With the conclusion of Joseph Nacino’s set and this, tomorrow, the beginning of F.H. Batacan’s, she is the last of the PGS guest-editors.
This little experiment began a year ago with some hopes and more trepidation. Being the reading advocate that I am, the biggest thought on my mind was, and still is, “Would people visit the site and read?” I think that to a certain extent the answer is “Yes”, and I give credit to the names and reputations of my guest-editors. Their story- and author-choices, as well as their own talent in telling tales, carried PGS for well a year. I’m grateful to them, and to their writers, for what they’ve done.
The end of this first calendar year brings to a close the guest-editor project. I don’t wish to bring to others the same responsibility I brought to them these twelve months. Well, not yet, haha. Perhaps it may be worth another go in the future, if there would be those willing to take on a guest-editor stint. But once F.H. Batacan’s four stories are done, the editorship returns to me for the foreseeable future.
This is as good a time as any to remind you all of the call for submissions I made some months ago, the purpose of which is to find new stories for PGS (enough maybe for another year? I should be so lucky. In truth, I’m actually confident that I will be). I have no guest-editors with their names and reputations to carry Philippine Genre Stories, this brand of Pinoy genre fiction I’ve created, but I do have the hope and confidence that the stories of the Pinoy authors out there who will submit, will.
Again, my thanks to the guest-editors, and my constant, constant thanks to all PGS readers. Let’s all keep on reading, folks. And it’ll be my turn to see you all in a couple of months. Cheers!
You pick up any stranger’s thought as readily as you’d pick up a pretty shell by the beach side because all of them, even the most banal ones, catch your eye and you can’t help it. Sometimes a thought is brilliant and hard as a diamond, or edged and serrated like a dagger, or full of intent as a snake is of venom. Sometimes it seems bottomless, smooth and pure like silk, shedding its endless layers the moment you pick it up.
