Nagmac to hold workshop for emerging writers from XU

The Crusader Publication, in partnership with writers collective Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa Cagayan de Oro (Nagmac), is announcing the holding of the 3rd Veritas Writers Workshop this 15-16 Dec. 15 to 16 at Xavier University.

The workshop caters exclusively to members — alumni, faculty, staff, and high school/undergraduate/graduate students — of the XU community. It is open to aspiring writers who have not been awarded fellowships to any national/regional writers workshop.

Fictionist-essayist Abigail James serves as workshop director with other Nagmac senior writers — essayist-poet Alton Melvar Dapanas, poet Ton Daposala, playwright-poet Mai Santillan, and fictionist Raymond Ybañez — as workshop panelists.

The workshop includes manuscripts critiquing, introductory craft lectures, mentoring sessions, and other parallel writing activities for the writing fellows.

Cagayan de Oro-born and Sydney-based novelist KM Levis who authored best-selling novels “The Girl Between Two Worlds” (2016) and “The Girl Between Light and Dark” (2018) both published by Anvil,

will also guest-lecture on Writing Young Adult Literature.

The 3rd Veritas Writers Workshop will focus on poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction/essay in English, Tagalog, and Binisaya. 10 fellowships will be available for the workshop. Interested applicants must submit a manuscript of any of the following:

• Poetry: poems written for the page or meant for performance; or
• Fiction: short stories or flash fiction; or
• Creative nonfiction & essay: a suite of micro-essays/flash nonfiction, or creative nonfiction, e.g. travel writing, personal essay, literary journalism, nonfiction memoir, lyrical reportage, and other forms.

Applicants may submit works in English, Tagalog, Binisaya, or a mixture of these three languages to reflect the multilingual context of Northern Mindanao. Subject heading of the email should be “literary piece” and in the email’s body, write applicant’s name, course, college/department, literary genre, a short bionote, and mobile number.

Entries should be sent as attachments and named after the title of the piece(s) to veritasfolio@gmail.com or at The Crusader Publication Office, StC 302, by Dec. 2. Late submissions will be disregarded.

After the workshop, the fellows will be given the opportunity to revise their old works and/or produce new literary works which will be considered for publication in the forthcoming issue of the Veritas Literary and Art Folio.

Established in 2016, the Veritas Writers Workshop is the only school-based creative writing fellowship in Northern Mindanao. (nagmac)