UST Center for Creative Writing holds Sulat Tomasino 2023 workshop

The following is a press release from the University of Santo Tomas Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies.

The University of Santo Tomas (UST) Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS) will hold the 2023 Sulat Tomasino virtual seminar-workshop on editing and writing from March 1 to 3, 2023.

The three-day event taking place via Zoom will host participants comprised of editors, writers, and editorial staff from the various literary magazines within the UST system as well as the university’s Dominican network of affiliate schools. This year, more than 40 participants will be joining the seminar-workshop.

Sulat Tomasino is the brainchild of UST CCWLS resident fellows Joselito de los Reyes and Chuckberry Pascual. Prior to the pandemic, the center would conduct the annual Thomasian Writers’ Workshop, where aspiring student-participants would submit their own work for critiquing and workshopping with one another and a set of panelists. The idea is to create an environment of constructive criticism that points out weak points and praises good ones, all in all helping students hone their writing.

While the pandemic temporarily halted the regular holding of the said workshop, De Los Reyes and Pascual believed that the lack of face-to-face meetings need not also stop the learning of writing techniques and methods. There were already various avenues within the UST that cater to aspiring writers submitting their works to a literary workshop. Why not, they thought, conceive of one that focuses on writing for publication instead? Instead of having one’s literary work subjected to a panel of established writers for affirmation, why not look for validation through publication and seeing one’s byline? Such is equally fulfilling. This was the rationale behind Sulat Tomasino, which is now on its third year.

Sulat Tomasino underscores this provision of a venue for editors of literary magazines and folios to best discern what submissions should pass the standards for publication. Being at the forefront of the publication process, editors need to learn the “remedies” needed to suggest revisions to the writer, as well as to edit a work that have minor flaws but great potential. Throughout the three-day workshop, the editors will be given the opportunity to critique essays, poems, and short stories in English and Filipino, interspersed with lectures from guest speakers on the craft of writing and the discipline of editing. This year, the focus will be on short stories and creative non-fiction essays.

For this third iteration of Sulat Tomasino, Pascual and Rappler columnist De Los Reyes will be joined by former Philippines Free Press literary editor, poet, and faculty in the Department of Literature Joel M. Toledo. Also present is journalist, poet, and faculty in the Filipino Department Mark Angeles.

Angeles and Toledo have won various literary awards like the Palanca, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, and NCCA Prize. Both writers are alumni of the International Writers’ Program in Iowa. They will bring their expertise and guidance during the three-day afternoon sessions, as well as deliver lectures related to the seminar-workshop.

UST CCWLS Director Professor Emerita Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo will grace the first day of the event to deliver her lecture on the state of literature and journalism in the Philippines. – Rappler.com