Philippine Literary Festival 2014 @ Raffles Hotel

For this year's Philippine Literary Festival, I was one of the fortunate ones to be invited as a speaker along with my fellow co writers and other colleagues last Oct. 24, 2014 at Raffles Hotel Makati. When I was asked if I can talk or if I am available for the event, I was actually a bit hesitant. I mostly talk the most whenever me, my friends or my co writers are with me, but I never ever experienced talking in front of many expectant. I was contemplating whether to go or not so I asked my other two booklat co-ambassadors and when they said they will also go, I gave our admin the go signal. Besides, i looked at it as another opportunity and achievement if it would go well.

I was informed almost three weeks before the event. At first I find it really embarrassing. What would I say? How would I convey what I wanted them to understand? Questions as such became a constant reminder from my head. Until I got over it along the way. I mean, sure, it's my first time. But my other co writers will also be having their first time talking in front of this crowd. It was the last minute when I started to rehearse what I was gonna say. Everything is already on my mind, I just had to organize what to say and explain first.

Fortunately, we didn't actually had the hard time finding the hotel since we asked the guards of Glorietta and Rustans for direction. We arrived almost thirty minutes before the event.

This was taken by my pretty co writer, Jeraldine Layson. It was my turn to talk and even though I was very nervous, I got through it. The people are very welcoming. They asked us questions since some of them who are already fan of Philippine Literature did not really expected us to be this young for a published writer. We got through talking about the topic BOOKLAT: A New media for New Generation of Filipino Writers. Its' so nice talking about something you have knowledge with and let other people learn how to use it or to discover it.

After us, the next batch of speakers came to the table to discuss about different genres of stories they have written. It was already late when we were done with speaking but we still had the chance for a groupie. Lol. I'm with my pretty co writer Jeraldine Layson and Ella Mae Medina at my left side.

Before eating, there's this urge inside us to take a group picture in front of the signage of the event. The images were taken from Jeraldine's phone so it's kinda blurry. High Res. images were still on our company's official photographers and I don't have the patience now to wait for them to upload the images. Lol. My liking for posting or typing a post as long as this is very minimal so it's now or never. 

After eating, we wandered a bit on the hotel. We were about to go home but our Big Boss asked for us to join them for a coffee before going home. And as usual, it turned out to be another dinner with the PHR writers, Precious Pages staffs and of course, other LIB writers.

I arrived home past 12am already. It's really tiring but worth it. The experience was great! I got to meet other who's who in the Industry and it's so nice to know that even though they are older and in the business for so long, they still welcomed us, younger writers with open arms. They are even more fascinated since it's just recently that younger writers became published writers bloomed because of WATTPAD.



If you haven't heard of WATTPAD. yet, I suggest you check it out specially if you'r eon of those aspiring writers or simply a reader. You can check BOOKLAT. too, it's like the local version of wattpad. :)