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The Spy in the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
What's in the public domain in 2026, freeing for public use intellectual property from 1930? I'm most excited about the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock! But this is actually for the original version written by Mildred Wirt Benson [yes, "Carolyn Keene" is a pseudonym used by a collective of writers]. The 1959 revised yellow-cased version, published by Grosset and Dunlap and which most of everyone knows better [this is the version I first read] remains under copyright until 2055. There are key differences! Nancy's age is 16 in 1930 vs. 18 in 1959. There are no Bess, George, and Ned in the original text either. And the original run had some racist language as well, and slang that has not survived. I found this out the hard way when I happened to check out the original versions from the Dumaguete Public Library when I was in Grade 5, and I was shocked by the differences in tone and characters. That's when I first suspected that Nancy Drew was not what she seemed. So I wrote a letter to Carolyn Keene c/o Grosset and Dunlap [I used to write to my favorite authors back in the day], and got a nice package in return, including a history of the writing and publication of Nancy Drew, which revealed that Carolyn Keene [and Franklin W. Dixon of Hardy Boys!] did not, in fact, exist. I think this bombshell was one of my formative discoveries as a budding writer.
Read more about Public Doman Day here.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
I made sure I spent some time with mother tonight for New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been well since her hospitalization more than a week ago, but she’s fine. At least that’s what the doctors say. She’s 93, and tonight she kept asking me the same questions: “What happened to me?” Your blood pressure shot up, it was very high. “Why?” Because you ate a lot of lechon at ___’s party. “Did I collapse?” A bit. “Where?” At home, two days later. “Thank God, it wasn’t at ____’s. What happened next?” You were hospitalized. “I was? Oh dear. Where?” At PolyMedic. “That’s in Sibulan. Why are you here?” Because it's New Year’s Eve. “It’s New Year’s Eve? Wala lagi handa?” We do have handa, there’s some lechon over there. “That’s a small lechon. That’s not real lechon.” Then she proceeds to identify everyone around her. Dennis. Daisy. All her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Also Cypress, Daisy’s sister. She asks about her dearly departed daughter-in-law, Efeb, who died two years ago. When we tell her she is gone, she says, “Sayang.” She asks for a head massage, and complains her food is bland. She enumerates all her sons, asking where they all are, which reads: are they here with me? We tell her Alvin is dead, Rocky can’t walk up the stairs, Edwin is in Switzerland, and Rey is in America. We do this many times. But she knows a lot of other details. Like the name of my nephew Dale’s new girlfriend, and that a cousin is from Kidapawan. But her short term memory is loose. “What happened to me?” she asks again after a few minutes, and I find myself tireless in repeating the same exact things, laughing at some of her silly responses. “Are you staying with me tonight? Please don’t leave me,” she says as we prepare her for early bed time. I won’t, I’ll be here, I lied. Tell her I’m just here, I tell her caretaker Gigi, as I later prepare to come back to the apartment where I live.
Happy New Year, everyone!
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
That’s Orville Wright on my chest, but she actually loves lying on Renz. When we’re home alone, Orville and I, she’s just a normal cat, being a loaf somewhere in my apartment. But when Renz comes over, her ears perk up, and she will do everything to climb on top of him, rubbing her head on him, playing with his clothes, etc. “I think you’re catnip to Orville,” I tell Renz. I’m not puzzled at all why our cat is crazy about him: Renz is lovable every which way.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
What grim madness! One of my favorite film directors, Rob Reiner, who helmed contemporary classics such as When Harry Met Sally..., The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President, is dead, a victim of homicide. Apparently murdered together with his wife by their own son. What a week! A shooting in Brown University, a shooting in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, and now this. Rest in peace, Mr. Reiner. Thank you for all the movies.
