7th Pagsurat Bikol to honor Vincentian Schools' founders

Preparations are underway for the 7^th Juliana Arejola-Fajardo Workshop sa Pagsurat-Bikol, Bicol’s only annual creative writing workshop. Traditionally held in the summer months, the write-shop is finally scheduled on November 27 and 28 at the Our Lady’s Hall of the St. Louise de Marillac School (SLMS) in Pili, Camarines Sur.

To honor of the 350^th death anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac, founders of the Pauline order of priests and the Daughters of Charity respectively, this year’s Pagsurat Bikol workshop is open only to the student writers and literature teachers of the Vincentian schools in Camarines Sur, Pili’s SLMS and the Universidad de Santa Isabel in Naga City.

Workshop convener Carlos A. Arejola will conduct a creative non-fiction seminar during the two-day write-shop, a reprise of the workshop he conducted for the Department of Education Camarines Sur Division Office sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in August this year.

Arejola, who is sitting for a second 3-year term in the National Committee for Literary Arts, was a panelist at the recent Ateneo de Manila National Writers’ Workshop and is scheduled to read a paper at the Writing in Luzon panel of the 53^rd Philippine PEN Confab in Cebu City on December.   

Also slated for a last quarter staging is the 7^th Premio Tomas Arejola para sa Literaturang Bikolnon, previously held during the September Peñafrancia festivities. This year’s awards rites is slated on the last week of December in the charming garden fronting the Museo de Caceres in the historic grounds of the Holy Rosary Minor Seminary in Naga City.

Top entries in the poetry, fiction, drama, children’s fiction, essay categories and the newly-launched screenplay for short films category, along with winners of the Premio Bibiano Sabino Bikol Book Award, the Rawit-dawit para ki Ina, and the Writer of the Year will be honored at the December awards rites.  The Premio Arejola is widely regarded as the region’s premiere literary prize.