Last September 25, came home from Valencia after a long day of work (you can call it hustling, which probably deserves its own post). Then I remembered the book launch of Bittersweetland, a new novel by Bacolod writer Rayboy Torres Pandan, at Libraria. I had to go. The last time I met Sir Rayboy was way back in October 2018, when the province of Bohol hosted the Taboan Writers Festival, a project of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) that travels across regions in the Philippines every year. Not sure if it still exists today.
Just glad I stepped out of the house that night despite the rains. Sir Rayboy signed my copy of his novel, which hones in on the sugarcane crisis of Negros Island, particularly a period in Bacolod City that sizzles with both scandal and sincerity. Also caught up with Dauin writer Michael Aaron Gomez, who happened to be in Dumaguete for a short while. I still remember “yaya-ing” his Silliman National Writers Workshop batch back in 2012. We were practically kids then. Now he’s a multiple Palanca winner, with a special prize for the novel in English, a first prize in the short story in Cebuano, and more.
Went home with more than a book in my bag. There was another batch of stories to be written here. Nights like this just remind me that literature archive everything and everyone. Basically, we write to remember.
[ More photos here ]
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