The UST Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (UST CCWLS), in cooperation with the UST Publishing House (USTPH), held a roundtable discussion cum book launch titled Yugto: Ang Iba’t Ibang Kabanata ng Pag-akda as part of its UST Authors Series on May 7, 2019 at the Tanghalang Teresita Quirino, Benavides Building, University of Santo Tomas.
Featured were: the latest work of the UST CCWLS’s Director Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo titled Collected Stories & Tales (USTPH 2019), the debut collection of short fiction by UST CCWLS Resident Fellow John Jack G. Wigley titled Hantong: Mga Kuwento (USTPH 2018), and the second poetry compendium of UST CCWLS Resident Fellow Paul Alcoseba Castillo titled Walang Iisang Salita. (USTPH, 2018).
Hidalgo is the author of more than forty books, including three novels, six short story collections, fourteen nonfiction collections, and four works of literary commentary. She has won, among many other awards, the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas from the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL), the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards Grand Prize for her novel Recuerdo, several other Palanca prizes, a number of National Book Awards from the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Manila Critics Circle (MCC), and the Parangal Hagbong (Lifetime Achievement Award) from the UST Varsitarian where she served as literary editor and editor-in-chief.
Wigley is the author of two memoirs and two collections of humorous essays. He has won the Gawad San Alberto Magno (Best Book) of the 15th Dangal ng UST Awards for Falling into the Manhole (USTPH, 2012), which was also a finalist of the 13th Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award.
Castillo’s first book of poetry titled Pananangan (Librong Lira, 2016) won the First Prize of the Poetry in Filipino category of the 2018 Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. It also won him two Third Prizes (2017 and 2018) from the Makata ng Taon of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF), and a couple of Gawad San Lorenzo Awards from UST.
The UST Authors Series consists of conversations and lectures by the Resident Fellows and Associates of the UST CCWLS who have recently published books of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, drama, or literary and cultural criticism. This bi-annual regular program of the Center aims to showcase the most recent works of the members of the UST CCWLS for the benefit of both the Thomasian community and the general reading public. It also aims to help the UST Publishing House promote and sell its literary and scholarly titles. Since it reopened in 2012, the Center’s writers have collectively published 34 books.
