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my partner-in-crime ardie aquino (with better half dione ) is currently being "very busy" around frankfurt as part of our national book development board's delegation to this year's  frankfurter buchmesse . i presume he is also promoting our book, school run.   have a great time, ardie! (don't come back without a book deal ❤️❤️❤️)

  the NCCA very kindly invited me to roxas city in capiz to give a comics-making workshop as part of its yearly creative nation summit.   the creative nation summit includes a very cool alternative class program where kids take a day off to learn arty things like theater acting, songwriting, jewelry making, painting, and so much more. i would've loved it as a kid. i wish this sort of thing could be done in as many schools as possible, all over the country.     the night before the workshop, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit cebu. although it only registered a 1.0 in roxas, several schools cancelled face-to-face classes the next day to make time for structural inspections. about half of our students didn't show up, but all the workshops pushed through as planned. the evening's culminating show and fireworks display went on as well.        i was tasked with making a bunch of mostly "arki" students care about komiks enough to make one good page of it. a...

    bambi eloriaga-amago and i gave a comics writing and pitching workshop at de la costa hall, where the english department used to be during my time. it was pretty nostalgic, seeing how the ol' campus had changed. bambi also noted how the "sweat corn" vendors outside no longer sold corn quite as "sweat" as they were in the 90's.   this workshop was a pretty big deal for me, being the first time i got paid to talk about comics. who would've thought it was possible?   special shoutout to  st. bernadette college of valenzuela for sending over a bunch of curious senior high schoolers to listen to us!

since i was doing my MA in creative writing at UP anyway, i thought why not try and see if some of the stuff i'd written for class could get me into one of the most prestigious writing workshops in the country? only problem was, i got in.       our venue was the baden-powell international makiling , a short drive up into the mountains from UP los banos. it's the boy scout national headquarters, i think. during out stay there was always some sort of camping activity going on in the adjacent field just to the right of the above photo.  to an uninitiated fellow ("fellow" is what  they call the people whose work is being read. personally i don't consider myself a fellow, i'm more of a dude) like me, the workshop felt like a rigorous weeklong training camp for the criticism part of your brain. i spent all night reading and all day trying to think up something helpful and/or clever to say about what i'd read the night before. it didn't always work. there wer...