I’ve been writing short stories since my high school days. But when I became a teacher back in 1998, my short stories had to take the back seat. I began to concentrate on facilitating my students’ learning. Although I trained students for our school paper, it was mainly on journalism and not creative writing.
I miss [...]
I love reading. It transports me to a world that exists only in my dreams. It introduces me to interesting people of different backgrounds. Every time I take out a book and read, I discover something new about myself. And I marvel at these discoveries. Like the time I started reading James Patterson’s Women’s Murder [...]
Alexander Dumas’ ever-loved fictional character, Edmond Dantes, was one of my heroes when I was growing up. I have read the Count of Monte Cristo when I was still in elementary, and Dumas’ exceptional prose for figurative language would take me places. Of course, that was I dosed with pure imagination, as any normal kid [...]
Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ novel is about an illness of love that plagues the main characters Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza. He has successfully deployed universality in the themes of love, suffering, aging, and death.
The story opens with the funeral of Fermina’s husband, Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Her long-time admirer Florentino approaches her and vows once more [...]
I am an avid reader of books and novels, but I am definitely not a bookworm, no matter how the term closely associates itself to me. Admittedly, I have read a lot of reading materials, and most of them are fiction. And speaking from experience, the more fictional the story, the deeper my engrossment with [...]
Madras on Rainy Days is set in Hyderabad, India. It talks about various social conflicts that arise from the opposing worlds of the conservative Hindu tradition and the liberal America — where the main character Layla was educated.
Layla is portrayed as a very strong woman despite her being a child of divorce, a survivor of [...]
Displayed at one of National Bookstore’s glass windows near the SM Cagayan de Oro Mall side entrance is an eye-catching poster. “What do you feed your mind?” it asks accompanied by a graphic comic drawing of a small head attached to a rather large body. It stuck me as both funny and apt at [...]