my March 8 talk - where are the lesbians on women's day?

Hang out with me on International Women's Day in case you're in the vicinity of UP Diliman and you are free and want to listen to a small talk I'm delivering about lesbian literature. It's free of charge and open to the public.

Yes, shameless plug. Kitakits.

CMC Faculty Colloquium 2011

March 8 Tuesday 2:30-4pm

UP College of Mass Communication

Auditorium (Plaridel Hall annex building)

Decoding decades of absence:

Searching for lesbianism in Philippine literature in English

by libay linsangan cantor

Abstract:

This paper is a survey of the notable batch of the earliest lesbian-themed literary short stories written in English in the Philippines published by mainstream magazines and publishing houses from the early 1990s up to the early 2000s. The aim of this paper is to analyze what types of narratives are being selected for publication which directly indicates the level of authenticity of how Filipino lesbians are characterized and constructed and also indicative of how lesbianism as a theme is carried out in Philippine literature in English. The objective of utilizing this process is to trace how lesbian literature emerged within this literary space and how it runs parallel to or clashes with the tradition of women writing in English in the Philippines.

Author:

Libay Linsangan Cantor is a two-time winner of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature in 1997 for her short story in Filipino “Si Joe Cool Kasi” (Joe Cool’s Fault) and the short story for children in Filipino “Si Totoy sa Gubat ng Diwata” (Totoy in the Forest of the Fairies).

She used to have a literary column entitled “The Scribe Vibe” at the Manila Times newspaper’s Sunday Times section which ran from 2008 to 2010. She now contributes regularly to the Philippine Online Chronicles (POC) Pinoy LGBT channel online webzine by Vibal Foundation since June 2010.

She is also a trained TV/film scriptwriter and won honorable mention for her lesbian-themed screenplay at the 1998’s Film Development of the Philippines Inc.’s annual screenwriting competition. She began scriptwriting for children’s TV shows in 2001 with the ABS-CBN Foundation-produced Epol/Apple educational program. In 2006, she began directing for TV, handling the Saturday morning TV show Lovely Day for GMA-7. She also scripted and directed a few episodes of other GMA-7 children’s shows Happy Land and Sunnyville in 2009-2010.

Libay has a BA in Film and Audiovisual Communication from UP College of Mass Communication and an MA in Creative Writing from the UP College of Arts and Letters. She was a co-founder of the now defunct UP Sappho Society (1999), the first university-based lesbian organization in the Philippines. She is currently part of the Asia-Pacific advisory board for the International Fund for Sexual Minorities of the New York-based Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice.

natapos din si vakler

me at the dumaguete writer's workshop
some ten years ago, as a fiction fellow.

the much-awaited ten--errr, eleven na nga pala--year ordeal was finally put to an end last wednesday afternoon, the sked of my MA thesis oral defense. yes, oral defense as they call it in CAL where i have been taking up my masters degree in english studies major in creative writing at the department of english and comparative literature for eleven years. eleven frakking years, man. kung nanganak ako noong 1998 ay may pinapaaral na akong grade 5 sa elementarya ngayon noh! may ganung factor! hahahahaa. pero tangeeenaaaa natapos din!!!! woot!

sadyang anti-climactic itong defense ko dahil nga sa tagal. nagkaroon pa ng panibagong external conflict at the last stretch of this decade-long dramaturgy of mine during my birthday. poootangeena birthday na birthday ko noong abril, naglalalakad ako para maghabol ng UP officials para sa shortcoming ng isang departamento na di naman ako ang may kagagawan. well, thank goddesses na-achieve naman ang objective, at na-resolve lahat at wala nang loose ends. hay.

happy lang yung defense. my thesis adviser, dr. jing hidalgo, is a longtime teacher and well, colleague na ring matatawag siguro, since 1997 UP national writers' workshop days pa namin in cebu and baguio where i became a fellow. in fact, in baguio, she was the one who encouraged me to take up an MA in CW. i'm glad i took her advice. masaya ang CW life for me heheh. kaya i'm still there now. well, at least part of me does that to this day. yey.

