21st Century Literature (Philippines): CHICK LIT

Hollywood News Source interview, October 2016

My portion of an article released in 2016. Interviewed by Sue of HNS.

Question: Your book titled 'Iris After the Incident' recently came out, it's about a breach of privacy. It's about a woman who becomes the target of cyber bullying. I think this story has a lot of truths in it. It's more relevant than ever. How did you decided this is the next story that I'm going to write?

Thank you so much! It was a bit darker than what I usually choose to write about, so any kind of encouragement or positive response just makes me so happy. Iris is about the way women here (or maybe elsewhere) are judged so harshly, and it's taken me years to find the right way to do it. When I come up with an idea for a book I try to drop everything and do that, so I don't lose it. But for Iris, I probably wrote three or four books while quietly outlining this one, and it took so long because I didn't think I was ready to write it. At the time I was working on a series of books with American characters, and I told myself that when I wrote characters in the Philippines again I'd make them the "difficult" ones.

Question: I noticed one of the notable themes of your books are women embracing their sexuality; us being independent and supporting each other. That's exceptionally revolutionary. How important is this positive portrayal for you?

On females being supportive of each other: Yes! It's very important to me and it's always been. I was recently asked by another writer if there were early writing decisions I regretted, and I said I had one—in my first published book, my villain was another female, a rival for the Love Interest's affections. It couldn't be helped, that was the way the story was set up to be. There were great female friendships in there regardless, and in my head I had a complete story for the "villainess" that I thought would be material for a later book. Still, I noticed that there were readers who hated her, and I felt bad about that! I did come around to writing her book, to "make it up to her." Since then I've tried to be more obvious about women supporting women, being their own characters, being friends and not rivals. Or being rivals but worthy rivals, if that makes sense. If they both want something I'd need for their motivations to make sense to me, and not be reduced to villainy for the sake of it.

On embracing sexuality: I feel like I need to write about this because it took me too long to come to terms with it, and I feel that I would have let go of so many things sooner. It's not just sexuality but everything that my brain connected it to—the guilt, accepting how our bodies look, how people look at us, how to feel about all of this. I'm fortunate to have met awesome Filipino women who are very positive and responsible about this. I wish I'd asked more questions before, or at least met them when I was younger, but we do what we can. It's still an ongoing process for me but I'm trying to be there for others too.

Question: As a Filipino writer, how does your culture and identity shaped your writing?

There's so much to this question and I'm not sure I can go through all my feelings, but here's an attempt: Only now am I starting to figure out my own identity, as a person, and as an author, and where I belong in the grand scheme of things for both of those identities. As a reader I've felt that my own experiences were not represented in local lit, so I went ahead and tried writing it. But even with all the books I've been writing, and encouraging other authors to write...I feel it's like we haven't caught up yet? There are too many experiences and ways to live in this culture that we haven't captured. Sometimes I feel like sitting down and making sure I write as many sides to this experience as possible. Sometimes I feel that means I have to write things that will make people go "I didn't realize that happened here – are you sure this is authentic?" and I want to be able to say, "Hell yeah, you didn't know?"

Question: What's your favorite thing about being a writer?

Finishing a book, and deciding to start a new one. It's so fun, like planning to take a trip.

Now that I've been doing this for years, one of my new favorite things is going back to an older book of mine and still liking it. I've been doing that to check for continuity because I've been expanding character arcs lately, but then I'll stick around for more chapters and feel so relieved that I'm happy with the book.

Question: I know most of your books are about Filipino who live in the Philippines, though your Spotlight New Adult series is based in the US. With that being said, there is still a lack of Filipino representation in North American literature (YA, NA, Romance). As a reader and a writer, what more would you like to see in the books you consume?

Many Filipinos have a "US story." I was "aged out" of a family-based immigration application, because when it was approved 20 years later I was already an employed adult, and couldn't immigrate with them as their "dependent child." So my parents and sister went ahead and moved to Texas without me when I was 23, and that changed my life. Does it sound strange? Because it's totally a normal thing to do, when you're a Filipino. We accept that we follow the approved immigration papers, even if a family member doesn't get to go, and then you figure out how to have her join you later. It's sad for some, not so much for others. I'm not sad about it personally, but many immigrant families have that story, and it's a lot of phone conversations, milestones missed and recapped over Skype and stuff.

I mean, imagine "coming of age" because your entire family moved somewhere, and you didn't. That's like the opposite of how these YA/NA stories go. That's my story and of so many others like me, and I never really read that in books. Since then I've become more aware of all these different situations, these "US stories" and they're happy, sad, everything in between. I just want more of them? All of them?

Question: You're one of the pillar of the Filipino reading community. You also founded romanceclassbooks.com which specifically promotes self-published Filipino authors. I think that's ingenious! It helps a lot of people to find new books to read. Does it ever get overwhelming for you? And, did you ever expected the warm response to it?

Thank you for mentioning the website! We started out as a community of Filipinos who read and write romance, and the site was an extension of the way we'd experimented with selling books together at book fairs. It made sense for us to share a table at a fair because we all could expect that we had a similar audience. Then it made sense for us to maintain the website as a catalogue of all the books, so we're still helping each other out. The positive and warm response has been so exciting for us.

All the projects can get a little overwhelming but I'm not doing this on my own! Someone in the community is likely in charge of something, or they started it (for the benefit of the other authors and readers) because it's something they enjoy doing. This isn't a full-time job for any of us, so all the things have to be fun somehow.

Question: Lastly, what are the current books you read that you would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat?

The Infamous Miss Rodriguez by Lydia San Andres. Perv by Dakota Gray. Pairing Off by Elizabeth Harmon. Hamilton the Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda. And anything on romanceclassbooks.com.