There Is Real Beauty In My Eyes

Growing Up In The Philippines, I Loved All Kinds Of Movies. We Had A Very Healthy Film Industry There When I Was A Child. It's Now Gotten Very Limited. They Only Make Action Movies And Hard-core Exploitation Movies. Women Get Raped; Men Get Shot.

I Don't Know What Issues Concerning Identity Have Helped Contemporary Fiction Evolve To What It Is Now. All I Know Is That The Range Of Voices That Are Being Heard And Published Is A Lot More Diverse Than When I Was Coming Up.

There Were Also Horror Shows On The Radio. Very Terrifying And Thrilling To Me As A Kid. They Had All These Creepy Sound Effects. They Would Come On At Ten O'clock At Night, And I Just Would Scare Myself To Death.

Hybridity Keeps Me From Being Rigid About Most Things. It Has Taught Me To Appreciate The Contradictions In The World And In My Life. I Scavenge From The Best.

All The Fabulous And Fearless Writers Gathered Here, Whether They Are Living In Manila, The Us, Or Elsewhere In The Ever-growing Philippine Diaspora, Have A Deep Connection And Abiding Love For This Crazy-making, Intoxicating City. There's Nothing Like It In The World, And They Know It.