it was a hoot to hear ms. jing do the defending for me sometimes hehe. i so love her. may kinda CL slash CW dichotomy kasing nangyari with the presence of another colleague na naging friend na rin dati, si ruth pison who teaches CL at the english dept. she was my panelista kasi maalam sa gender theories chenelyn. i took my postcolonial literature undegrad back subject under her when i began my MA in 1998 at sobrang aliw ang learning experience doon. happy siya. it was cool to hear the pros and cons of the CL thinking and the CW thinking in one table. super happy learning experience for me. wala, tawanan lang kami ng tawanan in between comments hahaha!

no frills ang defense. no pakain chenes unlike eons ago, kasi nga alam ko, bawal na ito sa kayoopehan. ni magkape nga, ayaw nila, so tipid ako hahaha! ms jing didn't want long elaborate powerpoint presentations so a 2-pager thingie was fine for me, then the rest of the work, sila na gumawa hahaha!

aliw din ang observations ni celeste flores coscolluela, fellow CW major ko na kinontratang maging critique. siya ang nag-provide ng hetero side of comments. well, hetero din naman yung kay ruth pero iba ang atak ng lola mong yon, mas sa teorya-teorya chorva nga at reality of things (mga tanong na "may lalaki bang ganyan?" and stuff. hahaha so ruth! funny.) kaya si cel ang by default na hetero commenter chenes. tapos si vlad gonzales served as the dean's rep at aliw din ang comments niya ha. dami ko napulot kay koya hehe. haylavet. textmates na kami hahaha! chos. dati ko pa namang kakilala si koya vlad, mga panahon pa noong nabuo yung akdang bayan writer's org, short for artista para sa kultura at dalumat ng bayan kung saan kami kasapi. man, sayang talaga yung grupong yon. tsk. oi may bagong libro nga pala si koya vlad published by milflores, buy kayo. buy ako next next week, pahuhupain ko lang ang kaguluhang bookstore dahil magpapasukan na. google niyo na lang yung title, haba e.

aliw din si mam jing sa comments, of course, especially her panalong wrap-up on the "what's next" on my plate chorva. panalo! basta, if you know her, you know na she's a CW-CL goddess by default. kaya nga lagi kapag may nagtatanong sa akin kung sino ang okay kuning titser sa MA doon, lagi kong sinasabing kahit ano'ng ituro ni ms jing, enrollan mo! same comment ko actually yan kay mam betsy enriquez dito naman sa cmc hehehe. basta, alam mong may mga gurong sulit enrollan at kritikal ito lalo na at MA ka at hindi galing sa paryentes mo ang pang-tuition mo kundi sa sarili mong bulsa. poonyemas masakit ang 500 pesos per unit sa MA ha! may 1 or 2 courses nga ako dating nakuhang i wanted a refund, but that's another story na lang for next time.

haaaay... poonyemas puwede na ko mag-kikay ulet! hahaha. hamfanget ko na noh dahil sa thesis na toh!!! okay kaya papagupit na akey, ukay ng new clothes, at back to workout moda olympic level. as in!!! oo vain ako to a certain extent bakit ba! hahaha! and back to my house repairs na din, na inuunti-unti ko dahil mas may kelangang unahin sa buhay minsan, tulad nitong MA.

hm napaisip ako doon sa what's next a. actually, parang alam ko na pero so many colleagues are against it. i want to have a second MA kasi, this time malikhaing pagsulat naman. didibdibin ko ang pagiging bilingual writer literal hehe. wala, gusto ko lang, bakit ba. actually, muntik ko na ngang inabandona itong CW thesis at magshi-shift na sana ko dahil nababagot na nga ako noon sa "philippine literature in english," kung di lang ako tinalakan ng ilang upfi colleagues (even the dean breathing down my neck! dean nic, that was.) at pinandilatan ng mga film dyosas like mam gigi na tapusin mo na yaaaaan hahahaha! salamat sa talak! haylavyoooo all! oo, ganun kami magmahalan sa upfi, karinyo brutal hahaha! chos.