This tweet says a lot about Mr. Reiner's legacy:
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
I’m watching Marshall Curry’s documentary, The New Yorker at 100, and I see film critic Richard Brody working on an external keyboard because his MacAir keyboard has stopped working. I felt this, hahaha.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
To get back on track, I accepted this invitation from Virginia Stack and her Valencia Book Mobile brigade to read my picture book The Great Little Hunter, to a bunch of youngsters, aged 7-10, in Bong-ao, Valencia last Saturday. I had the time of my life! The children were initially shy but they were also curious and interested, and I really do think this is the best age range to get kids to start and love reading, the way I was when I was their age and encountered Henny Penny. This is the thing about Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature: it is curious to have this designation now in an age when literacy among children is falling away fast. How can we have a City of Literature when nobody reads anymore? That's a question we are grappling with, and this literacy program is part of our solution. Thank you Tata and your Indefatigable team of teachers and volunteers for making this commitment work!
Here's a video of me reading:
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
It has been a week since I got sick. The fever was terrible, and I mostly slept the days away. I’m well now, but I still don’t have my sense of taste fully back on. Most things I eat still taste bland, and it’s not fun. Not exactly sure what that was. The flu? A new COVID strain? Who knows.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO Creative City of Literature—about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 30 pages of the final bid.
I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Virtucio and then DTI Creative Sector Specialist Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for “a cup of coffee” in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Abi nako coffee lang, but it turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. I had already articulated too many times before how much I dreamed of Dumaguete getting this distinction—and they knew.
The catch was, I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that fraught week also made me realize, when I was formulating the responses in the portfolio, that Dumaguete actually could do this, that we really had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. The closest example I could get to comparing Dumaguete with was Iowa City, also a small city—but its literary heart was big.
We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time, on March 3. And then I forgot all about it.
Until UNACOM, the Philippine Commission for UNESCO, contacted us sometime in November 2024 to happily inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film.
That galvanized us to do the final bid, from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do. Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven.
There were sacrifices to be made in the pursuit. I let go of finishing several of my books actually slated for publication in 2025 just to be able finish the bid. Then there was the toll on the body and mental health. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, and I actually went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years.
We submitted the bid on time, but we never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement it. There was just no time. Days and months later, the thought that plagued me was that I could have done more, especially for our website, which was at best nice-looking but quite rudimentary in terms of laying out what literature was all about in Dumaguete. There was just no time. In the end, I just hoped the bid itself would suffice for UNESCO. Truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night when I received the news. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.
I was in a Halloween party being hosted by Renz Torres last night, but October 31 being World Cities Day – which meant UNESCO was going to announce the new cohorts of its Creative Cities Network – was always lurking in my consciousness. This was the exact second, captured perfectly by the quick phone camera of Tita Melisa Maghanoy, when I read the message from Anton Gabila, one of my co-conspirators in the bid for UNESCO City of Literature for Dumaguete City ... And then I burst into tears, with Renz comforting and congratulating me and the team behind this endeavor. [Photos by Melisa Towers]
Because what does one do with joy that comes after such a long and uncertain wait? When the news broke that Dumaguete had finally been named a UNESCO Creative City of Literature, I was gobsmacked. I read UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay’s words describing the new designated cities: “UNESCO Creative Cities demonstrate that culture and creative industries can be concrete drivers of development. By welcoming 58 new cities, we are strengthening a Network where creativity supports local initiatives, attracts investment and promotes social cohesion.” I couldn’t believe that our small city—with a big literary heart—was among these.
I felt the exhaustion of a year’s worth of labor turn into something like grace.
I thought of the many nights trying to map out what made our city’s literary soul unique, and map out what else we could do to make it a vibrant creative sector. I thought of the countless writers who had, across decades, quietly built the foundation that made the bid even possible—from the Silliman Universityi National Writers Workshop that Edilberto and Edith Tiempo began in 1962, to the new voices emerging from the Buglas Writers Guild, to the poets scribbling verses on napkins in our ubiquitous cafés.
I remember the labor, but Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature was never about me or even about a single institution. It was about articulating, finally, the long story of a city that has always written itself into being. Dumaguete is a city that breathes literature. This recognition from UNESCO simply affirms what we have long known in our bones: that our words matter, that our stories shape us, that the act of writing here is both heritage and hope.
I do need to remind everyone that the designation—which comes up for review every four years—is not a medal to polish and display, or a “forever title.” Like how I’ve said it before, it is a promise, perhaps even a burden—to make sure that this literary city remains worthy of the name. To be a City of Literature means committing ourselves to nurturing new voices, to making sure that the next generation of writers from Dumaguete will have more platforms, more spaces, more readers, and more courage. It means making literature not just an elite preoccupation but a living conversation with the community—with the tricycle driver who recites tercets, the fisherwoman who tells her grandchildren stories by the shore, or the student learning to find her voice in the classroom.
