In which I share updates about various book projects, and mourn my old way of sharing updates about my life.
A Nutella cake we enjoyed to mark our wedding anniversary
I used to post a lot more back in the day, both on my blog and on social media. Just silly, personal stuff. Food, travel, random thoughts. I would sometimes see old posts surface in Facebook Memories, or read my old blog entries, and just cringe. Who is this person talking about her favorite brand of lipstick? Who cares??
This is probably good old, pre-2016 naivete on my part, but I used to feel that the Internet was safer back then, more welcoming. I felt safe enough to just talk about whatever came to mind. Then the trolls came, plus the creeps sending private messages on Instagram. Some people have the time and energy to interact with them, but I don't. Even just the threat of intimidation and conflict changed the way I use social media. I now hardly post photos of my face and my loved ones' faces. I hardly talk about politics. I think you can get a glimpse of what I value in my own fiction, but there are topics I just move to offline, real-life conversations, or to private online chats with people I know.
Recommended reading: Aubrey Hirsch's moving essay "That’s How It Works When You’re a Woman on the Internet" and Buzzfeed's "How Duterte Used Facebook To Fuel The Philippine Drug War"
I do miss making those stupid old posts, though. They're also a way for me to remember. I feel like I've lost a whole swath of 2020, for example, and not only because we were all forced to stay at home for most of that year. What books did I read? What shows did I watch? What was I feeling? Did I enjoy anything that year?
Anyway.
Let's see if I can strike a balance in 2022.
Pre-Order After Lambana and Wounded Little Gods
Speaking of using social media a different way, you're probably already sick of me sharing updates about my two books published by Tuttle but you know what? I will try my best right now not to apologize because we need to get this message out! I'd love it if you can tell your friends, too. We want these titles to do very well so we can find the time to create more and get more of our work out there, and pre-ordering is one way of making that happen.
A relevant link: Why pre-orders are important from Book Riot:
When you preorder a book, it’s a clear message to the publisher that there is demand for that author’s work, that series, and those characters...Debut authors especially need a solid showing in book preorders to prove to the publisher that they have a place in the market. And an author’s best first shot at landing on one of the big bestseller lists is in that first week of sales, a number that’s bolstered by preorders.
The links below now include downloadable excerpts!
Pre-order Wounded Little Gods
Pre-order After Lambana
Mervin's already got his shipment of complimentary copies of After Lambana - look at this beauty:
So: Tell your friends! Especially your friends in North America who may have been looking for these titles back when they were published in the Philippines.
I've been told Southeast Asia will be seeing these titles hit the bookshelves ahead of the rest of the world, so that's super exciting.
Writing Projects AKA Even More Books
After 2020 AH* and months of what felt like true creative death, I feel grateful (and to be honest with you, still a bit astounded) to be able to share my work again. Some titles to look out for:
*annus horribilis
"Nicola, Rosie, Michael & Simon"
The challenges of the pandemic are so huge that I'm still grappling with them - so I went small. Very small. This story features young Filipinos living in Sydney, and a table that may or may not have come from IKEA.
Congratulations to Edgar Calabia Samar, Kristine Ong Muslim, and the other writers and translators featured here!
What Comes After (UP Press, 2022)
My first book-length poetry collection will be published by the University of the Philippines Press as part of the Philippine Writers Series. As a UP alumna, you have no idea how happy this makes me. I was also provided a copy of the reviewer's notes. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share them, but let me just say that the evaluation left me speechless (in a good way).
My favorite poet Conchitina Cruz graciously agreed to provide a blurb for What Comes After. She has this to say about the collection:
What comes after untimely death? What happens after the crash, the capture, the gunshot, the explosion, the crime, the massacre? In poems that inhabit the precipice and aftermath of violence, Eliza Victoria ponders the work of offering an account. Language is the tenuous afterlife the poems valiantly flesh out, considering what it means “to reconstruct what has already destroyed you.” Victoria is particularly attentive to the stakes of narrativizing by those designated to take on the task—the reporter, the literary writer—and it is testament to an acute awareness of the limits of this vantage point that the collection often turns to “notes” as a poetic form. This is a moving book—distressing, alert, and necessary.
Cover artwork and design by Adam David.
C and A run a small press called
Paper Trail Projects - you should check it out and pick up a book or two. In March, they will be releasing a number of books, including a 2022 version of Conchitina Cruz's
Dark Hours, which everyone should read.
Mapping New Stars (UP Press, 2022/23)
I am delighted to share that I will have a chapter included in Mapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative Fiction, edited by Gabriela Lee and Anna Sanchez!
When Gabby and Anna first reached out about this project, they said they "hope to create a volume that starts a conversation on reading and writing SF in the Philippines, and providing those who cannot or do not have access to writing resources a way to get their foot in the door, so to speak. We also hope to shift away from Western paradigms of reading and writing SF, and find ways of examining our own reading and writing practices here in the Philippines, and where it might go in the future."
