Guest Post: Chris Cheng Reports on the First Manila International Literary Festival
Friday, December 17th, 2010Award winning Australian children’s author Chris Cheng is a passionate literacy advocate and besides writing full-time and being Co-Regional Advisor for SCBWI Australia/New Zealand, he has an extensive schedule of speaking engagements at schools and literacy festivals. Chris recently returned from the Philippines and shares with us his experiences at the First Manila International Literary Festival:
Last month the National Book Development Board of the Philippines held the First Manila International Literary Festival and I was thrilled to be the only Australian (and one of five
international speakers, including Vikas Swarup author of the book Q&A on which the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based) at the festival. The three day festival was titled LOL, Lit Out Loud. There were also many Filipino speakers that included some wonderful poets, columnists and authors.
The Filipinos have a glorious love of poetry and throughout the festival there were breakout panels expressing and discussing the love of poetry – there were also wonderful recitations of poetry on the opening day (many in the Filipino language so even though I couldn’t understand what was being said listing to the sounds being spoken for me was a joy) which begs me to request that we should have more opportunities at festivals and events and in our daily lives for ‘hearing’ poetry being recited.
I was engaged to speak on children’s literature in Australia and abroad, to talk about the changing children’s market and also to talk about my own writing experience and the writing of identity. As I have written a number of very popular children’s titles on the Chinese diaspora; New Gold Mountain, the Melting Pot, and Seams of Gold, this was right up my alley. Talking about identity was extremely powerful for in the Philippines many of the available titles are imported. A very, very small publishing industry exists – they are establishing an identity but it is small.
There were session on graphic novels, travel writing, experimental literature, story telling workshops, gender writing – even a cooking demonstration with book launch – and the food by Mita Kapur (the books is the F Word – we discussed that title and how it would work in Australia!!!)
I was also thrilled to be able to send a short time on Saturday morning talking to the staff at the all girls school – the Immaculate Conception Academy at Greenhills in Manila. My one hour talk on writing and teaching became a two hour talk when they asked for demonstration of how teachers can use everyday objects all around them to be the stimulus for writing! We ‘wrote’ (talked actually) great stories on wall fans and baby elephants!
It was just a delight to the first Australian to speak this festival. As a well-established Australian children’s author I feel it is vital for the established nations with a rich literary heritage to support developing nations who desire one. In Australia we love reading our stories – stories that cast a light on life in the bush, in the suburbs and in the city; stories that feature our native wildlife and our own human characters with their particular follies and foibles; that describe our bushfires or floods, or simply our way of life. Readers in other national also deserve to be able to read their stories as well.
More information about the festival can be found here on my blog.
