her keen compilation and organization of these deceptively simple tales shows readers the complexity of individual experiences and stories in this beautifully orchestrated anthology.

Read entire review here at Ruelle Electrique

June 29, 2010June 29, 2010

“Into the Woods”: a faculty retreat reading list

Jenifer K. Wofford’s “MacArthur’s Nurses” (2008)

Your Salonniere has organized the reading list for this summer’s Collegiate Seminar Faculty Retreat for Saint Mary’s College of California. The theme of this retreat, “Into the Woods,” focuses on perception and consciousness of the Unknown, the Other, and the Wild. Inspired by the advocacy work of poet and professor Barbara Jane Reyes, who also introduced me to Jenifer K. Wofford’s art, these selections, juxtaposed together, will hopefully reveal surprising similarities among artists who might otherwise seem disparate. I’m looking forward to seeing how the faculty respond to the works individually and as a collective.

Schedule for the Neville and Juanita Massa Institute

at Huntington Lake, Summer 2010

July 29- August 1

“Into the Woods”

Thursday, July 29

8:00 – 10:00pm, Session I: Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Mont Blanc” (poem), 1817.

Friday, July 30

10:00 am – noon, Session II: Trinh T. Minh-ha, “The Language of Nativism” (46-64) (essay excerpt), from Women Native Other, 1989 [facilitator TBD].

7:30 – 9:30pm, Session III: E.M. Forster, “Introduction” and “Other Kingdom” (short story) from The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories, 1947 [facilitator TBD].

Saturday, July 31

10:00am – noon, Session IV: Carlos Bulosan, “The Growth of Philippine Culture” (115-123), “My Education” (124-130), “Freedom from Want” (131-134) (essays) from On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings and Jenifer K. Wofford, “MacArthur Nurses” (painting) 2008, and MacArthur’s Leyte Landing, (photo) October 1944 [facilitator TBD]

7:30 – 9:00pm, Session V: Louise Erdrich, “The Good Tears” from Love Medicine (novel excerpt) 1984.

Sunday, August 1

10:00am – noon, Session VI: Slavoj Zizek, “The Communist Hypothesis” (111-125) (philosophy excerpt) from First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, 2009.

May 13, 2010May 13, 2010

“Eating Our Words: Writings About Food & Family” at the Asian Culinary Forum’s 2010 Symposium, Filipino Flavors: Tradition + Innovation

Filipino Flavors: Tradition + Innovation

Literary Reading

EATING OUR WORDS: WRITINGS ABOUT FOOD & FAMILY

Sun May 16 | 1:00–2:30 pm, with light refreshments

Local writers share their poems, fiction and essays about two of the most important facets of life: our families and our food. Barbara Jane Reyes, Rashaan Alexis Meneses, Aileen Suzara, Aimee Suzara, Lizelle Festejo, Yael Villafranca and Lisa Suguitan Melnick read from their books and works-in-progress. Oscar Bermeo emcees.

$5 general admission, $3 students. Ticket sales end May 12! [buy now]

Location: The International Culinary School at The Art Institute of California-San Francisco

1170 Market Street, San Francisco, CA

Join the Asian Culinary Forum in the heart of San Francisco for an exciting, weekend-long celebration of the foods of the Philippines. Information on other weekend events here: http://www.asianculinaryforum.org

LIZELLE FESTEJO is the Assistant Director/Program Manager and Job Readiness Instructor at The Bread Project, a culinary and commercial baking job training program based in the East Bay. She was an organizer of Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity’s (FACES) first Kain’Na Cooking School fundraiser and also a 2008 Fellow for Robert Mondavi Winery’s Taste3. Lizelle consults for the San Francisco International Chocolate Salon organized by Tastetv.com. As a writer and community worker, her passion is fueled by bringing communities and families together through the multi-faceted and inter-generational powers of cooking, eating and food itself.

LISA SUGUITAN MELNICK’s daily life is a colorful melange of multi-cultural experience. Yes, she eats adobo with chopsticks, serves miso soup alongside pancit, and adds a touch of shoyu to the vinegar sauce for lumpia. Lisa’s work has appeared in Latin Beat Magazine, Philippine News, CATESOL (California Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages), The Advocate, and Filipinas Magazine. A third-generation Filipina/Latina American, she is currently working on Ima Ni Soledad, a memoir of vignettes which present Filipino-American experience in contexts that highlight the reverence for family and generosity of spirit. Lisa shares her life with partner of 27 years, Mark, their son Ryan Akira, and Miss Jazz, a doberman mix diva dog.

