Contemporary

Authors Across
The
Philippines.
Mrs. Virgie N. Magalong
Contemporary Authors
someone who’s writing
from the timespan 1945 or
within our time
Writers
From
Luzon
Abdon M. Balde Jr.
From Albay, Bicol and born
in September 12, 1946. He
is is an award-winning
Filipino novelist. He has
written and published short
stories, poems and novels in
English, Tagalog and the
languages of Bicol.
Balde finished a degree in civil
engineering and worked as a
construction engineer for thirty-three
years, after which he retired to
pursue a career as an author. His
writer career bloomed and critics
noted his unique raw talent. He
concentrated in writing creative short
stories, poems and novels. He
received his first literary award in
2003 and has since continued to win
Charlson Ong
resident fellow of the
Institute of Creative Writing
and fictionist /scriptwriter
/singer extraordinaire, was
born on July 6, 1960. He
obtained an A.B. in
Psychology from the
University of the Philippines
He has joined several writers' workshops here
and abroad, and has acquired numerous grants
and awards for his fiction, including the
Palanca, Free Press, Graphic, Asiaweek,
National Book Award, and the Dr. Jose P. Rizal
Award for Excellence. His novel,
Embarrassment of Riches published by UP
Press in 2002, won the Centennial Literary
Prize. In addition to this, Ong has served as co-
editor of the Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction
His short stories range from
parodies of well-loved Filipino texts
to insightful treatments of
Chinese-Filipino culture. These
have been collected into Men of
the East and Other Stories (1990
and 1999), Woman of Am-Kaw and
Other Stories (1993) and
Conversion and Other Fictions
Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo
Fictionist and Director of the Center
for Creative Writing and Literary
Studies and professor at the
Graduate School, is the country’s
latest recipient of the prestigious
South East Asian Write (SEA Write)
Award, conferred annually since
1979 in Thailand. Pantoja-Hidalgo
was recognized as the country’s
2020 awardee on August 10, 2023.
A prolific writer and multi-awarded scholar, she has
published more than 40 books, including novels,
short stories, and creative nonfiction collections. She
has received three Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards
for Literature, including the Grand Prize for her novel
“Recuerdo.” She was Director of the UST Publishing
House. An alumna of the University, she earned her
Bachelor of Philosophy and Master of Arts in
Literature degrees in the 1960s before eventually
earning a doctorate in Comparative Literature from
the University of the Philippines.
Writers
in
Visayas
Peter Solis Nery
is an award-winning Filipino poet,
fictionist, and author. Writing in his
native Hiligaynon language, he has
won such prestigious literary contests
as the Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for Literature, the Cultural
Center of the Philippines (CCP)
Literary Grant, and the All-Western
Visayas Literary Contest of the
National Commission for Culture and
the Arts (NCCA). He was inducted into
After the People’s Power EDSA Revolution of 1986,
Peter found himself on the crest of a new wave in
Philippine literature. Post-EDSA, there was a
resurgence of interest in regional writing. The
administration of President Cory Aquino also declared a
Decade of Nationalism. At UP, Peter was lucky to meet
Leoncio Deriada who encouraged him to write in the
Hiligaynon.
Peter won his first national award in writing from the
CCP for his poetry in Hiligaynon, Mga Ambahanon kag
Pangamuyo sang Bata nga Nalimtan sa Wayang [Songs
and Prayers of a Child Forgotten in the Fields] in 1992.
For his performance poetry Si Eva, si Delilah, si
Ruth, kag ang Alput [Eva, Delilah, Ruth, and the
Prostitute] at the Premio Operiano Italia, he was
crowned Hari sang Binalaybay [King of
Hiligaynon Poetry] in 1993, a title he held until
1998.
Cecilia Manguerra
Brainard
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard was
born after World War II in Cebu,
Philippines. She attended St.
Theresa’s College in Cebu and in
Manila and she earned her BA in
Communications Arts from
Maryknoll College. She migrated to
the United States to do graduate
work in Film Making at UCLA. She
later turned to writing which suits
Cecilia grew up in the port city of Cebu in Central
Philippines, a place that retains its Spanish-Colonial
influences, inspiring Cecilia to create her mythical
setting called “Ubec” which echoes the Santo Niño
Church, triangular Spanish fort, and old buildings
and streets of the real Cebu. Her three novels —
When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, Magdalena, and
The Newspaper Widow are set (even partially) in
Ubec. Ubec also appears in her three short story
collections — Woman in Horns and Other Stories,
Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories, and Vigan and
Other Stories.
