Authors & Books

Avid Liongoren has made two feature films, several shorts, hundreds of commercials and thousands of artworks, and works in both live action and animated productions. He is the founder of Rocketsheep, a tiny indie animation studio made up of highly talented artists who specialize in animation and friendsheep. Their first feature, Saving Sally (2016), was made with the aid of the CNC French film grant. It went on to win the Jury Prize at the Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF), Portugal’s Fantasporto and South Korea’s Seoul International Cartoon and Animation Festiva (SICAF), as well as several other international awards. Their second film, Hayop Ka! (2020) competed at the prestigious Annecy Festival in France and was purchased by Netflix during the height of the pandemic. He is currently hard at work on film adaptations of Filipino graphic novels. In the several years that Avid has been pursuing film, he has yet to experience financial success so he is always willing to sell his internal organs to fund his projects.

Ipat G. Luna has been engaged in environmental law and policy practice for over three decades. She has managed several foundations and organizations for the conservation of the environment, built local consensus on important policy decisions affecting natural resources and habitats, particularly in protected areas and wetlands and published numerous works in these fields while working in various non-profit organizations and their projects. Before joining government in 2016, she was engaged in independent consulting work as well as community assistance on environmental issues. She was designated as Undersecretary and later Regional Executive Director at the Calabarzon Region of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and was detailed to the Office of Deputy Speaker Loren Legarda until August 2021. Ms. Luna is currently an independent consultant for variouls government policy initiatives, and is a naturalist — a native tree enthusiast, a birdwatcher, sourdough baker and a trained rescue diver.

Over the past two decades, Lio Mangubat has worked as an editor in various print and digital publications in the Philippines, including Spot.ph, Spin.ph, and the Philippine editions of K-Zone and Men’s Health. He has also written for the local editions of Cosmopolitan, Top Gear, Town & Country, and Esquire. In 2021, he founded the independent podcast The Colonial Dept., which continues to bring long-lost stories of Philippine history to life. Select episodes of this podcast were adapted into the book Silk, Silver, Spices, Slaves: Lost Tales from the Philippine Colonial Period, 1565-1946, published in 2024 by Singaporean publisher Faction Press. Lio currently works as the Editor-in-Chief of the Philippine publishing house Summit Books.

Jerico Ray L. Marte is a 38-year-old freelance illustrator who currently does farm work by day with his parents and illustrating commissioned art work by night. He finished Communication Arts studies in 2008 at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. He worked as a production assistant and segment producer for Hero TV until early 2010 and proceeded to do various production-related jobs such as cooking shows and music videos. Sometime in 2014, he made his first official comic book Tanod along with writer and musician Gabriel Chee Kee. He has illustrated for Criselda Yabes in 2023 with her novella Barcelona, which became a 42nd National Book award finalist in the Best Short Fiction Book in English category, and Paolo Herras in 2016 with Strange Natives: The Forgotten Memories of a Forgetful Old Woman, also a finalist in the 36th National Book award under the Best Graphic Literature Category. Strange Natives is now printed in German language and is soon to be printed in Italian and French.

Marlon is an Ifugao and has been serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the Save the Ifugao Terraces Movement (SITMo) since 2009. He is the founder, among others, of the Ifugao Indigenous Peoples Education Center and Community Heritage Galleries, a community venue for heritage education, indigenous archaeology and community development. He is also a consultant for UNESCO Philippine National Commission and the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in the Philippines.

His commitment extends internationally, with affiliations with ICOMOS Philippines and UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Network. He recently did a solo on-site evaluation for ICOMOS for a nominated site in China, which is now in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites.

An accomplished author, Marlon has published extensively on Ifugao culture and archaeology, including his recent works, Decolonizing Ifugao History: Indigenous Archaeology in the Philippines (2022), published by the University of Arizona Press and Ateneo de Naga University Press. He continues his research collaborations with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and is now currently a guest curator for the Fowler Museum while also working on the first volume of an Ifugao Ethnographic Encyclopedia.