I echo what Dauin writer Michael Aaron Gomez said about the responsibility of getting this distinction: “To me, it clarifies the purpose of writers in the city: one must be able to look clearly at the successes and failures of Dumaguete and the conditions shaping itself and, more importantly, its people in the modern century. Because ultimately the reader is what it comes down to. I hope the title clarifies instead of obscures what a Dumaguete writer must do in the face of the rushing waves of what we call progress and development.”
It means that Dumaguete’s literary map must expand beyond its old boundaries. We need to champion our writers in Binisaya, not just those who write in English—and even in all the in-between languages that reflect who we are. We must find ways to publish locally, to translate, to reach readers beyond our islands. The irony of a City of Literature without a strong publishing ecosystem [which Dumaguete alas suffers from] must be addressed, and this designation gives us the mandate to do so. The hope is that soon, we will have more independent presses, more bookstores, even more literary residencies, and that Dumaguete will once again become what it was in the golden decades: a true haven for writers.
When I think of what lies ahead, I recall how the bid itself was written—by many hands, each adding a sentence to a shared story. For our technical working group, we got creatives, teachers, students, government workers, cultural workers, publishers, and bookstore owners who came together to define what “literary” means in a place like Dumaguete. The process was itself an act of literature: collaborative, imaginative, and deeply rooted in place. It showed me then that literature is not confined to the printed page. It can also be policy, advocacy, and vision—the very work of imagining better futures for our city.
So yes, I cried. Because Dumaguete’s recognition as a UNESCO City of Literature is both culmination and beginning. It is the acknowledgment of decades of literary life, and the invitation to write its next chapters. We have joined a global network of cities that believe culture can transform communities— Edinburgh, Jakarta, Melbourne, Iowa City, Prague, Reykjavik, Wonju—and now, Dumaguete.
But what makes this achievement extraordinary is how intimate it feels. It’s not a distant honor bestowed from above; it’s a story that began with a simple “cup of coffee” in Adorno. From there, a city dared to dream on paper, and that dream became real. I think that’s the truest metaphor for writing: to wrestle with words until the world shifts a little closer to what you imagine.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
I just went on an unfriending spree, because Facebook was telling me I had reached my maximum, and because my friends' list really needed culling. Because why am I friends with restaurants and hotels and organizations [some of which are gone, and should really just use Pages], and buildings, and ... pets? Also unfriended dead friends, which was particularly sad.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
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Bibliography
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 275.
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 274.
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 273.
- Nancy Drew in the Public Domain!
- New Year's Eve at Mother's
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 272.
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 271
- Two Cat Daddied and Their Cat
- Poetry Wednesday, No. 270.
- Rob Reiner, 1947-2025
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The Great Little Hunter
Pinspired Philippines, 2022
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
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Tracking Sandwich Eaters
© 2002-2021
IAN ROSALES CASOCOT
Wednesday, January 21, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 275.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, January 14, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 274.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, January 07, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 273.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, January 01, 2026
2:39 PM |
Nancy Drew in the Public Domain!
What's in the public domain in 2026, freeing for public use intellectual property from 1930? I'm most excited about the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock! But this is actually for the original version written by Mildred Wirt Benson [yes, "Carolyn Keene" is a pseudonym used by a collective of writers]. The 1959 revised yellow-cased version, published by Grosset and Dunlap and which most of everyone knows better [this is the version I first read] remains under copyright until 2055. There are key differences! Nancy's age is 16 in 1930 vs. 18 in 1959. There are no Bess, George, and Ned in the original text either. And the original run had some racist language as well, and slang that has not survived. I found this out the hard way when I happened to check out the original versions from the Dumaguete Public Library when I was in Grade 5, and I was shocked by the differences in tone and characters. That's when I first suspected that Nancy Drew was not what she seemed. So I wrote a letter to Carolyn Keene c/o Grosset and Dunlap [I used to write to my favorite authors back in the day], and got a nice package in return, including a history of the writing and publication of Nancy Drew, which revealed that Carolyn Keene [and Franklin W. Dixon of Hardy Boys!] did not, in fact, exist. I think this bombshell was one of my formative discoveries as a budding writer.
