A FELLOW of the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies said creative nonfiction has an “exciting future” because of the attention it receives online.
“Creative nonfiction is an expansive umbrella in literature that also includes forms of writings in social media,” said John Jack Wigley during the “Huntahan Panitikan: A Forum on Contemporary Philippine Literature” at the Tanghalang Teresita Quirino last March 6.
Wigley, former director of the UST Publishing House, discussed the versatility of creative nonfiction as a genre of multiple forms.
“Ang maganda sa creative nonfiction ay […] you can write travel essays. [I]f you don’t want to talk about yourself, you [can] write about the impressions that you have in a country,” Wigley said.
Wigley dismissed the misconception that creative nonfiction is only about memoirs. “It can be food writing and meditation of ideas,” he said.
He urged creative nonfiction writers to write from their own point of view and perceived reality.
“You write […] to kill the demons that are inside of you and hopefully writing becomes therapeutic and a way to redeem some of the things that are not so good about your life,” he said.
Wigley is the author of “Lait Chronicles” and “Lait (Pa More) Chronicles, published in 2016 and 2017, respectively, by Visprint; and “Falling into the Manhole” and “Home of the Ashfall” in 2012 and 2014, respectively, by UST Publishing House.
“Huntahan Panitikan” aims to introduce Filipino writers and their books to Thomasian students through discussions on different forms and genres of writing
