Fiction in English
Vanessa Cabacungan
Louize Gonzales
I am a member of The Filipino Group, based on Goodreads, since 2009. I write about books I read through my blog, The Page Walker (via Blogger.com), and through a collaboration blog, The Short Story Station (via WordPress.com). I am reader since childhood, grew into reading a variety of fiction… fairy tales and fables still included.
Kelly Lim
Fiction in Filipino (or Taglish)
Kim Dela Cruz
Kimberly dela Cruz is a 24 year old freelance photojournalist based in Manila. She likes reading fiction and autobiographies and has read 47 books this year, a couple of books shy from her target of reading 75books this 2014. She is an inactive member of several online bookclubs and is an active member of Goodreads where she tracks her reading and catches up on literary news. Some of her favorite authors are Mario Vargas Llosa, Vladimir Nabokov, Melissa Bank, Neil Gaiman, Jun Cruz Reyes, and David Sedaris.
Kwesi Junsan
Besides reading books and watching movies—though he sleeps and dreams a lot—Kwesi Ian Jay M. Junsan is trying to surpass his masters in De La Salle Araneta Univeristy to conquer the Kingdom Animalia. So far, he is two steps away to his undesired ambition.
Cris Tanjutco
Teacher Cris was a former Language Arts teacher to primary students in Saint Pedro Poveda College. Currently, she is one of the Teacher Fellows of Teach for the Philippines. She is assigned to teach third graders in Holy Spirit Elementary School, a public school in Quezon City. She is very passionate about using literacy as a tool to help in nation building. Check out her thoughts and ideas in http://teacherspetph.wordpress.com.
Romance in English
Ingrid Membrere
Ingrid Mae Membrere is currently working on acquiring a PRC license for Occupational Therapists. She mostly reads (and hoards) Young Adult and Romance Novels in English, but strives to widen her reading repertoire with the help of her bookish homes: Goodreads – The Filipino Group and Pinoy Reads Pinoy Books. She has no book blog, or any blog yet. In the meantime, she is content with rambling in 140 characters or less with occasional hashtags.
Maria Mijares
Hazel Ureta
Hazel falls constantly in love with books. Although quite the busy college student, reading persists as her favorite pastime because exploring worlds and characters is something she enjoys. A strong believer of promoting literature, Hazel dedicatedly shares her love for books on her blog, Stay Bookish. She adores the Young Adult genre wholly but cannot help her addiction to romance and love stories.
Romance in Filipino (or Taglish)
Alona dela Cruz
Alona Dela Cruz works as a Quality Representative for Convergys. She has tons of books she wants to read and her TBR pile is taller than her but that doesn’t stop her from hoarding books like there’s no tomorrow. She spends her time blogging about everything she loves (mostly books) at Off the Wall whenever she isn’t fixated with Asian dramas and online games. She’s a member of The Filipino Goodreads Group since 2011 and has been in love with words for the past two decades.
Zarah Gagatiga
Leia Pabular
Fiction Anthology
Soc Acuna
I’m S. E. Acuna but everybody calls me Socs. I’m active in Flips Flipping Pages and recently in my other book club The Filipino Group in Goodreads. My favorite author is Isaac Asimov, especially his early short stories but I’m always open for new writers — Raymond Carver at the moment.
Bennard Fajardo
Rhea Gulin
Literature major. Teacher. Blogger. Reader
Even though I am a Literature major and a literature teacher, I still take reading as a personal matter. Though it is a privilege to read the weight of the world through Don Delilio, Haruki Murakami and F. Sionil Jose, Stephen Chbosky and David Levithan still holds my heart. And although foreign ideas are definitely amusing, I still hold a strong veneration to the kind of proximity Philippine Literature gives me, especially Edgar Samar’s and Ricky Lee’s works. I am currently running a “personal” blog (as I take book blogging as a personal matter, again) under the name of Outrageous Writer. I wade alone, drifting from one literature event to another.
Young Adult Fiction
Louisse Ang
Kayla de Leon
Kayla (pronounced either Kehy-lah or Kahy-la) is a 16-year-old blogger from the Philippines. She is the future World Emperor, a Slytherin and a daughter of Hades with an obsession for history, Napoleon Bonaparte, and anything related to Russia. Her favorite books include The Book Thief, The Secret History, and A Clockwork Orange.
Activities:
• Blogger at The Bookish Owl
• Booktuber at Karma Kayla (on hiatus)
• Admin of the @SPerkinsPH street team
Chyna Ngie
Chyna Ngie is the creator of Lite-Rate-Ture that quotes flying through pages, a YA & NA blog that reviews all books that have the genre romance. She has been blogging for 3 years and has cooperated with other bloggers, publicist and publishers. Chyna’s blog features those books with potential and those she has come to love. Her blog doesn’t have any limit and so blogging has become her best friend and they won’t be parting ways anytime soon.
Children’s Picture Book
Comics and Graphic Novels
Anton Abad
Anton a.k.a. ValiantMD, started his interaction with books early in life… very, early. His mom was reading Shogun while he was still in her womb. Afterwards, she read him Tolkien and other fantasy novels while he was nursing. She also worked in a library so it was no surprise when she was soon bringing home more books as he was growing up. Because of this influence, Anton preferred books over toys for Christmas, with the exception of Legos, as it was the only toy he could use to act out all the scenes which filled his imagination and dreams. Today, he still loves to read, mostly online fanfiction, as he explores all the what-ifs and could’ve-beens in the stories he encounters. He is still very much in touch with his inner child, still loves to read, to dream, to play and to let his spirit soar.
Galvin Ngo
MJ Tumamac
Xi Zuq (aka MJ Tumamac) of Xi Zuq’s Nook reviews books for Filipino children and young adults.