Read more about Public Doman Day here.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, December 31, 2025
11:59 PM |
New Year's Eve at Mother's
I made sure I spent some time with mother tonight for New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been well since her hospitalization more than a week ago, but she’s fine. At least that’s what the doctors say. She’s 93, and tonight she kept asking me the same questions: “What happened to me?” Your blood pressure shot up, it was very high. “Why?” Because you ate a lot of lechon at ___’s party. “Did I collapse?” A bit. “Where?” At home, two days later. “Thank God, it wasn’t at ____’s. What happened next?” You were hospitalized. “I was? Oh dear. Where?” At PolyMedic. “That’s in Sibulan. Why are you here?” Because it's New Year’s Eve. “It’s New Year’s Eve? Wala lagi handa?” We do have handa, there’s some lechon over there. “That’s a small lechon. That’s not real lechon.” Then she proceeds to identify everyone around her. Dennis. Daisy. All her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Also Cypress, Daisy’s sister. She asks about her dearly departed daughter-in-law, Efeb, who died two years ago. When we tell her she is gone, she says, “Sayang.” She asks for a head massage, and complains her food is bland. She enumerates all her sons, asking where they all are, which reads: are they here with me? We tell her Alvin is dead, Rocky can’t walk up the stairs, Edwin is in Switzerland, and Rey is in America. We do this many times. But she knows a lot of other details. Like the name of my nephew Dale’s new girlfriend, and that a cousin is from Kidapawan. But her short term memory is loose. “What happened to me?” she asks again after a few minutes, and I find myself tireless in repeating the same exact things, laughing at some of her silly responses. “Are you staying with me tonight? Please don’t leave me,” she says as we prepare her for early bed time. I won’t, I’ll be here, I lied. Tell her I’m just here, I tell her caretaker Gigi, as I later prepare to come back to the apartment where I live.Happy New Year, everyone!
Labels: family, life, love, new year
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 272.
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 271
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Saturday, December 20, 2025
10:40 PM |
Two Cat Daddied and Their Cat
That’s Orville Wright on my chest, but she actually loves lying on Renz. When we’re home alone, Orville and I, she’s just a normal cat, being a loaf somewhere in my apartment. But when Renz comes over, her ears perk up, and she will do everything to climb on top of him, rubbing her head on him, playing with his clothes, etc. “I think you’re catnip to Orville,” I tell Renz. I’m not puzzled at all why our cat is crazy about him: Renz is lovable every which way.
Labels: cats, life, love, pets
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 270.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Monday, December 15, 2025
9:36 PM |
Rob Reiner, 1947-2025
What grim madness! One of my favorite film directors, Rob Reiner, who helmed contemporary classics such as When Harry Met Sally..., The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President, is dead, a victim of homicide. Apparently murdered together with his wife by their own son. What a week! A shooting in Brown University, a shooting in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, and now this. Rest in peace, Mr. Reiner. Thank you for all the movies.
This tweet says a lot about Mr. Reiner's legacy:
Labels: directors, film, obituary
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 269.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Monday, December 08, 2025
9:30 AM |
Seeing Richard Brody Typing on an External Keyboard
I’m watching Marshall Curry’s documentary, The New Yorker at 100, and I see film critic Richard Brody working on an external keyboard because his MacAir keyboard has stopped working. I felt this, hahaha.
Labels: criticism, documentaries, film, magazines, new york, people, writers, writing
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Saturday, December 06, 2025
7:00 PM |
Reading to Children
To get back on track, I accepted this invitation from Virginia Stack and her Valencia Book Mobile brigade to read my picture book The Great Little Hunter, to a bunch of youngsters, aged 7-10, in Bong-ao, Valencia last Saturday. I had the time of my life! The children were initially shy but they were also curious and interested, and I really do think this is the best age range to get kids to start and love reading, the way I was when I was their age and encountered Henny Penny. This is the thing about Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature: it is curious to have this designation now in an age when literacy among children is falling away fast. How can we have a City of Literature when nobody reads anymore? That's a question we are grappling with, and this literacy program is part of our solution. Thank you Tata and your Indefatigable team of teachers and volunteers for making this commitment work!
