THE Bathalan-ong Halad sa Dagang (Bathalad)-Sugbo has chosen 10 fellows for the third edition of its creative writing workshop on Feb. 23 and 24 at the Handuraw Pizza White Gold in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.
The fellows for poetry are Dianne Deiparine, Dong Doños, Gino Paradela, Jennifer Ebdani, Leslie Nuñez and Jeff del Rosario.
In fiction, the fellows are Hannah Leceña, J. Marcello Borromeo, Nemesio Sinanggote and Victor Padilla.
The workshop is one of the activities celebrating the 50th founding anniversary of Bathalad-Sugbo.
The workshop panel features the heavyweights of Cebuano Literature. They are poet-diplomat Vicente Vivencio Bandillo, fictionist extraordinaire Carlos Cortes, fictionist-academician Januar Yap, poet-pseudo physicist Richel Dorotan and poet-deejay Erik Tuban.
Metaphysical Detective CD Borden and hermetic poet Kevin Lagunda serve as the workshop’s coordinators.
Fictionist-agent Richellet Chan acts as the moderator of the workshop, which is now on its third straight year.
The literary graciousness of Bandillo, considered as the father of Cebuano Surrealist Poetry, made the workshop possible.
The vanguards of Bathalad-Sugbo also helped the workshop in the past three years. They are Bathalad-Sugbo founder Dr. Melquiadito Allego Jr., Ernesto Lariosa and Lamberto Ceballos.
Fictionist Iryne Kaamino and artist Mari Lu Aznar (Maria Spada) also handed out their support for the workshop, which aims to develop writers to become luminaries and not celebrities.