Renowned Fictionist is New Silliman Workshop Director

Award-winning fictionist Ms Susan S. Lara has been appointed Director-in-Residence of the 52nd Silliman University National Writers Workshop (SUNWW) taking place next year.

Ms Lara is a regular panelist at the SUNWW. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Chapter of International P.E.N., and founding member and treasurer of the Creative Writing Foundation, Inc. 

Among her responsibilities as Director-in-Residence are the selection of fellows and panelists to the 52nd SUNWW and the continuing evaluation of its programs and thrusts.

SUNWW is considered as Asia’s oldest writing workshop. It was founded in 1962 by the late Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo.

Ms Lara has served on the board of judges for the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Philippines Free Press Literary Contest, Philippines Graphic Nick Joaquin Literary Awards, and the De La Salle University Malate Literary Contest. She was recipient of the Henry Lee Irwin Professional Chair for Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2010-2011.

Her short story “The Reprieve,” which won first prize for the short story in English in the 1984 Palanca Literary Awards, was cited by Isagani Cruz in his anthology The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century. It was also included in her collection Letting Go and Other Stories, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1997.