WRITERS should not limit themselves to having their works published in traditional media and must learn how to produce content for any platform available, a creative writing professor said.
“It’s not about the traditional books mismo. Ang mas mahalaga, makapagsulat kahit sa anong platform malathala. Kahit social media. Dapat mabasa, ” said Asst. Prof. Joselito de los Reyes, the UST creative writing program coordinator.
“Isang aspect of validation lang naman ng pagsulat ang ma-publish bilang tradisyonal na aklat ang isinulat mo,” he told the Varsitarian on Oct. 17.
He said writers could also share their works with their audiences by being content creators, spoken word artists, filmmakers, scriptwriters, and magazine writers, among others.
“Kahit anong may elemento ng paglikha na makapagpapaisip, makapagpapanilay, at makapagbibigay ng lugod sa tumatangkilik. Lumikha nang paulit-ulit,” de los Reyes advised.
De los Reyes recently made the 2022 Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards list for his “#Pasahero: Mga Nakikisakay na Sanaysay,” which ranked second in the nonfiction category.
“Ang Manggagaway at Iba pang Kathang-Agham at Pantasya mula sa Gitnang Europa at Pilipinas,” which de los Reyes translated alongside Asst. Prof. Eros Atalia, Bob Ong, and Beverly Siy, also clinched the second spot for the translated work category.
Twenty-five other books by Thomasians and the UST Publishing House made the list in several categories, including works by UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies Director Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, Prof. Chuckberry Pascual, Assoc. Prof. Augusto de Viana, Fr. Jannel Abogado, O.P., Leo-Martin Ocampo, Mark Angeles, and Lourd de Veyra.
The 2022 Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards is an online popular choice award that ranked published and self-published books and ebooks from 2015 to 2018 (first batch) and 2019 to 2021 (second batch).
The Book Development Association of the Philippines ranked the books based on over 104,000 votes from Filipino readers.
The works were categorized into fiction in English, fiction in Filipino or Taglish, romance in English, romance in Filipino or Taglish, fiction anthology, young adult fiction, children’s picture book, comics and graphic novel, poetry, inspirational and religious, humor, food, nonfiction, history, and translated work.
The results of the Top 10 Filipino books in each category were announced on Oct. 7. Angeli Ruth R. Acosta
