A FILIPINO-AMERICAN author urged student writers to listen to criticisms when writing during her talk at the Tanghalang Teresita Quirino last Feb. 22.
“One of the first things you have to learn as students [in] writing is to listen. Praise or criticism, you listen, because there might be something important said,” said UST Publishing House (USTPH) author Cecilia Manguerra Brainard in “Storytelling and Sketching: A Talk on Creative Arts.”
Brainard, co-founder of Philippine American Women Writers and Artists, said dealing with criticisms is a process of figuring out what the critic really means about one’s work.
“Criticism is good, because you get a number of comments and you have to tabulate them in your head. You just don’t take them in. You really try to figure out what is disturbing this person, because there is something they’re feeling,” she said.
Brainard is the author of the novels “The Newspaper Widow” and “Magdalena,” both published by USTPH.
She obtained her communication arts degree from Maryknoll College, now Miriam College, in Quezon City.
The event was part of the International Writers and Scholars Series organized by the UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies.
