2020

Call for Submissions: Katitikan Issue 3: (Re) Imaginations

“We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
– Arundhati Roy, The Pandemic is a Portal

In many ways, the pandemic has resurfaced and amplified the worst in the world: gross inequality, avarice, structural violence, institutionalized discrimination, etc. But something strange has happened as well. Ideas, solutions, changes that were once thought impossible, have now presented themselves as possible alternatives. And these changes give us a glimpse of a future we could aspire for. For the upcoming issue, we’re looking for works that either challenge our present realities, or those that explore a radical re-imagining of the future; works that resist the ‘normal’, by investigating and unpacking the past, by defying the present, and by imagining a future that requires radical societal change—radical changes, but not radically impossible. The theme for this issue, as broadly conceptualized but not limited to “(re)imaginations”.

Contributors may submit the following:

*Poems of not more than 70 lines each
*Short stories ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 words
*Flash fiction pieces ranging from 100 to 1,000 words
*A chapter of a novel, including novel synopsis, ranging from 2000 to 4000 words
*Essay and creative nonfiction ranging from 2500 to 4000 words
*One-act play, screenplay or an excerpt from a full-length play ranging from 10 to 40 pages
*Critical essays about Philippine Literature and/or the Philippine South ranging from 1500-5000 words in MLA format.

Entries may be written in Filipino, Binisaya or in English. Works in Hiligaynon, Waray, Chavacano, Maguindanaon and other Philippine languages, with Filipino, Binisaya and/or English translation, are also welcome. Previously published writing is accepted, as long as you retain full publishing rights to the work. Exceptions may be made to the above guidelines with respect to both merit and the editorial board’s consideration. Please indicate publications and publication date where the work/s have appeared.

Email your work in doc. or docx. format to 𝐬𝐮𝐛𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬.𝐤𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐤𝐚𝐧@𝐠𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥.𝐜𝐨𝐦 together with the author’s name, a short bionote and contact number (optional).

Katitikan Issue 2: Places and Spaces

Introduction

Looking at Space and Place: The Navigation of Meaning Making
Thomas Leonard Shaw

Fiction

Ang Huling Sayaw ni Sebyo
May Morales Dolis

Rectokado
Cesar Miguel Escaño

Echoes of Pasig
Matthew Jacob Ramos

Sanayan Lang ang Pagpatay
Gabriela Baron

Ulan-init
Hannah Lecena

Poetry

City lines
Andrea Lim

It is snowing in your country
Christian Baldomero

There is a boy in the island
Christian Baldomero

Cleaning the Attic
F Jordan Carnice

Sky Over Cairns
F Jordan Carnice

A Philosophy of Water
Ma. Carmie Flor Ortego

The placenta of evening stars
Ian Salva?a

Amihan
Ian Salvana

Cartography
Jose Kervin Cesar Calabias

Ang Hiniling Ko’y Umulan
Andre Gutierrez

Ang Karamdaman ng Dagat
Joshua Mari Lumbera

Heometriya ng lungkot
Liberty Balanquit

Ka-wala-kan
Stud Jader

Lawalawa
Arthur David

Pagkatunaw
Arthur David

Hasmin
Arthur David

Petsay Ma’y Bakwit Din
Emman Lacadin

Bakal Dos at Uno
R.B. Abiva

Ang Kalsadang Puno ng Pananagimsim
Renz Rosario

Lawag
Renz Rosario

Creative Nonfiction

Here, There, Everywhere: Catching Up with Criselda Yabes
Charles Sanchez

My Trilingual Career
Francis C. Macansantos

Baybayin All Over Her Face
Kevin Amante

Choosing to Stay Home
Astrid Ilano

Play

Labada
Andrew Bonifacio Clete

Luyag ‘Da’ra’y Anino  (A Kingdom of Shadows)
Christopher Gozum

Looking at Space and Place: The Navigation of Meaning Making

During the 1st Cebu Writers Workshop held in Oslob from the days of Feb 7 to 9, there arose during the sessions a constant need to talk about place-making. Here Place-making was dominantly figured through two other relevant concepts – that of space and that of meaning making. Fellows and panelists alike talked about their own uniquely framed politics ? concurrently nostalgic, translational, and migrational ? as intersecting with the various means by which they live in and make sense of the world around them. This has enabled multiple ways of thinking about our sense of place and the values that we charge or even burden it with.

With that being said, while the workshop took place after the call for this issue, the questions and points that were raised throughout the three-day discussion I feel are relevant in framing the significance of the ideas of space and place with regards to this issue. Such questions may cover race and gender; how do we think of our sense of Filipinoness? Of our sexualities? Of our ability to speak of our marginality (as queer, as non-English, as non-Tagalog) within our own spaces dominated by external discourses? Can we articulate a decidedly unique way of representing our cultures, of our homes, of our beingness in these spaces if we are to speak in differing tongues? Does our distance from each other (geopolitically and culturally) offer a way of affirming multiculturalism and plural-nationalism in times of political and historical homogeneity?

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Choosing to Stay Home

?Diri lang ta,? Nanay Salbing says, as she leads us through the maze that is Barangay Pasil.

An hour ago, I was sitting in a cubicle in our office on the sixth floor of a building inside IT Park. The office only seems to have two colors: blue and white. In the office, there are cubicles as far as the eye can see. And once you sit down on your designated spot, the only sight you are permitted is your computer unit, which you would be staring at for the rest of the day. If you stayed glued to your work, other people aren?t visible unless you look over the spines on top or to the side, which requires movement. Everything inside there is identical and easy to commit to memory.

Every step in Pasil is dynamic.

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Baybayin All Over Her Face

Her eyes spill out unspoken stories?in the form of wrinkles that etch deeper and longer with the passage of time. From the corners of her eyes, they branch out like patterns on the wings of a butterfly?crawling all over her face, etching curves on her cheeks or fashioning waves on her forehead.

These scratches of age may reveal themselves as random graffiti for marking territories, as if declaring, The fine lines around my eyes are the marks of generations I witnessed coming and going. The folds below my mouth are the stories I wish to tell but can only whisper.

I witnessed these lines curve and swirl and dance with the rhythm of time, until they turned themselves into beautiful baybayin: the hushed characters of our history, striving for survival, like every one of her silent stories.

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