Dorian S. Merina is a poet, journalist and translator who lives in the Northern Philippines. He is the author of Di Achichúk: Poems and Images from Batanes (Ateneo de Manila University Press), winner of the 2020 Gintong Aklat Award and a finalist for the Philippines’ National Book Award, two chapbooks of poetry, Stone of the Fish, and The Changegiver, and a spoken word album, Heaven is a Second Language. His new book, yndio arxipelago, will be released by the University of the Philippines Press in late 2025.

For more than fifteen years, Merina has led a community-based project to record and document Laji, the indigenous oral poetry of Batanes. His archiving and translating efforts are open to the public at ivatanlaji.com, a digital space that also preserves the songs, testimonies and stories of elder Laji singers. He is the co-founder of the community library, Aklatan Savidug, in Sabtang, Batanes, and teaches media studies at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is a tribal member of the Ivatan people of Batanes and is of mixed ancestry (Filipino – Irish – German). More about him at dorianmerina.com.

Russell Molina is currently the Chief Digital Officer and founding partner of advertising agency Seven A.D., seven-time winner of the prestigious 4As as Independent Agency of the Year. With close to two decades of advertising experience, he has worked on the world’s biggest brands.

Molina is also a published children’s book author and graphic fictionist with over thirty books to his name. His stories have won in the Palanca Awards, PBBY Salanga Awards, PBBY Larry Alcala Illustrator’s Prize and the National Book Awards. He was also a part of the Honour List of the International Board on Books for Young People. In 2022, Molina was awarded the lifetime achievement award UMPIL’s Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas for his valuable contribution to children’s literature.

Ace Vincent Molo is officer-in-charge of the Editorial and Production Section at the Ateneo de Manila University Press, and is an eight-time Publisher of the Year awardee at the National Book Awards. He joined the university press as junior editor in 2021, and has extensive experience in academic, literary, and legal publishing as well as in book and graphic design. He recently received the Special Award for Book Design for two works at the 2024 Gintong Aklat Awards of the Book Development Association of the Philippines, and he was a finalist for Best Book Design at the 42nd National Book Awards.

Asa Montenejo is a trained architect, practicing graphic designer and illustrator, and president of her family’s business, pioneering children’s book publishing house, Adarna House.

Grace Nono is an engaged scholar who writes at the intersections of shamanism, voice, gender, ecology, and decolonization. She is also a singer, and the director of the Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts.

Nono received her Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology from New York University; her master’s in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines; and her second master’s in Religion from Yale University. She was also awarded a post-doctoral position at the Harvard Divinity School’s Women’s Studies in Religion Program.

Nono has published Babaylan Sing Back: Philippine Shamans, Voice, Gender, and Place, winner in the 2024 National Book Awards (Ateneo University Press 2023; Cornell University Press 2021); Song of the Babaylan: Living Voices, Medicines, Spiritualities of Philippine Ritualist-Oralist-Healers, winner if the 2014 Gintong Aklat Awards and the 2014 Catholic Book Awards (Institute of Spirituality in Asia 2013); and The Shared Voice: Chanted and Spoken Narratives form the Philippines, winner of the 2009 National Book Awards (ANVIL and Fundacion Santiago 2008). She has taught courses at the UN University of Peace, Harvard Divinity School, California Institute of Integral Studies, and the University of the Philippines.

As music performing artist, Nono sings mostly oral traditional songs with sacred themes taught to her by elders in different parts of the Philippines. She has been featured in concerts in over sixty cities/ venues in over twenty countries in Asia, Europe, and North America.

As head of the Tao Foundation, Nono and her team manage three Agusanon-Manobo Schools of Living Traditions; run the Himig, Tula at Galaw ng Ninuno Ninuno/ Philippine Traditional Music, Poetry and Movement Webinar Series; organize the PAMATI Shaman Encounters; and develop the Alima Eco, Agri and Heritage Park.

To date, Nono has won 48 awards for her scholarly, musical, and cultural contributions. For further information pls. visit gracenono.com.

