Presenting the First Duma LitFest

This has been a long time dream.

A few years ago, the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, of which I am the founding director, launched a one-day literary festival at the Silliman Library, because we had this blessing of having as visitors several well-known Filipino-American writers visiting Dumaguete for the first time—and they wanted to do some literary event. We designed that single-day litfest with them, and it was such a huge succcess, we ultimately wondered: what if we could do a full-fledged one?

It took a long time, but here we are: we are presenting the First Dumaguete Literary Festival, which began last Friday, April 26, and will continue on today, April 28, with a culminating event celebrating Nick Joaquin on the evening of April 30. The venue is 58 EJ Blanco Drive.

The Buglas Writers Guild and Libraria Books are together spearheading this launch of the Dumaguete Literary Festival. Our organizing partners include the Department of Trade and Industry [DTI] of Negros Oriental, Arts + Design Collective Dumaguete, Dumaguete City Tourism Office, National Museum of the Philippines Dumaguete, Back Pack Solutions, the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, the Silliman University Culture and Arts Council, and Silliman University. The three-day literary event, the first of its kind in Negros Oriental, is in celebration of National Literature Month this April, with myself and Gayle Acar as co-directors.

The event features many local writers and literature lovers, but will are also bringing in writers of national renown, including Dean Francis Alfar, Marjorie Evasco, Nikki Alfar, Sarge Lacuesta, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, Claire Betita de Guzman, Mina Esguerra, Jay Ignacio, Ren Ren Galeno, Johanna Michelle Lim, and others. Many of the panels feature Silliman writers and literature faculty, with talks ranging from examining the place of Philippine literature in the school curriculum to examining the writing in the various genres. The event will also feature a zine fest and a literary/artistic bazaar.

We began earlier in the last week of April by holding a Flower Ceremony for the 105^th Birth Anniversary of National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo, organized by the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, at the Dumaguete Memorial Park last April 22.

Then we opened Ang Pagdakop sa Damgo: An Exhibit of Dumaguete Children’s Literature, featuring my children’s book The Great Little Hunter with Hersley-Ven Casero’s paintings of it, as well as Libraria’s Imaginarium book art, at the National Museum of the Philippines—Dumaguete. [With the art Courtesy of MUGNA Gallery and Libraria Books.]

Last Friday, we opened our first day with messages from Nimfa Virtucio of DTI Negros Oriental and Lady Flor Partosa of the Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, with a storytelling presentation by Nicky Dumapit. For our first day, our panels included “Writing Dumaguete and Negros Oriental,” with Bais writer Rolin Migyuel Obina, Bayawan writer Dara Tumaca-Ramos, and yours truly, moderated by Pia Villareal; “Looking for Philippine Literature in the School Curriculum,” with Kaycee Melon, and Hellene Piñero, moderated by Lady Flor Partosa-Koenig; The Penguin Random House Hour, with Maryanne Moll, Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta, and Sarge Lacuesta,, moderated by Claire Betita de Guzman; and “The Place of the Palanca and Other Literary Awards in Philippine Literature,” with Kesiah Dawn Tiaoson and yours truly, moderated by Gina Fontejon-Bonior. Novelist Dean Francis Alfar gave the keynote talk on “The Future of Literature.” And we ended the day with The Literary Pechakucha, moderated by Renz Torres, and featuring Katinka Visitacion on writing about Bacolod, Cil Flores on creating visual arts characters, Jireh Catacutan on writing a play, Matthew Yasi on organizing literary clubs, Leah Navarro on making notebooks, and Alyana Marie Aguja on editing Sands and Coral; and a screening of Dumaguete short films curated by Lutas Film Festival.

On Saturday, we began our second day with Songs and Storytelling: Julia and the Music of Light, featuring Elizabeth Susan Vista-Suarez and the Silliman University Campus Choristers. Our panels included “The Other Side of Negros,” with Ines Bautista-Yao and Rocky Nicor, moderated by Katinka Visitacion; “Readers Talk Back,” with Annabelle Adriano, Rina Hill, and Albertha Lachmi Obut, moderated by Aaron James Jalalon; “Poetry in a Time of Crisis,” with Marjorie Evasco, Mookie Katigbak Lacuesta and Angela Fabunan, moderated by Lyde Gerard Villanueva; “Literature and Social Media,” with Danielle Gaston and F. Jordan Carnice, moderated by Ronelyn Faith Vailoces-No; and “Siquijor Rising—Literature from Isla del Fuego,” with Shane Jay Fabugais, Leo Mamicpic, and Jazzy Lyle Sarmiento Samson, moderated by Moses Joshua Atega.

We also had parallel sessions for kids and the young at heart, with an all-afternoon slate of songs, stories, and crafts for kids. It featured the music of Gino Misa, Gayle Acar, April Misa, and Maria Elcon Cabanag Kleine Koerkamp; the storytelling prowess of Joan “Tita Doc” Cordova, Ines Bautista-Yao, Georgina Camus, and Reya Grace Hinaut; and the art workshops of Sharon Dadang-Rafols and Susan Canoy. It ended with a dramatic presentation of my children’s book, The Great Little Hunter, featuring D Salag Collective.

Why do this? Because it is time to host something of this sort in Dumaguete. The city has always been considered by many writers as Philippine literature’s “hometown.” It hosts, after all, the oldest—and continuing—creative writing workshop in Asia, which has molded many generations of Filipino writers. It was home to the late National Artist for Literature Edith Lopez Tiempo and the late National Artist for Cinema Eddie Romero. As a setting, it has inspired many literary works, from novels to poetry, from essays to plays. And it continues to be home to many notable authors and artists. A literary festival celebrating this literary heritage, and embracing the realities of the modern world and the place of the creative in it, is a fitting development for this future City of Literature.

We also hope to develop the event to be international in scope in the future.

We have dubbed the event to be “Celebrating Literature, Dumaguete-Style,” which aims to showcase the riches as well as the traditions of Dumagueteños. This is the reason why we have chosen, as venue, 58 EJ Blanco Drive, the home of Arts + Design Collective Dumaguete, which has become a creative hub for many local artists and designers as well as writers and entrepreneurs. It is a heritage Dumaguete house of fascinating nooks and crannies, and is perfect for how we envisioned the first literary festival of Dumaguete to be: exactly like the city itself—small, thriving with creative ferment, significant, and unapologetically uncommercial. The hub also has a bookstore, a Vietnamese restaurant, a music studio, several artist studios, an art shop, a fermented food snack bar, and a store selling organic goods.

The first Duma LitFest is also in celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the Charter of Dumaguete.

Here’s the rest of our events this Sunday, our last day…

1 PM – 1:50 PM

Panel 10: Writing the Romance Novel

With Mina Esguerra and Georgette Gonzales [thru Zoom], moderated by Beryl Andrea Delicana