Award-winning fictionist Susan S. Lara has been appointed director-in-residence for the 52nd Silliman University National Writers Workshop by Silliman President Dr. Ben S. Malayang III upon the recommendation of the Advisory Board of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center through its coordinator, Ian Rosales Casocot.
The new Workshop director is a member of the Board of Directors of the Philippine Chapter of International P.E.N., and is founding member and treasurer of the Creative Writing Foundation, Inc. She was convenor of the Philippine P.E.N. conferences in 2010 and 2011.
Lara occupied the Henry Lee Irwin Professional Chair for Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2010-2011. She has also been a regular panelist at the Silliman Workshop, as well as the Ateneo de Manila University, the Malate Writers Workshop of De La Salle University, and the IYAS Writers Workshop of University of St. La Salle in Bacolod.
She has served on the board of judges for the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Philippines Free Press Literary Contest, Philippines Graphic Nick Joaquin Literary Awards, and the De La Salle University Malate Literary Contest.
Her short story The Reprieve, which won first prize for the short story in English in the 1984 Palanca Literary Awards, was cited by Isagani Cruz in his anthology The Best Philippine Short Stories of the Twentieth Century. It was also included in her collection Letting Go and Other Stories, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1997.
She has also worked as an administrator with PAGIBIG, consultant to Philippine government officials, and is currently a training facilitator and writing coach for Spark Konzulting.
Lara will oversee the selection of fellows and panelists for the 2013 Silliman Creative Writing Workshop, the oldest of its kind in Asia, which was founded by the late Edilberto K. Tiempo and National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo in 1962. She will also help in the continuing evaluation of the thrusts and programs of the Workshop, which this year is scheduled for 6-24 May 2013 at the Rose Lamb Sobrepeña Writers Village and the campus of Silliman in Dumaguete. (PR)