Dina Ocampo is a Professor at the University of the Philippines College of Education where she teaches courses on literacy development, difficulties and research. Presently, she is co-convenor of the Education Research Program at the UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies. She is also the current editor-in-chief of the Philippine Journal on Education Studies. She was Dean of the University of the Philippines College of Education from 2010 to 2013, and from 2013 to 2017 served as Undersecretary for Curriculum and Instruction at the Department of Education. She continues to collaborate with local and international peers in the academe, government and nongovernmental organizations on shared advocacies. Presently, she is a member of the technical committee on teacher education of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II).

Ambeth R. Ocampo, Senator Gil J. Puyat Professor at Ateneo de Manila University, and Distinguished Professorial Lecturer at De La Salle University, is a Public Historian and Independent Curator whose research covers the 19th Century Philippines: its art, culture, and the people who figure in the birth of the Filipino nation. He writes Looking Back, the longest-running editorial page column on history for the Philippines Daily Inquirer. Among his 35 books, Rizal Without the Overcoat has been in print for the past 35 years. Professor Ocampo previously served as President, City College of Manila; President, Philippine Historical Association; Co-Chair, Manila Historical and Heritage Commission; Chairman, National Historical Commission of the Philippines and concurrently Chairman, National Commission for Culture and the Arts. He has held academic appointments at University of the Philippines (Diliman and Baguio), De La Salle University, Chulalongkorn University, Kyoto University, Sophia University, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. His work in public history has been recognized through various honors and awards: the Fukuoka Academic Prize, Ten Outstanding Young Men, Metrobank Outstanding Teacher Award, and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship. He was conferred the Spanish Order of Civil Merit, the French Order of Arts and Letters, and from the Philippines as Knight Grand Officer (Knights of Rizal), the Order of Lakandula (Rank of Bayani),and the Presidential Medal of Merit. In another life, he was a Benedictine monk known as Dom. Ignacio Maria, OSB. Today, he publishes history on his growing Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube channels.

Archie Oclos is a visual artist who works following a thorough exploration of narratives depicting realities of the everyday Filipino. Community work has greatly informed his artistic practice, having traveled to perilous and remote areas all over the Philippines. His deliberate choice of material in his work goes hand-in-hand with the context of the space where the artworks reside. A son of farmers, he himself grew from poverty, and as a child, he did not understand this social disadvantage but instead fondly remembers playing in the rice fields while his family toiled. This is why he firmly chooses to take space for the minorities and the oppressed, reclaiming power and narrative where he once could not. He is currently based in Manila and lives with his six cats.

Katrina F. Olan is the best-selling Pinay sci-fi author, a komiks and webtoon creator, and an Associate Creative Director. She writes about robots, romance and revenge.

Her works have been featured at literary events such as the Philippine Book Festival, Manila International Book Fair, Frankfurt Book Fair, London Book Fair, Aarhus Art Bubble Tegneserie Festival, Southeast Asian Literary Circle Festival, Philippine International Comics Festival, Singapore Comic Con, Angoulême International Comics Festival, and San Diego Comic Con.

Tablay – her best-selling novel — is one of the most loved Filipino science fiction titles. It is also being adapted into a graphic novel, with a successful preview issue debut. Her other works include Makina, Skies Above, and Our Next Seven Weeks. She is also the writer of Sagittarius with Whilce Portacio, Apl de Ap, Kajo Baldisimo and Toon City Manila.

When not writing books, she leads advertising campaigns at an award-winning agency, crafting integrated marketing communication plans for top brands. She specializes in marketing tech, energy, and vehicles, and also writes scripts for commercials on TV, Radio and Digital. Katrina has represented the country at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity 2018 and was the first-ever Filipino student of the Google Creative Campus in Silicon Valley.

She hopes to inspire more women to write science fiction, and uplift the Philippine creative economy. She loves pop culture, travel, D&D, and hopes to pilot a mecha in her lifetime.

Frances Ong holds a master’s degree in Children’s and Adolescent Literature from the University of Surrey-Roehampton in London, United Kingdom. She is the Managing Editor at Tahanan Books for Young Readers, where she has overseen the production and publication of dozens of children’s books. Among the titles she has shepherded through all phases of production are Ay Naku!, Tagu-Taguan, Mang Andoy’s Signs, and the Halo-Halo Histories series—all recipients of the (Philippine) National Children’s Book Award. Fran is also the sectoral representative for publishers of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People.

