Bikol Writer to Present Poetics at UP Writers' Workshop

Bikol writer and Ateneo de Naga lecturer Kristian Sendon Cordero is set to participate as writing fellow for Filipino poetry in the annual Writers' Workshop sponsored by the University of the Philippines' Institute of Creative Writing (UP-ICW) which will be held in Baguio City this April 4-11, 2010.
Cordero, author of three award winning collections of poetry in two Bikol languages and Filipino, and a recipient of various literary awards including the Arejola Awards, Palanca, NCCA Writers' Prize, and the Maningning Miclat Poetry Prize is considered as the region's enfant terrible in Bikol contemporary writings. He will read an essay on his poetics and present his current literary project in the presence of literary luminaries like National Artists for Literature Virgilio Almario, Bienvenido Lumbera, avant-garde novelist Jun Cruz Reyes and Dean Roland Tolentino who is also this year's workshop director.
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. Cordero was a fellow for Bikol poetry in 2003.
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.