In my chapter, "Choosing Your Genre: The Novel or the Short Story?", I talk about the development of my novel Nightfall, which actually began as a short story. I also touch on market considerations when it comes to sharing your short story or novel with the rest of the world.
The amazing cover is by Hans Dimapilis.
Here is the TOC:
Acknowledgements
Introduction: A Beginner’s Guide to Cartography
A Brief Visual Timeline of Developments in Philippine Speculative Fiction
“Waiting for Victory: Towards a Philippine Speculative Fiction” by Anna Felicia Sanchez
Reading Philippine Speculative Fiction
“The Speculative Impulse” by Michaela Atienza
“Sapantaha: Isang Tangkang Depinisyon” by Luna Sicat Cleto
“Ang Kagila-gilalas na Haka kay Mariang Makiling Bilang Bukal ng Paglikha” by Edgar Calabia Samar
“The Roots of Speculative Fiction in the Philippines” by Victor Fernando R. Ocampo
“Tracing the Trajectory of Children’s Speculative Fiction in the Philippines” by Gabriela Lee
“Free and Open Spaces: Komiks and Speculative Fiction” by Francis Paolo Quina
“Philippine Speculative Fiction on the International Stage” by Charles Tan
Writing Philippine Speculative Fiction
“Where Do Stories Begin?” by Vida Cruz
“Choosing Your Genre: The Novel or the Short Story?” by Eliza Victoria
“Building Worlds” by Dean Francis Alfar
“Character Creation, or How to Get Away with Murderers” by Nikki Alfar
“Planning the Narrative Journey” by Isabel Yap
“Setting Up a Magic System” by Christine V. Lao
“First World Dreams, Third World Realities” by Emil Francis Flores
“Considering Speculative Poetry” by Kristine Ong Muslim
“Publishing Like a Pro” by Nicasio Reed
The book will be published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2022/2023 - more news soon.
Seventeen Prayers to the Many-Eyed Mother (Avenida Books, 2022)
My second short story collection will be published this year by Avenida.
In this highly anticipated follow-up to 2012’s A Bottle of Storm Clouds, award-winning author Eliza Victoria returns with 17 stories of displacement, disillusionment, desperation, and loneliness.
In Seventeen Prayers to the Many-Eyed Mother, characters seek solace—wittingly or unwittingly—in forces beyond human comprehension. A young woman agrees to make a blood sacrifice in exchange for an American visa. Strangers find themselves stuck in a fatal time loop in a convenience store. A plane crash survivor on a deserted island believes a deity’s name has been carved into the rocks. A broke tourist meets a being untouched by time and space. Diwata, in hopes of assimilation into human society, agree to have their wings surgically removed. And within the darkness of an old mansion, a figure in white appears by the doorway…
This collection includes stories that have previously appeared in critically acclaimed publications including Apex Book of World SF, The Dark, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, Philippine Speculative Fiction, Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature, and LONTAR: The Journal of Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction.
The title of this short story collection is based on a story of mine published in The Dark, edited by Sean Wallace and Silvia Moreno-Garcia. My endless gratitude to these editors and the editors of the other stories included in this upcoming volume!
Cover reveal and other details to follow soon.
Dwellers (Tuttle Publishing, Fall 2022)
Dwellers, which won the Philippine National Book Award in 2015, will be released worldwide by Tuttle Publishing later this year. I've seen the cover and it looks amazing. Hoping to share more in the next few weeks!
Appearances
- I'm in the two-part Booklaban Halloween episode of the Teka Teka podcast
- Storymasters of Philippine Mythology by Philippine Campfire Stories podcast. Mentioned in this episode: life in the Southern Hemisphere e.g. surfing in December, Christmas in July; writing/not writing during the pandemic; my own stories, novels and one-act plays; my inspirations; writing in first person and in present tense for Dwellers and "Ana's Little Pawnshop..."; philosophical musings; and the upcoming worldwide release of my novels via Tuttle Publishing
- USTinig Episode 16: Discussions Matter. I talk about the inspiration behind Dwellers, After Lambana, "The Seventh", and my one-act sci-fi play Marte (Mars).
Life
A lamington cake I got for my birthday.
Moved offices, and got this sticky black rice with my welcome lunch.
J won these Bic pens at a raffle, so we bought some coloring books to go with them.
I've been playing badminton quite regularly (2-3x a week) since surviving the hellscape that was 2020. Joined a women's doubles competition, came home with a runner-up medal hahaha.
Some scenes from a beach trip we recently took. Balmoral Beach is less crowded than
Bondi, so a good choice given that COVID cases here are still in the thousands. It was a good Sunday: nice weather, not too hot, not too cold. I don't swim, so I just sat on the sand and waited for the waves to hit my face.
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