Here's a video of me reading:
Labels: children, children's books, city of literature, dumaguete, life, literacy, negros, reading, UNESCO
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Wednesday, December 03, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 268.
Labels: poetry
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Wednesday, November 26, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 267.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
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Wednesday, November 19, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 266.
Labels: poetry
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Sunday, November 16, 2025
5:55 PM |
I'm Feeling Better
It has been a week since I got sick. The fever was terrible, and I mostly slept the days away. I’m well now, but I still don’t have my sense of taste fully back on. Most things I eat still taste bland, and it’s not fun. Not exactly sure what that was. The flu? A new COVID strain? Who knows.Labels: life
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 265.
Labels: poetry
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, November 09, 2025
9:00 AM |
The Dream of City of Literature, Fulfilled
I still remember that fraught week in August 2024 when I had to churn out the preliminary bid for Dumaguete City as UNESCO Creative City of Literature—about six pages of questions that needed thorough answers, which resulted to almost 30 pages of the final bid.I was actually set to enjoy Founders Day in Silliman University when then DTI Negros Oriental Director Nimfa Virtucio and then DTI Creative Sector Specialist Anton Gabila invited me and Renz for “a cup of coffee” in Adorno Galeria y Cafe. Abi nako coffee lang, but it turned out they were keen on submitting Dumaguete for the distinction and was roping me in to help them. Of course I said yes. I had already articulated too many times before how much I dreamed of Dumaguete getting this distinction—and they knew.
The catch was, I only had about one week to put together the pre-bid, because the deadline was on August 31! Oh, the pain! But that fraught week also made me realize, when I was formulating the responses in the portfolio, that Dumaguete actually could do this, that we really had everything [except, ehem, publishing houses and translation projects]. The closest example I could get to comparing Dumaguete with was Iowa City, also a small city—but its literary heart was big.
We were able to submit the pre-bid to UNACOM on time, on March 3. And then I forgot all about it.
Until UNACOM, the Philippine Commission for UNESCO, contacted us sometime in November 2024 to happily inform us that we were on their final list of recommendees to UNESCO, alongside Quezon City for Film.
That galvanized us to do the final bid, from December 2024 to March 2025, again fretting over the final questionnaire and other things to do. Together with then Dumaguete City Tourism Officer Katherine Aguilar, we formed a think tank of about 20 people, to make the bid truly community- and sector-driven.
There were sacrifices to be made in the pursuit. I let go of finishing several of my books actually slated for publication in 2025 just to be able finish the bid. Then there was the toll on the body and mental health. The sleepless nights were abominable. The anxiety was formidable, and I actually went back to taking Ritalin after being off-meds for two years.
We submitted the bid on time, but we never were able to do the planned video documentary to supplement it. There was just no time. Days and months later, the thought that plagued me was that I could have done more, especially for our website, which was at best nice-looking but quite rudimentary in terms of laying out what literature was all about in Dumaguete. There was just no time. In the end, I just hoped the bid itself would suffice for UNESCO. Truth to tell, I was prepared to receive bad news. I dreaded the coming of October 31. Please forgive me if I cried Friday night when I received the news. It was my body heaving a sigh of relief.
I was in a Halloween party being hosted by Renz Torres last night, but October 31 being World Cities Day – which meant UNESCO was going to announce the new cohorts of its Creative Cities Network – was always lurking in my consciousness. This was the exact second, captured perfectly by the quick phone camera of Tita Melisa Maghanoy, when I read the message from Anton Gabila, one of my co-conspirators in the bid for UNESCO City of Literature for Dumaguete City ... And then I burst into tears, with Renz comforting and congratulating me and the team behind this endeavor. [Photos by Melisa Towers]
Because what does one do with joy that comes after such a long and uncertain wait? When the news broke that Dumaguete had finally been named a UNESCO Creative City of Literature, I was gobsmacked. I read UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay’s words describing the new designated cities: “UNESCO Creative Cities demonstrate that culture and creative industries can be concrete drivers of development. By welcoming 58 new cities, we are strengthening a Network where creativity supports local initiatives, attracts investment and promotes social cohesion.” I couldn’t believe that our small city—with a big literary heart—was among these.
