S-s-s-scandalous! Plus, Booksigning @ the NaFFAA Conference

At the PAWA launch, Marie Romero told us about a woman at the recent Manila International Book Fair who picked up a copy of Angelica’s Daughters, scanned the cover, read the words “a dugtungan novel,” and then dismissed the book (with a flare of her nostrils, no doubt!) as “sexual.” Silly, funny woman! Our book is kinda sexy, for sure, but not “sexual” (wow—this blog is going to get so many Google hits now…). The photograph on the cover was actually shot at the Vigeland Museum and Park in Oslo, Norway, by our own intrepid world-traveler, Cecilia Brainard. The artist is Gustave Vigeland, who designed all of the 700+ sculptures at this famous institution.

But what I meant to say when I started this post is that the tireless Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions Bookshop is setting up a Filipiniana Book Exhibit during the NaFFAA Empowerment Conference to be held this weekend in Burlingame. You will find me there (along with others, but I’m not sure who. Linda, if you’re reading this, perhaps you can share the names?) during the Author Booksigning from 5:00 – 7:15. I am secretly hoping that a few potential book buyers will be as scandalized by the cover as the woman at the Manila International Book Fair, as it will provide me with the perfect opening for a little chitchat about the book.

Before I sign off, I want to wish Cecilia and Nadine buena suerte as they tap away at their keyboards for the remainder of NaNoWriMo. Nadine reports that there is also some sort of follow-up event?—Something like NaNoReWriMo? I think that’s hilarious…

Thanks for reading! Check back soon!

~ Veronica

Report from the PAWA Book Launch

We’re so grateful to PAWA and Arkipelago Books for launching Angelica’s Daughters with an excellent event held yesterday at the Bayanihan Community Center in San Francisco. It was memorable for many reasons, not the least of which were the twenty-five or so delightful, engaged, and interesting people in the audience. The evening started with refreshments, and Cecilia and I enjoyed mingling with folks including Penelope Flores, Joi Barrios, Tony Robles (who also served as videographer), the young and lovely Hidalgo sisters (3 of them!), and others.

Cecilia Brainard, Penelope Flores, Carmen Domingo-Kirk, Veronica Montes

PAWA President Edwin Lozada was, as always, a gracious host and charming emcee:

PAWA President Edwin Lozada and Cecilia Brainard

We were truly, truly honored to share the reading space with emerging writers Cyndi Vasallo and Yael Villafranca. Cyndi read her short story, “More American,”—a quietly beautiful and moving piece—which was recently published in TAYO Literary Magazine. If you aren’t able to read it in print, it will be available online next year. I’ll be sure to link to it then. Cyndi has an MFA from USF, and she’s revising a story collection which was “born” at VONA last summer. I can’t wait to read more of her work.

Cyndi Vasallo and Yael Villafranca

Ah, the vivacity of youth: Yael Villafranca (a VONA and Kundiman alum)  made me smile every time I looked at her. After announcing that she has the “heart of a marshmallow” and writes poetry because she’s a “frustrated filmmaker,” she convincingly backed up her argument by reading a suite of poems in which she spoke in the voice of characters inspired by Filipino soap operas. How can you not adore this person? She attended the event with Ed Mabasa, a playwright who is currently working on a radio play for Bindlestiff Studio:

Yael Villafranca and Ed Mabasa

Cecilia and I batted last (you’ll forgive the baseball analogy; we were, after all, in the home of the newly minted 2010 World Series Champion San Francisco Gi-gan-tes! Woot!). Cecilia began by talking about the genesis of our group, why we decided to tackle a novel together, and how we reacted to that first rejection (I blogged about it last month). She even printed out the rejection, which I was stunned to see was FIVE single-spaced pages! We can laugh about it now, of course, and the audience laughed right along with us.

We then did a little back and forth reading, with Cecilia presenting a letter from the historical line of the story and I reading from early on in the modern-day narrative. Then I shared a little bit about our process of working together, i.e. how we decided what order we would write in, how we dealt with feeling proprietary about our characters, how we settled disputes, edited, etc. I also mentioned that we all uploaded photos to help inspire the writing, and that many of these were vintage Filipiniana and were a large part of the reason our novel has a historic bent.

We closed with three more excerpts, and then took quite a few questions from the audience. People were curious about how we tackled the editing process after the initial rejection; if we incorporated any of the suggestions; the use of the epistolary form; how we researched the historical aspects, etc. etc. Finally, Cecilia brought some copies of Growing Up Filipino with her to raffle off, and that was done with much hilarity and fanfare.

Then it was time for more mingling and book signing. I was so pleased to meet a family of four who were on their way to pick up the patriarch’s visa for a trip to India, saw the sign through the Balikbayan Community Center Window, and came inside. They had two teenage daughters and said it was their first experience being exposed to Filipino/Fil-Am literature. Not only did they win a copy of Growing Up Filipino, they also purchased Angelica’s Daughters and chatted with me for quite a bit. I then sent them over to Arkipelago Books, where they spoke some more with owner Marie Romero and—no doubt—purchased more books. Yes!

I’m super happy to report that Arkipelago sold out of books, but Marie is expecting more soon. And I see she’s added an online purchase option to her site, which makes things especially easy.

Thanks for reading! Check back soon!

~ Veronica

Also Joining Us on Saturday…

…are two emerging writers:

Yael Villafranca is a Kundiman fellow, VONA fellow, and a student at USF
Cyndi Vasallo is a VONA fellow and a USF alum

We’re very excited! Do come out and support these young guns, as well as us old folks. Even as I type, Cecilia is on her way north. She’ll be visiting a high school classroom at Galileo Academy of Science & Technology to discuss her now classic novel, When The Rainbow Goddess Wept. Kind of cool, don’t you think, that the book is part of the high school curriculum, and a bunch of teenagers are prepared to engage with her? I love that.

Here’s the where, what, and time, once again:

When: Saturday, November 6, 2010, 5:30 – 7:00
Where: Bayanihan Community Center, 1010 Mission St., San Francisco
What:: Cecilia Brainard, Veronica Montes, Yael Villafranca, Cyndi Vasallo, book signing, and light refreshments

Thanks for reading! Check back soon!

~ Veronica