The Beholders Launch: Photos & Then Some

Hi, everyone! Wina here. I thought I would do a little post on the launch we had for Beholders at Artery Art Space for those of you who missed it and/or those of you who just want to do a little reminiscing. We are also going to be putting up these photos on our Facebook page soon; something’s up with FB and it won’t let our photos go up.

Also, a very special thank you to Nico Pascual and Yza Del Valle for taking these photos.

Okay, so let’s start: the Beholders launch began with a toast to Lia, who–in addition to being extremely talented–is extremely passionate and dedicated. More than anything else, this launch was a salute to her passion for craft.

We cracked open a bottle of wine (I really should’ve brought more than one bottle), and got a’toasting! This was followed by a Q&A where we asked Lia questions about the project. The crowd that night was one of the most participative group of people I have ever met at a MoarBooks event!

A MoarBooks Introduction: Who the hell are we, anyway?

We’ve been doing this for quite some time now (a little over a year)—and while we know some of you guys through events and our books, zines and comics, we realized we’ve never really introduced ourselves; how rude! Pardon us and thank you very much for your support. Here’s a little intro thang brought to you by two people who are 50 shades of cray (a reference a text we have—unfortunately?—never read).

Who are you guys—forrealz?

W: It’s tempting to answer this question in third person: you get used to doing it for story submissions, book bios, etc. but because this is an introduction, I will curb that urge and write this in first person.

Hey, gorgeous.

How you doin’, hot stuff?

What up, yo.

I’m Wina and I write stories (it’s hard to talk about that here but you can read some of those that’ve been published here and here; I hope they speak for themselves). Let’s start with the basics, I suppose: I’m 23 and recently graduated from DLSU with a degree in BS Psychology. ID 107 (represent? nattt)—I shifted at a very unfortunate time, hence the (much) delayed graduation date. I was the Prose Editor for my school’s arts and lit folio a hundred thousand years ago. Among other things, I like reading, writing, experimenting with makeup, looking for fun exercise videos, getting tattoos, swimming and listening to music. I used to want to be a doctor and so I guess I also find science fascinating—my favorite subjects in school were the later chems (orgs and bio). I have an affinity for Freud (he was just willing to go get it you know?) and small, serif fonts (they’re just so fucking classy). I also drive a crap car that makes the Honda Jazz look like a Hummer. Oh, and I regularly write for EM Zine, a literary and arts magazine I started with a few friends.

N: Nico here, a cinephile who is also fond of making mixtapes that are eclectic and diverse. I find that music compliments a thought-provoking discussion about an assortment of things such as art, history, philosophy and everything in between. You’ll find me mostly living in between ink stained coffee circles or tangled up in imaginary film grain. I love sharing quirky references to movies that use unconventional themes or which are untainted by technicolor. I’m also fond of literature that pushes the boundaries of what fiction could be and would love to have coffee with those who are radical enough to experiment with it. My bookshelf is a revolving door of sorts as books of all kinds come and go; though some have taken up permanent residence in my never ending stack of bedside literature—but we’ll get to that later.

Why MoarBooks?

W: MoarBooks began in 2013 as a means of selling a book, actually. I’d gotten exposed to the Independent Comics and Lit scene through my friend Trizha who introduced me to Adam David, the founder of BLTX (Better Living Through Xeroxography) and I really enjoyed the way that people talked about books and publishing at that event. Stories, poems, art work and comics as something crafted both within and without.

Paperweight, the project I’d been sitting on for about a year at the time, was something that I kept running past people who I trusted to know their stuff and it seemed a shame not to do anything with it. I figured if I was going to put up a small publishing business, best to experiment on myself first: that way if it failed, I wouldn’t be dragging anyone else into the mix. I used to run an online clothing store so MoarBooks is kind of template-d after that: you have people, a Facebook page and interesting stuff people can buy which you deliver to them in exchange for valuable paper.

N: I decided to become a part of MoarBooks because I stand by the idea that many voices not yet heard but are brimming with creativity and who possess a kind of tenacity that is only present in the truly and utterly unfunded determined, need an avenue for their projects to be noticed. MoarBooks is concerned primarily with content and quality of that content; I like that. Among other things, what I really want to do through this is to share them with you, dear reader (who is reading this on the internet—Schrödinger’s reader: are you there?).

