Oh goody! The indestructible Charles Tan has finally finished compiling the Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2009.

Similar in format to the Datlow/Windling/Grant/Link ‘best-of’ yearly anthologies, Tan has managed to select his 12 best stories published last year. You can check out the website here.

I’m happy to point out that three of the stories– Dean Alfar’s “Strange Weather”, Crystal Koo’s “Wildwater”, and Mia Tijam’s “Spelling Normal”– were first published in the estrangheropress first outing, The Farthest Shore: Fantasy from the Philippines.

For those interested in checking out the stories, you can read it online at the website but it’s also available for downloads here. Personally, I’d go for Best of Speculative Fiction 2009 PDF.

(For tips on how to get its different versions, see RocketKapre’s how-to post.)

Here’s the list of the 12 stories cited:

1. The Fires of the Sun in a Crystalline Sky by Francezca C. Kwe
2. The Day the World Lost Its Gravity by Camsy Ocumen
3. Strange Weather by Dean Francis Alfar
4. The Sewing Project by Apol Lejano-Massebieau
5. Lex Talionis by Paolo Chikiamco
6. Isa by Marianne Villanueva
7. Spelling Normal by Mia Tijam
8. Daddy by Yvette Tan
9. From Abecediarya by Adam David
10. The Annotated Account of Tholomew Mestich by Elyss G. Punsalan
11. Beats by Kenneth Yu
12. Wildwater by Crystal Koo
13. Moondown and Fugue by Alexander Drilon
14. The Maiden’s Song by Kate Aton-Osias
15. Capture by Gabriela Lee
16. The Secret Origin of Spin-man by Andrew Drilon

Congratulation to all of them!

UPDATE: Sorry, I thought I filled in the deadline dates before I published this. I’ve moved the deadline to July 31 to give people more time to write their stories.

What with all the hate going around in this country, it’s ironic that we Filipinos have lasted this long. We have the Mindanao massacre, the upcoming national elections, graft and corruption, a history of Martial Law, colonization, etc.

But we’ve also had some good spots: we have Filipino artists and athletes gaining international recognition, the men and women doing their share as part of the United Nations peacekeeping group, OFWs who go out into the world to do a good job in order to feed their families, national heroes who managed to stand up for our country’s pride against overwhelming odds and powerful nations, people who do what is right instead of what is pragmatic, etc.

So it may be that we’ll last into the future, when we all have jetpacks and rocketships. But what will the future be with Filipinos around? And how do we envision our future then?

Our upcoming next anthology will look into the future (near or far). Will we still be exporting human workers to Mars or to Alpha Centauri? Will we be ruling an Empire of Humanity? Or will we be running a guerrilla war against robots that we’ve invented as the rest of homo sapiens flee into space in derelict battleships?

What do you think?

(Unlike the previous collections, we’re hoping these stories will be focusing on Filipinos as characters or as a race in these stories. As the title implies, we may have the future but it’s our future at least.)

“Diaspora Ad Astra: Science Fiction from the Philippines edited by Joseph Nacino & Professor Emil Flores” will be published electronically to make this collection of stories available to a wider international audience. Through this anthology we will be able to show the world that the Filipino writer can create worlds with the best of them.

Submission Guidelines:

1. As works of the imagination and speculative fiction, the theme is the title: ‘Diaspora Ad Astra’. Works of Science Fiction will be preferred.

2. Stories must cater to an adult sensibility. However, if you have a Young Adult story that is particularly well-written, send it in.

3. Stories must be written in English.

4. Stories must be authored by Filipinos or those of Philippine ancestry.

5. We will accept only original unpublished stories.

6. First time authors are welcome to submit. Good stories trump literary credentials anytime.

7. No multiple submissions. Each author may submit only one story for consideration. No simultaneous submissions. Authors should not have their stories under consideration to other publications at the time of the submission and consolidation period.

8. Each story’s word count must be no more than 7,500 words.

9. All submissions must be in Rich Text Format (.rtf – save the document as .rft on your word processor) and attached to an email to this address: estranghero@gmail.com. Submissions received in any other format will be deleted unread.

10. The subject of your email must read: DAA Submission: (title) (word count); where (title) is replaced by the title of your short story, without the parentheses, and (word count) is the word count of your story, without the parentheses. For example – DAA Submission: The Constellation of Marcos 4500.

11. All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes your name, brief bio, contact information, previous publications (if any).

12. Deadline for submissions is July 30, 2010. After that date, final choices will be made and letters of acceptance or regret sent out via email.

13.This anthology will be made available online. Target publishing date is August 2010.

14. Compensation is Php500 for every accepted story.

Kindly help spread the word. Feel free to cut and paste or link to this on your blogs or e-groups – and send your story in.

Thanks,

banzai cat

http://estranghero.blogspot.com/

(Nicked from kyu’s site.)

Just a quick word that I’ve managed to recruit the guest editor for Estranghero Press‘ next release: Prof. Emil Flores!

As for the theme/topic of that particular nextrelease? Well, we’ve already come up with two anthos (here and here)– what’s your best guess? (Hint: it’s a genre.)

Following the release of Demons of the New Year, Rocketkapre editor Paolo Chikiamco once more interviewed me on releasing the second anthology. You can read it here.

What’s even more interesting is that as the series grows, I’m learning a lot about the powers and limitations I have as an editor.

Being an editor is more complicated than one might think, and it’s not just about taking the step from writer to editor as one might do from writing to editing. (And we’re not even considering the issues when one’s the writer, editor and publisher as well.)

I keep forgetting to post this series of Rocketkapre interviews for The Farthest Shore but it’s a bitch to backlog. In in any case, head kapre Paolo Chikiamco went around talking to some of the people behind the anthology.

Here they are, the On the Far Shore interviews:

1. Kate Aton-Osias, author of “Light”

2. Crystal Koo, author of “Wildwater”

3. Dominique Cimafranca, author of “Rite of Passage”

4. Eliza Victoria, author of “The Just World of Helena Jimenez”

5. Mia Tijam, author of “Spelling Normal”

Likewise, he talks to me about being both the editor, publisher and writer in the anthology.

Thanks Pao!

“Demons of the New Year: Horror from the Philippines”, an e-anthology by Karl de Mesa and myself is now ready for viewing.

We’re still having some issues with how one story looks on the site (looks at adam crossly) but the patch you’ll see on the site is only temporary until our designer comes back from fighting the good fight in the name of Google against China.

Until then, enjoy the frights!

Tyron Caliente is really good.

I’ve just seen the cover of the upcoming e-anthology we’re coming up, Demons of the New Year, and I’m so excited to let it fly free into the wild. But rather than wasting air talking, I’ll let you decide by checking it out.

And because Tyron has a sense of humour and he also wishes that this online antho becomes a real boy– er a real book, he decided to come out with an imagined vision of this one in book form.

Yes, damn you Tyron for teasing on what-could-be and what-may-be. Oh the humanity…