I felt the exhaustion of a year’s worth of labor turn into something like grace.
I thought of the many nights trying to map out what made our city’s literary soul unique, and map out what else we could do to make it a vibrant creative sector. I thought of the countless writers who had, across decades, quietly built the foundation that made the bid even possible—from the Silliman Universityi National Writers Workshop that Edilberto and Edith Tiempo began in 1962, to the new voices emerging from the Buglas Writers Guild, to the poets scribbling verses on napkins in our ubiquitous cafés.
I remember the labor, but Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature was never about me or even about a single institution. It was about articulating, finally, the long story of a city that has always written itself into being. Dumaguete is a city that breathes literature. This recognition from UNESCO simply affirms what we have long known in our bones: that our words matter, that our stories shape us, that the act of writing here is both heritage and hope.
I do need to remind everyone that the designation—which comes up for review every four years—is not a medal to polish and display, or a “forever title.” Like how I’ve said it before, it is a promise, perhaps even a burden—to make sure that this literary city remains worthy of the name. To be a City of Literature means committing ourselves to nurturing new voices, to making sure that the next generation of writers from Dumaguete will have more platforms, more spaces, more readers, and more courage. It means making literature not just an elite preoccupation but a living conversation with the community—with the tricycle driver who recites tercets, the fisherwoman who tells her grandchildren stories by the shore, or the student learning to find her voice in the classroom.
I echo what Dauin writer Michael Aaron Gomez said about the responsibility of getting this distinction: “To me, it clarifies the purpose of writers in the city: one must be able to look clearly at the successes and failures of Dumaguete and the conditions shaping itself and, more importantly, its people in the modern century. Because ultimately the reader is what it comes down to. I hope the title clarifies instead of obscures what a Dumaguete writer must do in the face of the rushing waves of what we call progress and development.”
It means that Dumaguete’s literary map must expand beyond its old boundaries. We need to champion our writers in Binisaya, not just those who write in English—and even in all the in-between languages that reflect who we are. We must find ways to publish locally, to translate, to reach readers beyond our islands. The irony of a City of Literature without a strong publishing ecosystem [which Dumaguete alas suffers from] must be addressed, and this designation gives us the mandate to do so. The hope is that soon, we will have more independent presses, more bookstores, even more literary residencies, and that Dumaguete will once again become what it was in the golden decades: a true haven for writers.
When I think of what lies ahead, I recall how the bid itself was written—by many hands, each adding a sentence to a shared story. For our technical working group, we got creatives, teachers, students, government workers, cultural workers, publishers, and bookstore owners who came together to define what “literary” means in a place like Dumaguete. The process was itself an act of literature: collaborative, imaginative, and deeply rooted in place. It showed me then that literature is not confined to the printed page. It can also be policy, advocacy, and vision—the very work of imagining better futures for our city.
So yes, I cried. Because Dumaguete’s recognition as a UNESCO City of Literature is both culmination and beginning. It is the acknowledgment of decades of literary life, and the invitation to write its next chapters. We have joined a global network of cities that believe culture can transform communities— Edinburgh, Jakarta, Melbourne, Iowa City, Prague, Reykjavik, Wonju—and now, Dumaguete.
But what makes this achievement extraordinary is how intimate it feels. It’s not a distant honor bestowed from above; it’s a story that began with a simple “cup of coffee” in Adorno. From there, a city dared to dream on paper, and that dream became real. I think that’s the truest metaphor for writing: to wrestle with words until the world shifts a little closer to what you imagine.
Labels: city of literature, dumaguete, life, philippine literature, UNESCO, writers, writing
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Saturday, November 08, 2025
3:03 AM |
Unfriend
I just went on an unfriending spree, because Facebook was telling me I had reached my maximum, and because my friends' list really needed culling. Because why am I friends with restaurants and hotels and organizations [some of which are gone, and should really just use Pages], and buildings, and ... pets? Also unfriended dead friends, which was particularly sad.Labels: facebook, friends, life, social media
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich