I've started working on a Middle Grade urban fantasy/paranormal series-of-sorts that's also semi-autobiographical. It's about a 13 year-old Filipina named Ning Santos who stumbles upon a box of items that belongs to her great-grandpa who died way before her mom was born. The items, such as his anting-anting (amulet), were collected from his US Navy heydays and become a trigger for weird occurrences around town. Throughout her journey, Ning gets to know her past and bridge a cultural gap in a time where the wrong kind of patriotism encourages erasure of ancestral knowledge and wisdom. And I'm just going to drop some (ok, a lot of) links to the various elements and inspiration behind this series: Fil-Am History 5 Things You Didn't Know About the Watsonville Riots (dooblydoo contains links to articles) Little Manila: Filipinos in America's Heartland Filipino Americans Discovering Their Past for the Future Acradia Publishing: Filipinos in San Diego Filip...
Be-holding the Waters The cactus holds water much like the way camels hold water in their humps and dams and reservoirs hold water and how the moon pulls and pushes the water and the gravity that keeps it all in. We hold water too, keeping it, guarding it, taking our instinctual share. But when we begin to own the water, we own the cactus and the camel and the people. Water adopts our toxicity and so do they. Nothing floods the heart as easily as greed.
2019 has been a hot minute, but really though, it's been a busy and mentally exhausting one. POETRY Was able to edit and submit some poetry that eventually got accepted into UC Berkeley's {M}aganda Mag #32, INDAK, which published in April! I've worked on those poems for almost 2 (or 3?) years up until Maganda's initial deadline. So, effort and care pays off. P.S. These poems are also part of a potential chapbook WIP I've been super gradually tinkering away at and adding to for almost 3 years. I'd give it at least another 3 years before I can ever think of sending it off somewhere. FICTION My NING SANTOS WIP is on hold until I'm ready to pick it back up. It's currently at 13k, but there's a lot from the beginning I want to structurally rework/replot (again)...more importantly, the dynamic between Ning and her mom. I really need to NOT be indecisive about their arcs. But I mean, a Plantser gon' Plants. In the mean time, I'm shifting ...
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