Bits & Pieces

Image borrowed from the Walker Art Center

Well, hello there. I’m mortified to find that this blog became utterly lost in the lengthy shuffle that began with the build-up to Thanksgiving. My family and I traveled several hours by car, feasted non-stop for three days, and then dove headfirst into the onset of holiday shopping. But life has settled down for the time being, and I can finally mention a few bits and pieces relating to Angelica’s Daughters.

 

Bits & Pieces #1: Cecilia was pleased to hear recently from Professor Oscar V. Campomanes, who had many a kind word for our novel. *dramatic pause* Oh, I’ll stop being coy: Professor Campomanes, who teaches critical theory and literary/cultural studies at Ateneo de Manila University (and whose essays I’ve admired in the excellent anthologies Positively No Filipinos Allowed and Vestiges of War) said, “It is fabulous—I love it! Very avant-garde and a singular innovation in our context. I mentioned it as an example of the most exciting developments in my panel on “Writing the Diaspora” at the…Manila International Literary Festival…organized by the National Book Development Board.”

Bits & Pieces #2: Marie Romero of Arkipelago Books has Angelica’s Daughters on her splash page as the “Book Feature of the Month.” We appreciate her support, and we encourage you to fill at least some of your shopping bags with Filipino and Filipino-American titles this holiday! They make the best gifts EVER.

Bits & Pieces #3: Tony Robles was the videographer extraordinaire at our recent PAWA event, and Cecilia has posted a clip over at YouTube. Thanks Tony!

Bits & Pieces #4: Anvil, our publisher, shared the news that an online book club has requested copies of Angelica’s Daughters for review and discussion. How fun is that?! Whether they give us a thumbs up or a thumbs down or a thumb somewhere-in-between, I know the five of us will be happy knowing that the book was engaged with out there. Thanks mystery readers!

And thank you 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