Who Do You Read?

W: It changes, but for sure Siri Hustvedt, Haruki Murakami, Adrienne Rich, David Foster Wallace, Donald Barthelme, Conchitina Cruz, Susanna Clarke, Italo Calvino, Vicente Groyon, Gregory Brillantes, Kelly Link, Phil Kaye, Mark Strand, Adrian Tomine and Jeff Lemire. I also like Joshua Lim So’s work—he writes plays and short stories (you can read some of that here).

N:  These are some of the aforementioned permanent residents in the village (apartment complex? I’m confusing my own metaphors) of my bookshelf—Ayn Rand and Georges Perec live in the floors between neighbors Hermann Hesse, Kurt Vonnegut and Albert Camus. I often speculate they all have impromptu tea parties at night without me knowing, though I believe Camus only has coffee.

How Did You Guys Begin Working Together?

W: Well. I had three people initially helping me out with MoarBooks but you know, that wasn’t panning out because of logistical limitations (location, day jobs, etc.). Then one day I saw Nico (who I knew through mutual friends from college) in Fully Booked, ignored him then went online a few months later to apologize. Then we found out we were neighbors and began tinkering with the idea of working on MoarBooks together since he also likes reading and art and all that jazz. He is quite organized and really sticks it to the man when it comes to reminders about posting schedules and stuff so that’s good. Plus he knows how use Excel. So there!

How Do You See MoarBooks’s Future?

W: I see it turning into a much bigger endeavor—not in terms of staff or size, necessarily but in terms of the binding and publishing quality of work. As of now, we sell low-volume, low-cost and in the future I really want to have the liberty to put my foot down and say like, 2500 copies—perfect bound, rush no matter what and not have a heart attack when I get the bill. We’re also working on having more events this year but that’s a surprise, surprise that has yet to be revealed.

N: I see it evolving into an even more effective creative platform that produces work that will touch people’s lives. We want to be the go-to for people who want to say something through their work and who are willing to work hard to get their work out there—the term “indie darling” comes to mind. We may be small, but we’re determined to be heard. Also, we have brownies. And espresso.

That’s it for now–next month we’ll be posting about the people who are responsible for our event posters, book covers and who’ve lent us a hand through the years. Thanks for sticking around and it was great to meet you–have a look around our bookstore and enjoy your experience with us.

No “Justs” About It: An Interview with Noel Villa

I recently had the opportunity to catch up with Noel Villa and talk about his short story collection entitled Just A Bunch of Short Stories (click here for a downloadable preview). 

In this interview, Noel chats about writing, genre fiction and the struggle between wanting to write something emotional and the desire to be different.

M: Okay, first things first: how did you get into writing?

N: I dunno, um–I guess how it started with most people (our age): Harry Potter. That’s the only thing I read and I wanted to write like J.K. Rowling. So, ayun. Plus, I wanted to make my own anime.

M: Ayun, eh. Hrrrm. So about the short stories you’re coming out with. You write a lot of cleverly masked love stories. Like, they’re love stories but if you considered just the language you wouldn’t think that it’s a love story.

N: Yeap.

M: What about that aesthetic do you gravitate towards?

N: Hrrrm.  I was a hopeless romantic when I was a teenager. *laughs* Pero because of my involvement in literature and my writing for–literary stuff, I know it’s more difficult for me to–get away with something cheesy. So I think it’s that which attracts me? I want to write a love story. But I want to be different.

M: What made you take up literature as a course, in the first place? (Oh, and I heard you graduated recently!)

N: (Yeah, I did! I did. Sigh. *laughs*) Um. I guess the same reason why I started writing…*laughs even harder* I wanted to be famous. I wanted to write a novel. But it turns out they don’t teach you how to write.

M: What do you mean? They don’t teach you how to write a novel or how to write in general?

N: How to write in general. They teach you how to read–

M: –which you need though, to be able to write.

N: Right.

M: Do you still want to eventually write a novel?

N: Yeap.

M: What about?

N: Ever since I was a child, I’ve always wanted to write action fantasy–wait, sci-fi sorry–with everything in it: action, romance, drama, meta-fiction, cross-over fantasy…no. *laughs* Maybe.

