Last November I attended the awards ceremonies for the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award, which covers books in English released in 2021-2022. For over 20 years, UP Institute of Creative Writing and the Madrigal Gonzalez Foundation have been handing out this award annually to authors’ first books, each year alternating between books in English and Filipino. I wanted to win this award, because you can only get nominated once in your lifetime, sort of like the Grammy’s Best New Artist. I didn’t win, and although it’s cliche I’m happy and honored to have been one of the five nominees for all first books released in the past two years. The winner was John Bengan’s Armour, a short story collection about the EJK’s in his native Davao City in the early 2000s. Other nominees were King Llanza’s All My Distances Point to Home (poetry), Coming Home to the Island (poetry) by Arlene Yandug, and Alandal (graphic novel) by J. Philip Ignacio. I console myself by the fact that Alanis Morissette, Keane, and Britney Spears all lost the Best New Artist award.

A friend, sir Noel, told me last week that he watched the FB Live telecast, and he said I looked uncharacteristically nervous. I was very nervous, because as we were being interviewed on stage we didn’t know who has won. Judges were Sir Butch Dalisay, Ruel de Vera of Inquirer, and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta. Had the pleasure of spending time with my co-nominees, and hope I can see them again in future literary events. One of the treats of getting nominated for something is having a citation written for your work. To be honest I would be happy with a one word citation for Even Ducks Get Liver Cancer: “Hilarious!”, but this long citation, read by Mr. de Vera, really warms my heart. Thank you UP Likhaan and Madrigal Gonzalez!

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