Friday, November 21, 2008 Young Visayan writers’ fellowships
THE University of the Philippines in the Visayas Creative Writing Program (UPV-CWP) has awarded fellowships of the UPV/National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Centennial Creative Writing Workshop to young Visayan writers, who have established a name in contemporary Philippine writing.
The workshop will be held at the UPV-Tacloban College from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6.
Fellows representing Central Visayas include the poet and visual artist Josua Cabrera, who is also from Maasin, Leyte; Januar Yap, award-winning writer from Cebu Normal University; Hope-Sabanpan-Yu, literary critic and poet based from the University of San Carlos; Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, award-winning poet and essayist, who teaches literature at the Ateneo de Manila University; and Servando Halili, creative nonfictionist, essayist and historian from Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
Fellows
They will be joined by fellows from Eastern and Western Visayas. Eastern Visayas fellows include poet Voltaire Oyzon, fictionist Timothy Montes, fictionist Daryll Delgado, poet Yvonne Esperas and poet Antonino de Veyra.
Western Visayas will be represented by John Barrios and Melchor Cichon, both Akeanon poets, Genevieve Asenjo for the short story writing in Kinaray-a, John Iremil Teodoro for poetry and Alice Tan Gonzalez for the Hiligaynon short story writing.
The fellowship award was based on proven body of works, awards and fellowships received, actual publication in reputable journals, magazines or anthologies and commendation from literary peers and critical masters.
Vibrance
The vibrance of Visayan literature has long been observed and noted by the UPV-CWP, headed by workshop director, poet, essayist and fictionist Merlie M. Alunan and Dr. Leoncio Deriada, whose life work was to encourage Western Visayans to go back to writing in the mother tongue.
The workshop is the program’s contribution to the continuous growth of the literature in the Visayas with its many vibrant languages. Not all fellows, however, are writing in the Visayan languages. A number of them write in both English and their mother tongue and some write exclusively in English.
The NCCA, Leyte Normal University and the Provincial Government of Leyte are among those who have given active support to the project.
The workshop aims, among many things, to create a venue for the discussion of contemporary literature and literary studies in the Visayas, to provide a venue for the discussion of contemporary Visayan literature by those who are directly involved in its creation, and to initiate critical attention on the works of contemporary Visayan artists as a vital and necessary aspect of literary creativity.