It was her husband, a former Peace Corps Volunteer
to Leyte (Lauren R. Brainard) who, upon noting that
Cecilia wrote in her journal every night, gifted her
with a then-innovative electric typewriter. Encouraged
to take her writing more seriously, Cecilia arranged to
write a bi-monthly column in Philippine American
News, personal essays, which she later compiled in a
book called Philippine Woman in America. She also
enrolled in creative writing classes at the Writers’
Program at UCLA Extension. While taking care of her
family (husband and three sons) Cecilia pursued her
writing and started to get her short stories published.
Erlinda Alburo
is a prolific and contemporary
Cebuano scholar and poet that
strongly advocates the use of
Cebuano language in literature. She
is renowned for her valuable
contributions as a scholar of
Cebuano heritage, language, culture
and literature. She is a full time
professor in the University of San
Carlos’ Department of
Communications, Linguistics, and
She is the former chairperson of Women in
Literary Arts (WLA) and the current director
of the Cebuano Studies Center. She took her
undergraduate degree in A.B. English on
1965 at the University of the Philippines
Diliman. She got her master’s degree in
Literature on 1972 at the
University of San Carlos, where she is
currently working now. Her doctorate degree
English and
Writers
in
Mindanao
Resil B. Mojares
A teacher and scholar, essayist and
fictionist, and cultural and literary
historian, Resil Mojares is
acknowledged as a leading figure in
the promotion of regional literature
and history. As founding director of
the Cebuano Studies Center—an
important research institution which
placed Cebu in the research and
documentation map—he pioneered
Cebuano and national identity
As a leading figure in cultural and literary
history, he networked actively in many
organizations. For over 50 years, Mojares has
published in diverse forms (fiction, essay,
journalism, scholarly articles, and books)
across a wide range of discipline (literature,
history, biography, cultural studies, and
others). To date, he has 17 published books
(3 more in the press) and edited, co-edited,
or co-authored 11 books, and written
Kerima Polotan-Tuvera
She graduated from the Far Eastern
University Girls’ High School. In 1944 she
enrolled in the University of the Philippines
School of Nursing. In 1945 she shifted to
Arellano University where she attended
the writing classes of Teodoro M. Locsin
and edited the first number of the Arellano
Literary Review. Her education has been
repeatedly interrupted by illness, financial
difficulties and later marriage and the care
of children of which she has five.
In 1952 her short story The Virgin won two first prizes –
the Free Press short story prize of Php1,000 and the
Palanca Memorial Award. In 1957 she edited the Carlos
Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, a book
containing English and Tagalog prize winning short
stories from 1951 to 1952.[1] Her novel The Hand of
the Enemy (1962) won the Stonehill Award of
Php10,000 for the Filipino novel in English. Some of her
famous short stories are : “A Place to Live In”, “Gate”,
“The Keeper”, “The Mats” and “The Sounds of
Sunday”. Adventures in a Forgotten Country is her
latest collection of essays. She is the editor of Focus
In 1968, she published Stories, a collection of
eleven stories which she claimed a “thin
harvest” for the twenty years she had been
writing. But they were certainly her best,
several among the most frequently
anthologized stories even today. In 1970, she
wrote Imelda Romualdez Marcos, a Biography.
That was the same year that she collected
forty-two of her hard-hitting essays during her
years as a staff writer of the Philippine Free
Cesar Ruiz Aquino
César Ruiz Aquino is a Filipino poet and
fictionist. He was born and raised in
Zamboanga City, Philippines. He was
educated at the Ateneo de Manila
University, University of the Philippines
and Silliman University. He began his
writing career when Philippine Graphic
published his story Noon and Summer
in 1961.
At age 19, he received a writing fellowship to
attend the 1st Silliman University National
Writers Workshop in 1962. He studied creative
writing under Edilberto Tiempo, Edith Tiempo,
Francisco Arcellana and Nick Joaquin. He has
mentored many students, teachers, artists and
writers at Ateneo de Zamboanga, the University
of the Philippines in Baguio City, Maryknoll
College, Lyceum of the Philippines University,
Foundation University and Silliman University.
He has received Carlos Palanca Memorial
Awards for poetry (1978, 1997) and short
fiction (1979, 1989). He has also received a
Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for
Lifetime Achievement from the Unyon ng
mga Manunulat ng Pilipinas (Writers' Union of
the Philippines or UMPIL) in 1997. He was
also named National Fellow for Poetry by the
University of the Philippines Institute of
Creative Writing (U.P. ICW) in 2003.
Ruiz Aquino publications include Chronicles of
Suspicion (short stories, Kalikasan Press,
1988), Word Without End (poems, Anvil
Publishing,1993) and Checkmeta: The Cesar
Ruiz Aquino Reader (poems and stories,
Midtown Printing Company, 2004). He is
currently working on Mr. Mxyzptlk Pops Into
the Room, a novel.