EDITORS

Saquina Karla C. Guiam is from Cotabato City but is now in General Santos for twenty-something years. Her work has been featured or is forthcoming in the Rising Phoenix Review, Scrittura Magazine, Suffragette City, Dulcet Quarterly, The Fem Lit Mag, Geometry Literary, and others. She is the Roots nonfiction editor of Rambutan Literary. She graduated from Mindanao State University–General Santos City with a bachelor’s degree in English and is currently studying for her master’s degree in Ateneo de Davao University.

Jude Ortega has been a fellow for fiction at the following writers workshops: Davao (2012); Faigao in Cebu (2012), where his manuscript was eventually included in Brown Child: The Best of the Faigao Poetry and Fiction 1984–2012; Iligan (2013), where his manuscript won first place in the Jimmy Y. Balacuit Literary Awards; Iyas in Bacolod (2014); Silliman in Dumaguete (2014); and UP in Los Baños (2016), for the manuscript of a novel that will be published by UP Press. Ten of his essays have appeared in the Young Blood column of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, and more than twenty of his short stories have appeared or will appear in magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. In 2015, his story “Day of Mourning” received honorable mention in the F. Sionil José Young Writers Awards and his story “The Conversion of Mujedin Dipatuan” received honorable mention in the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards. He studied political science at Notre Dame of Marbel University, and he divides his time between Senator Ninoy Aquino and Isulan, both in Sultan Kudarat Province. He has also worked in Cebu as a copy editor for an American self-publishing company.

CONTRIBUTORS

Karlo Antonio Galay David is a fourth-generation Kidapawanon. He has an AB in English from Ateneo de Davao University and a master’s degree in creative writing from Silliman University. He has a Nick Joaquin Literary Award for fiction and a Palanca Award for one-act play for the piece that appears in this issue. He was also a fellow to national writers workshops. Of mixed Tagalog, Ilocano,and Bul-anon blood but of Mindanao settler heritage, he writes about Kidapawan in English and in the unique hybrid Filipino spoken in Davao City and parts of Cotabato Region.

Rita Gadi studied philosophy, anthropology, and law from different universities in Manila, and is a journalist by profession. She worked as assistant editor to F. Sionil Jose’s La Solidaridad Publications and as editor in chief of The Philippine Chronicle. She won her first Palanca for poetry when she was seventeen, and she has since been awarded the National Centennial Poet Award in 1998, and the New York City Poetry Award in 2010. Now based in Manila, she has deep roots in Kidapawan, where both her parents were elected mayor and where at some point she acted as OIC mayor. Many of her poems are introspective of Kidapawan and the province of Cotabato, a collection of which was published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House in 2010.

Nal Andrea Jalando-on is a student of interdisciplinary studies (minor in language and literature) at the Ateneo de Davao University and an active member of the Society of Ateneo Literature and English Majors (SALEM). She has seen print in Dagmay: The Literary Journal of the Davao Writers Guild and was fellow to the 2016 Iligan National Writers Workshop, where she won a Jimmy Y. Balacuit Literary Award. She’s an Ilongga who writes in English and Hiligaynon, and her family has lived in Koronadal City for four generations.

Generoso Opulencia of Koronadal City was born in Isabela, Negros Occidental, in July 1939. He has an AB degree in foreign languages, specifically Japanese and Russian, and an MA in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from San Francisco State College (now University) in California. He earned doctoral units at Silliman University, where he learned the craft of writing from Dr. Edith Tiempo. After teaching in several tertiary institutions in Visayas and Mindanao, he retired from Notre Dame of Marbel University in 2002.

Noel Pingoy is a proud graduate of Notre Dame of Marbel University and of Davao Medical School Foundation. He finished residency in internal medicine and fellowships in hematology and in medical oncology at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital. He also completed courses at St. Christopher’s Hospice and at Harvard Medical School Center for Palliative Care to be able to understand and nurture patients and their families during the end-of-life trajectories of illness. He is a fellow for creative non-fiction at the 2006 National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete City. He believes his exposure to the humanities allows him to survive the rather toxic (and oftentimes depressing) clinical practice in General Santos City and Koronadal City.

Gilbert Yap Tan is a professor in Mindanao State University–General Santos City and a resource person and evaluator for schools press conferences and campus journalism. He was also a fellow for fiction in the 1989 Silliman University National Writers Workshop.