Poetry
Dianne Acoba
Dianne Acoba runs Oops! I Read A Book Again, a book blog focusing on young adult and new adult literature. While her blog is centered on YA and NA, she still enjoys reading literary fiction and poetry. By day, she works as a science researcher and by night, she is taking up her Master’s degree to become a full-time science nerd. And from the time after dinner until the wee hours of the night, she reads books agonizingly slow, which makes her one sleep-deprived creature. She thought it would be cool to talk about herself in third person until this.
Jasmin Ado
Inconsistency and aggressiveness is both her weakness and strength. Jasmin Ado (Sept 14, 1994 –) is a 20-year old budding Filipino poet from Sta. Mesa, Manila. She was named after a rice by her mom who is a rice farmer from the land of Naval, Biliran. Raised in a very observant Roman Catholic Family, she became an atheist right after her Auntie introduced the Bible during her early childhood years. She’s taking her chances in finishing the course of Bachelor in Secondary Education major in English at Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Manila to learn the makings of being a teacher to teach her mom how to read and write. Her writings have been published in several distinguished poetry collections of different progressive political organizations and recently contributed to “VERSES TYPHOON YOLANDA: A Storm of Filipino Poets” by Meritage Press.
When not writing, she is often found alone contemplating about philosophy, politics, society and science at farthest back seat of busses venturing EDSA. Engaging into discourses and debates, scoring great finds at second-hand bookstores, and hiding in quiet library corners while accompanied by Tchaikovsky in her playlist is her favored way of leisure.
She hopes one day that she’ll contribute to the society by being an influential poet, teacher and a social scientist.
Algel Pitos
Inspirational/Religious
Nitoy Gonzales
Marianito “Nitoy” Gonzales is a 30 something Christian book blogger who wears many hats. But his passion is to preach the gospel and make God know to all men. He blogs at Delighting Grace.
Wilfred Gapas
I’m an English major at the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, and I’m currently writing my thesis on the rhetorical structure/s of argumentative high school campus newspaper editorials in the Philippines. In my spare time, I usually play video games, watch anime, write a lot of stuff, and read a sufficient amount of fiction and non-fiction texts. I’m secretly a huge fan of the Chicken Soup for the Soul book series and many YA, Romance, or Adventure visual novels online. In addition, I also wish to discover more exciting ways of improving reading and critical thinking skills in a language classroom. While I’m still preparing a new book blog, I’m actively tweeting at @gabbysensei.
Bea Valerie Medina
Humor
Clare Almine
Clare is a science teacher by profession, reading specialist by heart. She’s into reading inspirational novels, self-help books and a little bit of Filipiniana until she became a member of Pinoy Reads Pinoy Books that promotes reading Philippine Literature. Now, Filipino books occupy 95% of her bookshelf. Her favorite reads are A Series of Unfortunate Events, Para Kay B, Bata Bata Pa’no Ka Ginawa? and Macarthur. Five People You Meet in Heaven is her all time favorite novel.
Omi Castanar
Omi is into a lot of B’s – beer, bicycles, board games, and of course, books. He reads a lot of sci-fi and fantasy novels and whatever recent hotness BookRiot.com recommends. His all-time favorite novel is “Ready Player One”. Other recent favorites include “Smaller and Smaller Circles”, “Para Kay B”, and “Ancillary Justice”. When he’s not reading in his room or cycling around the Metro, you’ll find Omi playing board games and having a bottle of beer in Cubao X.
Biena Magbitang
Biena is a twenty-something journalist traipsing around Luzon to evade quarter-life crisis while she vacillates from amorous intensity to general ennui. She devours Chick Lit but later discovered that Philippine Literature is her one great love. You can find some of her bookish thoughts when you visit The Library Mistress.
Food & Cookbook
Vlad Bunoan
Josephine Litonjua
I fell in love with reading at four when I stumbled on stories such as Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo’s Sa Pula, Sa Puti and this particular story about a young boy whose mother was dying which hit me really hard. They had no money for neither food nor medicine so the boy gambled by playing kara y krus [toss coin] with the other children. One day, he won so went home immediately only to discover that her mother is already dead. I also loved Efren Abueg’s Mabangis na Lungsod because it made me realize how lucky I was as life can be more cruel especially to orphans like me.
Nowadays, I read anything that interests me. I particularly support Filipino works and I am currently one of Pinoy Read Pinoy Books’ (PRPB) moderators. You can find the group here and you can view my blog here.
Nicole Zapanta
Nicole Zapanta reads books and articles on history, philosophy, languages, narrative nonfiction, historical fiction, dystopian novels, classics, and once in a while, flips through cookbooks. She is drawn to “rebel” books, of stories that go against the norm with unselfish purpose. She is currently absorbed in José Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere.
Nonfiction
Jeanne Christine Cayanan
My name is Justin and I am very thrilled to be a part of this and I can finally put my love for books to use! I am big fan of Science Fiction and my favorite authors are Bradbury and Vonnegut. The last book I’ve finished is Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis and I am currently reading this short story by Rudyard Kipling. Sadly, I don’t have a blog mainly for book reviews and I’m not part of any book clubs but I have influenced some people I’ve met and my friends to read books (or finish at least one book). That still counts, right?
Ezra Ferraz
Marc Teodoro
Marc Teodoro is part of the debate varsity of the University of Santo Tomas. This means that he has the responsibility to be socially aware and up-to-date with the current developments in political, economic and social issues within and without the country. He does so by reading through foreign and local news publications, articles and journals. In order to understand the context of what is happening around us, Marc also reads up on history, basic principles of behaviour and morals, and engages himself through seeing contentions from different perspectives. The works of Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami and Malcolm Gladwell are amongst his favourites, for he believes that these artists give a detached and fair representation of select individuals in society.
Filipino ReaderCon 