Graswurzel-Publikationen in Asien

Yasmin Arquiza is the author and editor of more than 20 books about environmental issues and indigenous peoples in the Philippines. She has worked as an international news reporter for Agence France-Presse and Associated Press, as a community journalist for Bandillo ng Palawan, and as managing editor for GMA News Online. A graduate of the University of the Philippines and the New School for Social Research in New York, she was awarded a Bellagio fellowship for the Reuters Foundation Programme at Oxford University and a Ford Foundation-International Fellowship Program scholarship at the Asian Institute of Management. She is the founder of Pawikan Press, an independent publishing house that specializes in books about the culture and environment of Mindanao and Palawan.

Ronald II Verzo is the publisher behind Isang Balangay Media Productions (Balangay Books), a publishing house he envisioned as a platform for empowering local and grassroots literature, readership, and publishing. Under his leadership, Balangay Books won the Gintong Aklat Award for Best Independent Publisher in 2024 and has received multiple Philippine National Book Awards, Madrigal-Gonzales Best First Book Awards, and the Filipino Readers’ Choice Awards. The press is also a founding member of The Indie Publishers Collab PH, a collective of small presses across the Philippines.

Beyond publishing, Verzo has played a significant role in the literary community. He served as the editor of Lita: Poems on Women, which won the Filipino Reader’s Choice Award for Best Book of Poetry in 2012. He also co-translated John Green’s novel Paper Towns into Filipino. His poetry-memoir, May Hindi Maalalang Mga Pangalan, was recently published as part of Aklat Ulagad’s Signap Series. Additionally, he co-founded the Cavite Young Writers Association and led the organization as its president for its first seven years.

Jane Arguelles is the owner and general manager of Grana Books. She has over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, and brand development across the hospitality, wellness, and publishing industries. A grantee at the 2024 Frankfurter Buchmesse, she runs Grana Books with her husband, Mesandel V. Arguelles, a Filipino author who is also published internationally, and her daughter, Maria Rilke Arguelles, a fellow Filipino author.