so yan ang life hehe. yes, okay na ko. sobrang okay, pare. SOP. hahaha. chos.

so sa pagtatapos ng post na ito, share ko lang dito yung aking naging super short and sweet na presentation of my thesis project chorvaloo. short and fast lang ito pramis, like hayden kho's "performance." charot!!!

oo bangenge pa ko.

salamat nga pala sa mga friendsheeps ko na bumati sa fezbuk at sa offline life, sa mga actual na dumalo at nanood for moral support or to jot down notes for their own pending MA CW fiction thesis defense hehehe. :)


---------


MA CW Thesis Oral Defense Presentation
27 May 2009

F L Y L E A F
libay linsangan cantor

This thesis, a collection of 17 short stories, is called Flyleaf. I used the flyleaf metaphor of the blank pages of books where sometimes, as readers, we use these blank pages at the front or back of the book to jot down our notes or thoughts or maybe reactions to what we have read in the book – provided of course we own the book and don’t vandalize others’ property. Sometimes, the notes we jot down surprise us, for they could be rather insightful, meaningful, but most of all, we jot down these notes to sometimes make sense of what we just read. This is what I am hoping my collection would do – make sense
of what it is to be a lesbian in contemporary Philippine society as narrated through the stories in this collection.

In my introductory essay, I tried to locate myself as a lesbian writer in Philippine literature in English. This is because, as I have studied in the past, there is an obvious absence of lesbian voices in this field. I found a handful of stories with lesbian content and also know of only a handful of lesbian-identified writers like myself who create lesbian-themed fiction or creative nonfiction in English. But compared to gay-themed writings or gay-identified writers, we lesbians lag so far behind in numbers.

I also tried to deconstruct what that identity means, to be a “lesbian writer,” to understand where my poetics are rooted or grounded, which I believe is primarily influenced and enhanced by tenets of lesbian feminism. And as a writer, I also wanted to locate where my audience is. I know for a fact that there is an audience out there for this kind of material, an audience primarily composed of women like me – women who identify as women and as lesbians, who look for and yearn to read about themselves and their experiences—or our experiences—in Philippine literature.

I tried to analyze why I write the way I write, as my stories sometimes unfold differently from one another. There are stories that are metafictional and there are stories that are traditional. I concluded that this is because perhaps I also need to relate my stories to a “more traditional” type of audience, the audience I also hope to reach with my stories, which are non-lesbians. But as a storyteller exposed to various media such as cinema, I also like to discover and experiment with new ways of telling or retelling a story, much like how I also like to discover and experiment with new ways of showing a story via the audiovisual medium when I shoot as a filmmaker.

So what kind of experiences and stories are here? In the beginning, I tried to map out the life of several contemporary middle-class educated lesbians living in Metro Manila who work in the fields of media and the arts. But upon my consultations with my adviser, it was best to flesh out just one persona from these different stories, for it was noticed that there was a dominant voice emanating from most of the stories. Thus, the order of the stories were rearranged and presented as how you all read them in the manuscript.

The individual stories narrate one persona’s experiences that span almost ten years, set during this decade. The development is in accordance with the main persona’s discovery of her lesbianism. In the beginning, she is presented as a twentysomething heterosexual woman who discovers that her more authentic sexuality is that of a lesbian. We see this persona undergo happy and horrible relationships; we see her being single alone and being single with friends both straight friends and friends belonging to the LGBT community; and towards the end, we see her as a thirtysomething lesbian at the beginning of a more domesticated life with a partner as they try to begin a family, which includes having a child.

