NWW Remembrances

By Christine V. Lao  I didn’t write much at the Writers’ Village.  It was much more fun to hang out with 15 other aspiring writers, who were not only talented, but also invariably kind, and passionate about the written word. There was so much to discuss with, and learn from, the fellows of the 50th […]

By Andrea Macalino  People always told me that if I wanted to be a writer, I should apply to the Silliman University National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete. Nobody bothered to explain why, or even how I was to do it, but I could feel the weight they put on this piece of advice. I granted […]

By Angelo Rodriguez Lacuesta   The first time was when a visiting writer eviscerated my work. Her name was Kelly Cherry. I felt pretty bad about it, not only because a woman with a name like Kelly Cherry could see right through my work, but because I had chosen to go to the workshop instead […]

By Dean Francis Alfar   In 1992, when I attended the Workshop in Dumaguete, I was young, headstrong and angry.  A self-declared maverick at odds with academe and not a member of any fashionable literary cliques, I was possessed of a desire to prove to the world that I could write whatever I wanted, whichever […]

By Ian Rosales Casocot   My own love affair with the Silliman Workshop in Dumaguete began eleven years ago, when I was one of nine young writers granted a three-week fellowship to a summer of writing and book talk. It led me to a discovery—in a very big way—to the treasures of Philippine literature. But […]

By Cherrie Sing   My name is Cherrie Sing and I was a writing fellow at the 35th National Writers’ Workshop last 1996. Our batch holds the distinction for being the last batch Dr. Edilberto Tiempo handled before he passed away the same year. My Siliman workshop experience was something to cherish.  My proudest moment […]

By Rica Bolipata Santos   I was born writing. Truly. I don’t mean this in a pretentious sort-of-way, intent to impress you with the inevitability of fate or destiny. It is simply the truth – having been born in a family where artistic pursuit was the highest value. We knew not how to be anything […]

By Fidelito Cortes   Ed Cabagnot and I went to the 1984 Silliman workshop on an inter-island boat. I don’t quite recall what sort of insane thought process went into this decision, but it can’t be denied that, on paper at least, a sea journey has a certain allure of adventure and arrival that a […]

By Fr. Phil James Laquindanum   I got accepted into the Silliman workshop in 1990, three years after my own stint at the UP workshop. I was a fellow for poetry. Being a young Catholic priest at the time, I felt somewhat of an oddity among writers. Thus, I was a bit shy, wary, and […]

By Miro Capili   We tried to write.  We had positioned ourselves where our bodies would be able to cleave the wind, hoping perhaps to intercept what occult lore its salty tongues would carry; to entrap the utterances of the afternoon in free verse, realist fiction, villanelles, sci-fi, prose poetry. What precluded the wall, of […]