Literature Instructor Wins Palanca
A faculty at the English and Literature Department won second prize in English in the 62nd Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature.
Mr. Ian R. Casocot received the award for his story, “It Always Breaks My Heart a Little to See You Go”, which is a dramatic chronicle of a mother dealing with an autistic child.
The new award is Mr. Casocot’s fifth Palanca. He garnered first place in the same category in 2008. He has also won the NVM Gonzalez Prize, a PBBY Salanga Writers Prize Honorable Mention, and the FullyBooked/Neil Gaiman Philippine Graphic/Fiction Prize for his fiction.
Coordinator of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, Mr. Casocot teaches literature, creative writing, graphic design and film at Silliman. In 2010, he was Writer in Residence for the International Writers Program of the University of Iowa.
His books include FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures (Silliman Press, 2002), Old Movies and Other Stories (NCCA, 2006), Beautiful Accidents: Stories (University of the Philippines Press, 2011), and Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror (Anvil, 2011). His novel Sugar Land, which was long-listed in the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize, is forthcoming. He also produced the documentary City of Literature, directed by the Chinese filmmaker Zhao Lewis Liu.
The Palanca Awards is the Philippines’ best-known literary prize. Awarding ceremonies will be held at the Rigodon Ballroom of the Peninsula Manila on September 1.