In between these experiences, there are, of course, the staple stories of discrimination directed towards lesbian women (particularly feminine-looking lesbians), and we see how this persona struggled with these discriminatory experiences, particularly being verbally taunted or sexually harassed because she is a feminine-looking lesbian, and even being raped because she is a lesbian, period. As I wanted to reflect real-life lesbian narratives in my fiction, I included a balance of happy stories and not-so-happy ones in order to fully characterize how this certain Filipina lesbian lives in this day and age. //


okay lang mag-comment, kahit nega. ako si miss workshop, kaya you can comment away :)

of movie (watching) freaks and best queer reads

gusto ko actually gawin ito minsan sa sine dito, lalo na sa mga mahilig sumipa ng chair sa harap nila -- at ako yung nakaupo sa chair. i hate that!!! last time that happened to me, gusto ko na warlahin yung nakaupo sa likod ko. gusto kong sabihing "punyemas, ke panget na nga nitong twilight na tinitiis ko lang panoorin, sisipain mo pa silya koh!"

but no. di puwede. kasi mabait tayong mga nilalang.

so no, hindi natin siya gagayahin...

Man shoots talker at movies, police say

December 27, 2008 -- Updated 1720 GMT (0120 HKT)

(CNN) -- A man angry that a family was talking during a movie threw popcorn at the son and then shot the father in the arm, according to police in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

James Joseph Cialella, 29, was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and weapons violations, a police report said.

Cialella told the family sitting in front of him in the theater on Christmas Day to be quiet, police said.

An argument ensued while others at the Riverview Movie Theatre watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," starring Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Cialella then approached the family from the left side of the aisle and shot the father, who was not identified, as he was standing between Cialella and his family, according to the police report.

The victim was taken to Jefferson Hospital with a gunshot wound to his left arm, police said.

Cialella was carrying a Kel-Tec .380-caliber handgun clipped inside his sweatpants, police said. He was arrested and taken into custody.

***

um, i don't know about you, but that opening line -- the key sentence of the news story -- needs to be rewritten properly. na-haggard ako. cnn na to ha. can i apply as copy editor? chaks.

and in other print-related news, lambda literary awards just outed their longlist. kewl. i wish i could really really really get back to my reading -- my library awaits!

and with these, more things to load it with. yeh. here's a partial list from an afterellen.com story:

"Passing for Black" and Cristy Road's "Bad Habits" are up for Lambda's Lit Awards in 2008

Every year, the Lambda Literary Foundation recognizes books written by and about members of the LGBT community. This year, they've announced the nominees, which will eventually become a short list which will then be voted on by members of the literary community.

Some of the nominees are as follows:

BISEXUAL

Me as Her Again, Nancy Agabian, Aunt Lute Books
Open, Jenny Block, Seal Press
Sexual Fluidity: Understanding Women's Love & Desire, Lisa M. Diamond, Harvard University Press
Wolf Tales VI, Kate Douglas, Kensington
Seeking Sara Summers, Susan Gabriel, Wild Lily Arts
Rhythm: A Novel, Robin Meloy Goldsby, Bass Lion Publishing
Secrets So Deep, K.G. MacGregor, Bella
The Bishop's Daughter, Honor Moore, W.W. Norton
Bad Habits, Cristy Road, Soft Skull Press

LESBIAN MEMOIR/BIOGRAPHY

Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy, Susan Griffin, Shambhala Publications
Sex Variant Woman, Joanne Passet, Da Capo
Sex Talks to Girls: A Memoir, Maureen Seaton, University of Arkansas Press
Blackout Girl: Growing Up and Drying out in America, Jennifer Storm, Hazelden Publishing

LESBIAN DEBUT FICTION

Marti Brown and the House of Face, Teresa R. Allen, Alpha World Press
Relief, L.E. Butler, Regal Crest Publishing
Last Chance at the Lost & Found, Marcia Finical, Bywater Books
The Odd Couple, Q. Kelly, Regal Crest Publishing
The Antonym of Apathy, Hilary Kyle, Antonym Publishing
Red Audrey & the Roping, Jill Malone, Bywater Books
As Far As Far Enough, Claire Rooney, Bella
Made for You, Geneva St. James, Alpha World Press
The Mud of the Place, Susananna Sturgis, Speed-of-C Productions
Passing for Black, Linda Villarosa, Kensington
Closer to Fine, Meri Weiss, Kensington
Looking Through Windows, Caren Werlinger, Windstorm Creative
Love Does Not Make Me Gentle or Kind, Chavisa Woods, Fly by Night Press
Over the Course of a Lifetime, J.G. Woodward, Invincible Publishing
The Bruise, Magdalena Zurawski, Fiction Collective Two/University of Alabama Press

For more of the nominees, including Lesbian Poetry, Lesbian Erotica, Lesbian Drama and all other LGBT and gay categories, visit www.lambdaliterary.org.



wheee and dami! book lovers rejoice! sana available dito...

jesus in the time of nazi?

