one of my bosses at the institute of creative writing, jing hidalgo,
asked me to write an article on this year’s palanca winners who were
also fellows at this year’s up national writers workshop in camp john
hay, baguio city. so i’ve rifled through facebook photo albums of some
of the participants and stolen some of the pictures. i was hoping
they’d help jog my memory and allow me to write a nice article. well,
my tactic doesn’t seem to be working. i’ve been tapping away at my
keyboard for over an hour now, but i still can’t come up with anything
decent. so i’ve decided to post a blog. this way, i’d have something to
show for my efforts.

this year is particularly good for up
national writers workshop fellows, i think, because four of them made
it to this year’s palanca roster. they are ian casocot (1st prize,
short story), allan derain (3rd prize, maikling kuwentong pambata),
mookie katigbak (2nd prize, poetry), and tara sering (2nd prize, short
story). maybe what adds to the palanca-esque feel of this year’s batch
is that two palanca hall of famers, jun lana and nick pichay, were also
workshop fellows.

and perhaps due to osmosis, i, who had gone
up to baguio with the workshoppers as a sidekick (i wanted to spend a
week in baguio, so i begged marby villaceran to let me join them in
exchange for my yaya services), also managed to secure a palanca for
myself. haha. maybe this is also the reason why jing asked me to write
the artcile in the first place. hmn….

anyhow, here are their photographs courtesy of rica bolipata santos, nick pichay, and jun lana. thank you, guys!