Writing One's Way to Knowing about Martial Law

Anna Cabe is a Pinay-American writer from Memphis, Tennessee. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bitch Media, Terraform, The Toast, storySouth, Rappler, SmokeLong Quarterly, Joyland, and Fairy Tale Review, among others. She received her MFA in fiction from Indiana University and was formerly the nonfiction editor for Indiana Review. She is currently a Fulbright Fellow at Ateneo de Manila University, where she is completing a novel.

Jose Carlo C. Flordeliza received his AB in Literature and MFA in Creative Writing from De La Salle University-Manila. His work has most recently been anthologized in The Best Asian Speculative Fiction 2018. He is a part-time faculty member of Ateneo’s Creative Writing program.

This conversation is part of a series to be recorded for Areté in collaboration with Kritika Kultura and the Ateneo Department of Fine Arts’s Creative Writing program. These are recorded in the room named in honor of the poet, critic, and literature professor who was also the first and longtime curator of the Ateneo Art Gallery.

Carl Javier has worked in a number of fields, including journalism, the academe, publishing, development, and social enterprise. He joined the Puma Public team in January 2019 to chase the dream of creating podcasts from and for Filipinos. Prior to that he spent three years at Smarter Good where he provided strategic thinking, writing, and editorial guidance to nonprofits and social enterprises making impact globally. He started writing professionally as a college freshman, and for almost two decades has contributed to various publications and outlets. His writing led to work in the publishing industry, as a Business Manager at the UST Publishing House, the Deputy Director of the University of the Philippines Press, and a number of initiatives in independent publishing. His most recent publishing accomplishments were through his work as Managing Editor of Anino Comics, which he helped to relaunch in 2014. Anino titles have won National Book Awards, Komikon Awards, and other distinctions. His comics work has been nominated for the National Book Award twice, first as co-editor of Abangan: The Best Filipino Comics and as writer of the comic book adaptation of Si Janus Silang at ang Tiyanak ng Tabon.