Marga Ortigas is a veteran international journalist and bestselling author from Manila. After decades of reporting from the frontlines of conflict and climate change for CNN and Al Jazeera, she stepped away from the camera and focused on the page, with her first four books published by Penguin Random House Southeast Asia. She was a British Council Chevening Scholar and was awarded by the International Committee of the Red Cross for Humanitarian Reporting on the Philippines. A storyteller at heart, Marga continues to write—both nonfiction and fiction—with the urgency of a journalist and the intimacy of a poet.

Ned Parfan is the author of three collections of poetry: The Murmur Asylum, Tilt Me and I Bend, and Beloved Antimatter, all published by the University of the Philippines Press. The Vanished, his translation of Chuckberry J. Pascual’s Ang Nawawala published by 19th Avenida Publishing House, was a finalist for Best Translated Book at the National Book Awards in 2024. An assistant professor at the University of Santo Tomas, he currently serves as director of the UST Publishing House and is a member of the board of trustees of the Book Development Association of the Philippines.

Beth Parrocha is a Children’s Picture Book Illustrator with a Bachelor’s Degree in fine Arts, major in Visual Communication, University of the Philippines, QC.

Founding member of Ang INK – Ang illustrador ng Kabataan, the Philippines’ first and only organization of artists dedicated to Children’s illustration.

She has illustrated more than a hundred picture books and is in the process of doing more.

A number of her works has been translated into several languages and has been given national and international awards. In the last five years her works has been recognized, awarded and has been engaged in the following:

• 2021 International Indie Children’s Book Cover Award in the USA for the Pencil Who Would Not Write, published by ABC Educational Development Center
• 7th National Children’s Book Awards Best Reads, 2001-2021 for “BULUL”, together with Mary Ann Ordinario, published by ABC Educational Center
• 7th National Children’s Book Awards Best Reads 2000-2001 for “Ako ay may Kiki”, together with Glenda Oris, published by Lampara Books.
• AFCC Singapore BIGG Curator, 2023
• Key Visual Artist Philippine Book Fair, 2024
• Key Visual Artist for AFCC Singapore, 2024
• 2024 Winner, CMMA Catholic Mass Media Awards for “titser Nanay” with Genaro Gojo Cruz, published by Lampara Books

Chuckberry J. Pascual is a novelist, short story writer, and translator. He is the author of the novels Mars, Watch Out for Zombies!, Mars, Watch Out for more Zombies!, and The Vanishing Village and the short story collections including A Country of Corpses and The Vanished. He has also authored books on ethnography, literary criticism, and literary history such as Entering the Scene: The Movie Theater in Philippine Literature and a Study of Selected Movie Theaters in Recto, What is Most Important, and The Outsider in Literature. He translated into Filipino four short story collections by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo and Miguel Syjuco’s Man Asian winning novel, Ilustrado. He also co-authored a collection of one-act plays, and co-edited two anthologies of queer works. Most of his works have been finalists and winners at the National Book Awards, Gintong Aklat Awards, and National Children’s Book Awards in the following categories: Best Book of Short Fiction, Best Translated Work, Best Anthology, Best Creative Nonfiction, and Kid’s Choice.

Ralph Kristoffer Porio, or Kris, is a director and foreign rights manager for Komiket, a comics and graphic novel publisher from the Philippines that also runs a non-profit organization advocating for Filipino comics. Highly passionate about furthering Filipino comics and supporting Filipino comics creators through efforts like expanding comics readership, aside from his work at the non-profit organization, he has represented Philippine comics titles at international book fairs and rights markets like the Angoulême International Comics Festival and previous Frankfurt Book Fairs.

Kris has also been the technical director for the Philippine International Comics Festival (PICOF) since 2023. Under Komiket, last July 2024 at the PICOF Comics Rights Market, 14 Filipino comics publishers were trained in rights selling, and held the first comics-specific rights market in Asia, selling over 12 Filipino titles to date (negotiations still on-going) in eight countries.