The University of the Philippines Institute of Creative Writing (UP ICW) announces the fellows to the 49 th UP National Writers Workshop to be held from April 04 to 11 in Camp John Hay, Baguio City. The fellows and associates of the UP ICW selected twelve writers in mid-career to participate in the annual workshop. This year’s workshop director is UP College of Mass Communication Dean Rolando Tolentino.

This year’s fellows for English are Marc Escalona Gaba and Mabi David Balangue for Poetry, Karl de Mesa, Timothy Montes, and Dada Felix for fiction, and April Yap and Faye Ilogon for creative nonfiction.

Fellows for Filipino are Raya Martin and Jim Libiran for dulang pampelikula, Kristian Cordero and Alwynn Javier for tula , and Jun Sungkit for kuwento.

The workshop panelists are all advisers, fellows, and associates of the ICW. Aside from Dean Tolentino, the panelists are National Artists for Literature Virgilio S. Almario and Bienvenido Lumbera, ICW director Jose Dalisay, Jr., Gemino Abad, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Neil Garcia, Charlson Ong, Conchitina Cruz, Jun Cruz Reyes, Victor Carmelo Nadera, Mario Miclat, and Romulo Baquiran Jr.

Unlike most national writing workshops, the UP National Writers Workshop is only for advanced writers. The UP ICW is the only institution that holds a workshop of this kind in the country. The current workshop format was borne out of the need to address the dearth of venues for writers in mid-career to exchange ideas on their craft and their current literary projects.

Prior to the new format, the UP ICW has held the annual UP National Writers Workshop for the country’s most promising beginning writers since the 1960s. Through the years other writing centers of other universities have instituted their own workshops for beginning writers, thus freeing the UP ICW to address other concerns.

To qualify for the workshop, writers must satisfy the following requirements. (1) must be writers in English or Filipino; (2) must have attended at least one creative writing workshop (national/regional, including the UP National Writers’ Workshops), or earned a degree in Creative Writing/Malikhaing Pagsulat, or won at least one national/international literary award; (3) must have published at least three poems or two short stories or two pieces of creative nonfiction (e.g., essays, memoirs, profiles) in reputable collections or anthologies, journals, magazines (including campus publications), or refereed Internet web magazines, or have had a stage- or screenplay produced.