Closing

Over the weekend I flew to Manila to attend the closing program of the 6th La Salle Creative Non-Fiction Writing Workshop hosted by the Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing Center and co-hosted by the Philippine College of Physicians. 

The culminating program was my chance to meet my co-panelists, Prof. Marj Evasco and Joti Tabula, this year’s workshop director. Prof. Marj gave me Annie Ernaux’s Nobel lecture printed in the elegant Fitzcarraldo edition. The book was wrapped in a white envelope. Inside was a heartwarming note in her exquisite handwriting. There was a butterfly attached to the thread that wound around the book. Professor Marj delivers her gifts with grace and thought. 

Joti, who balances clinical practice in internal medicine with his many roles in the writing community, welcomed us with an extemporaneous speech about writing and medicine. Dr. Nemi Nicodemus, the PCP president, sent over a recording, where he spoke so eloquently about writing as healing and even recited a short poem in Filipino.

Prof. John Iremil Teodoro, the director of the BNSCWC, gave me his latest poetry collection—poems in Kinaray-a, translated to Filipino and English, about Thailand. In his remarks during the program, he explained why he took a traditionally pre-med course in college: BS Biology. He had wanted to shift to something more related to humanities and the arts, but his friends grabbed his enrollment form and took away his enrollment money and, year after year, wrote BS Biology, leaving him no choice. 

I met the writer and activist Jen Soriano whose book Nervous is a celebration of language. In the essays she meditates on chronic pain and intergenerational trauma.  Earlier in the workshop I moderated the Q and A after her craft lecture. She was even more delightful in person, and she happily signed my copy of Nervous. She had misplaced her pen. When I offered my Pilot Custom 823 fountain pen, she declined, wary she’d break it, and looked for a ballpoint instead. I'm still reading Nervous; I can't recommend it enough. 

I also met our workshop fellows for the year, including the surgeon-poet Dr. Alyza Taguilaso gave a passionate reading of her poem that appears in her collection, Juggernaut. I sat beside Dr. Will Liangco, award-winning writer of the often-referenced collection, Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer, who lighted up when I told him one of our fellows, the psychiatrist Dr. Louanne Cortejos from Cagayan de Oro, was my batch mate in Kalayaan Dorm. Sir Will asked me, "Ano'ng floor mo?"

"Basement."

"Ah, may tubig kayo!" — something a freshman who had lived in the third floor would say. 

In the elevator that descended from the Henry Sy Building rooftop, Dr. China Castillo told me she looks forward to the workshop yearly—one of the highlights of her year. An OB-gyne and a speculative fiction writer, she had once joined the workshop as one of our fellows. This year she gave a craft lecture on character and plot, which she delivered beautifully. She also gave me Jia Tolentino’s essay collection! Jia's essay on the internet is so good, precisely writing what I've been thinking of: the internet was once a happy place; now it's almost hopeless.

What a year for reading and writing!

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