RASHAAN ALEXIS MENESES, born and raised in the seismically diverse and fractured landscape of California, earned her MFA from Saint Mary’s College of California’s Creative Writing Program. She was named a 2005-2006 Jacob K. Javits Fellow and awarded the Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz Scholarship for Excellence in Fiction. She received her B.A. in English with a specialization in Fiction, Creative Writing from the University of California, Los Angeles. Recently, A Room of Her Own Foundation named her a Finalist for The 2009 Gift of Freedom Award and her latest short story, “Here in the States” is included in the anthology, Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults.

BARBARA JANE REYES was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley and her M.F.A. at San Francisco State University. She is the author of Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003) and Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. Her third book, entitled Diwata, will be released by BOA Editions, Ltd. in September, 2010. Her poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared in Latino Poetry Review, New American Writing, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, and XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics. She has taught Creative Writing at Mills College, and Philippine Studies at University of San Francisco. She lives with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo, in Oakland.

AILEEN SUZARA is a second generation Pinay raised in California and Hawai’i who began exploring the kitchen at childhood. Her passion for social justice led her to the Filipino/American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity and positions as an environmental educator. Aileen now brings that commitment towards sustaining the recipes and rituals of Filipino foodways. Her words appear in Earth Island Journal, The Colors of Nature, Growing Up Filipino, and others. Aileen received a BA from Mount Holyoke College and recently graduated as a Natural Chef from Bauman College.

AIMEE SUZARA completed her M.F.A. at Mills College in 2005 and has been sharing poetic and multidisciplinary work since 1999. Her play, Pagbabalik (Return) in 2007 was selected for several festivals and granted the Zellerbach Community Arts Fund in 2006-7. Her poetry collection, the space between, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2008, and her writing appears in several journals and anthologies, including Check the Rhyme, An Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire Press), 580 Split (forthcoming issue) and Walang Hiya/No Shame (forthcoming anthology). Currently, she is collaborating on text-dance works with two companies: Amara Tabor-Smith’s Deep Waters Dance Theater for “Our Daily Bread”; and choreographer Frances Sedayao, Aimee Espiritu and Michael Torres for “A History of the Body,” to be hosted by the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. A passionate advocate for arts and literacy, she teaches English at community colleges and leads workshops on poetry and performance.

YAEL VILLAFRANCA is a Kundiman fellow, an organizer with Babae San Francisco/GABRIELA-USA, and a student at the University of San Francisco. She gets emotional when she eats.

OSCAR BERMEO is the author of the poetry chapbooks Anywhere Avenue, Palimpsest and Heaven Below. Born in Ecuador and raised in the Bronx, he now makes his home in Oakland with his wife, poeta Barbara Jane Reyes. Oscar was the founding curator/host of the Acentos Bronx Poetry Showcase, and a founding curator/host of the synonymUS Collaborative Open Mic at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. Oscar has been a featured writer at a variety of venues and institutions including the Bowery Poetry Club, Intersection for the Arts, Kearny Street Workshop, Bronx Academy of Letters, Rikers Island Penitentiary, San Quentin Prison, the Loft Literary Center, Sacramento Poetry Center, UC Berkeley, Columbia University, UNC Chapel Hill, NYU and many others.

May 2, 2010

“School Library Journal’s” Review of “Growing Up Filipinio II”

Published May 1, 2010 and written by Roxane Meyers Spencer of Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green:

BRAINARD, Cecilia Manguerra, ed. Growing Up Filipino II: More Stories for Young Adults. 254p. PALH. 2010. Tr $29.95. ISBN 978-0-9719458-2-1; pap. $21.95. ISBN 978-0-9719458-3-8. LC 2002104406.

Gr 9 Up—This collection of 27 short stories, the follow-up to the critically acclaimed Growing Up Filipino (PALH, 2003), reflects the impact of post-9/11 wartime sensibilities among Filipino writers living in the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. Although similar topics of family, memoir, and coming-of-age thread through both collections, the pieces are not grouped by theme, but nevertheless weave a constantly shifting tapestry of Filipino identity. The challenges and conflicts of unique ancestry and struggles for identity provide a rich background for modern urban realism. The brittle memoirs reflected in “Here in the States,” “Nurse Rita,” and “Hammer Lounge”; original legend in “A Season of 10,000 Noses”; and breathtaking tragedy in “How My Mother Flew,” among others, are compelling reading.

Read entire review

April 6, 2010