[but wait, there's more! hehe. this is the last procrastination exercise of the day. sana.]


wait, slight na-disturbia lang ako ng mej sa photo na itey:




hm. so malamang si jesus ay ipapadala din ni hitler sa auschwitz sakaling nabuhay siya that time... holocaust indeed.

that's the thing with some social art chenes minsan. minsan di ko magets kung they are commenting on a social situation or they project that they are commenting on a social issue but deep down e they *support* it pala. or something like that. basta.

na-creepy-han lang ako sa photo. from a german kasi. ewan nga ang intentions. art stud friends, maybe you know more of these hehe. gut reaction lang naman ang sa akin, wag seryosohin... [hihi parang last week sa xmas party, nag-crack ng nazi joke si roland t about anne dg being so "auschwitz thin" sabi ko nga. pan right ako to reveal our co-teacher na germanic listening in. eep! heheh. hm. i wonder if they still get affected big time by things like that...]

just got this photo in my mail from writer friend marne kilates who runs poet's picturebook. check it out. it's a good read. kilalanin niyo naman ang ating mga lokal/pinoy-blooded na makata/poets. magagaling sila -- tayo!

here's the latest update:

Dear Readers & Friends,

It was 6∘in Benguet two days ago,

our compatriots in New York

are probably shoveling snow,

but Christmas is always warm for Filipinos

wherever they are.

The little online poetry & art

magazine, poet'sPicturebook,

as Filipino, global, and warm on the Literary Web,

greets you with

No. 23, A Special Christmas Issue,

featuring the poetry of

Luisa Igloria, Francis Macansantos, Kristian Cordero,

Victor Peñaranda & Marne Kilates

& the art of Gottfried Helnwein.

poet'sPicturebook No. 23,

Christmas Themes & Unseasonable Notions ,

(download the attached ad) is now online.

Visit, bookmark, or add us to your favorites,

& update your links at

http://marnescriptsmain.blogspot.com/.

(Forward this email-and-links to friends

who like to keep warm with good poetry & art.)

Marne L. Kilates

Editor

--

For a little poetry & art on the Web,

visit my sites: Contribute to poet'sPicturebook (poety&art ezine),

http://marnescriptsmain.blogspot.com/;

Sample my works at NameableDays Website,

http://nameabledays.jimdo.com/;

and read my blog at NameableDays Blog,

http://nameabledays.bogspot.com.

unwind with women and words this saturday at FAME III: VERSES

sorry for the plug pero kasama po kasi ako sa event na ito. to be hosted daw by ms. gabby dela merced, sabi ni ani. tama ba ati?

masaya ito. yung di nakarinig ng binasa ko sa unang Angladlad Lit Night, eto ang repeat. yung nakarinig at gusto ulit marinig, go pa rin! tara! inuman tayo dun. masaya naman ang line-up ng bands e.

let's rock!

--------

F.A.M.E.
(Female Artists’ & Musicians’ Evolution)
presents

F A M E III: Verses
(Women’s Music & Poetry)

at Route 196
(Blue Ridge, Katipunan Extension, Q.C.)

November 15, 2008
8:00pm

The event will be hosted by
Ms. Gabby dela Merced

featuring

Bands:

Wake Up Your Seatmate
Jaycie & Honey
Blush
Mating Season
Tao Aves
SunDownMuse
Flush & The Toilets


Spoken Word Artists/Poets:

Romancing Venus
Libay Linsangan Cantor


Plus:

Open Mic for Poetry Reading
Open Jam
Games


P150.00 gets you in with
One (1) Free Drink


Many thanks to:
On-Air Studio Productions, Lunduyan ng Sining