M: *laughs* Bigla nalang nandun si Son Goku.

N: HEY I seriously thought of doing that, making an anime novel. I mean, I really do want to venture into sci-fi. And I feel like sci-fi isn’t a very well-delved into genre in the Philippines and I really want to contribute more to that, I guess.
The Father of Science Fiction…*laughs*

M: What do you think makes good sci-fi?

N: Hrrrm. The ability to predict the future. I think that’s what makes sci-fi really good.

M: Ah, I watched this interview of Margaret Atwood’s–

N: –yeah! I watched that also! I think Akire (Erika Carreon) shared it on her wall?

M: Yeah, she was talking about the difference between Science Fiction–where there are overt developments in technology–and Speculative Fiction, which usually deals with post-apocalyptic scenarios of this world. So if you qualify sci-fi as being able to predict the future, does that mean that to you sci-fi and spec-fic are the same thing?

N: I think all sci-fi is spec-fic, but not all spec-fic is sci-fi. I mean, they’re all very vague terms. I don’t know. I don’t even know if ‘spec-fic’ is the right term to use anymore, because what kind of fiction isn’t speculative?

M: Ah, good point.

N: In my opinion I don’t see why there have to be separate labels for “fantasy” or “speculative fiction” and “literary fiction”. Why not just fiction in general and if something is good, then it’s good. Why does “genre fiction” have to be “bad fiction” and why does “good genre fiction” have to be “literary fiction”? Why can’t there just be one big pool of literature?

M: I see. All that said, what made you decide to put your stories out now?

N: Because I graduated. *laughs* So I thought it was time that I collected all the stories I’ve written…which…I mean…I don’t look too highly upon but nevertheless I’m proud of, I guess.

M: The stories in Just A Bunch of Short Stories span 2009 to 2013. How do you think you’re work’s evolved over that four, five-year interval?

N: I’ve gotten more serious (I think). I used to begin everything with something I thought was funny or by trying to mock everything. But lately, I’ve been trying to be more dramatic–more like Vladimir Nabokov. Or a couple of spoken word poets. *laughs*

M: Yeah, I noticed that as the stories progress musicality becomes a bigger factor in the work.
N: I value music! I value it very much in writing. Although, I’ve been wanting to return to less dense prose because I’ve been wanting to write something longer and it’s immensely difficult to write something dense and long at the same time.

M: Yeah, I get how that can get very tiring.

N: Yeah, it’s super tiring. But yeah. In general, I’m still experimenting. A lot.

M: I can definitely tell, from the stories–they switch points of view a lot, I feel. There’s third person, first person, first person-computer. *laughs* What’s your favorite POV?

N: Definitely first–because in my opinion it adds an extra dimension to the language, it adds an extra character to the story and I feel like it’s easier to hide things within the text which usually isn’t the case with a third person narrator. Yeah. I really like unreliable narrators.

M: *laughs* You like liars. That said, who do you think will enjoy your stories?

N: Mga weird. *laughs* No, uh. I guess people who are looking for something different. Well. At least I try to be different. I strive to be different, I hope I’m different. I hope it’ll cater to people like myself who are tired of the conventional form of short stories but who also want to read something interesting and well-written. People who like to pick things apart, people who like to play with form.

M: Who are your favorite authors?

N: I don’t think I ever like to call anyone my “favorite author” because I haven’t read them enough or I haven’t read enough work by them. But people whose work has greatly inspired me are Tom Robbins, Gina Apostol–

M: –wasn’t your thesis on Gina Apostol?

N: *laughs* Yeah. I like Gina Apostol, I hate my thesis. Um, who else? Spoken word poets like…that guy who made a poem about bullying (Shane Koyczan). OH and also Gene Wolfe! He’s a science fiction writer and definitely one of the best, in my opinion.

M: And that’s it, pancit! Thanks for your time Noel.

N: No prob!

For more info on Noel and his writing, visit stuffaboutathing.tumblr.com ; Just A Bunch of Short Stories is going to be launched at Filipino Readercon (December 7th @ the Rizal Library, Ateneo De Manila University). You may reserve copies/order in advance here.

-Wina