Stories We Build for Our Children 

Gigo Alampay is a writer, editor, lawyer, and developmental worker. Advocating for human rights, democracy, and the environment, he is the founder and executive director of CANVAS (Center for Art, New Ventures & Sustainable Development), established in 2005. Under their flagship program One Million Books for One Million Filipino Children, he authored Safe Space and YouThink, both of which received the National Children’s Book Award in 2022. In 2024, his book How to Raise Your Child won the Gintong Aklat Award for Inspiration. To date, CANVAS has donated more than 500,000 copies of its award-winning books directly to children in disadvantaged communities throughout the Philippines.

Candy Gourlay’s novel Wild Song has just been released in German, translated by Alexandra Rak. The novel is set in a little known historical moment, when indigenous Filipinos were put on display at the 1904 World Fair in St Louis Missouri. Wild Song won the National Children’s Book Award of the Philippines and was listed for the Carnegie Medal, the Caffe Nero Book Award and the Jhalak Prize. Candy was born in the Philippines, grew up under a dictatorship and met her husband during a revolution. She had many adventures as a journalist in Asia, including visiting North Korea in 1987. Then she moved to the UK and found herself writing news about toilet paper, toothpaste and bleach. She pivoted to writing books for children and young adults and was published after nine years of rejection. Her books have been nominated for major prizes in Europe and she has won the National Children’s Book Award of the Philippines twice. Her first novel Tall Story was selected as one of the ‘100 Best Books of the Last 100 Years’ and Bone Talk was listed as a White Ravens Book and is endorsed by Amnesty International.

She lives in London with her family, where she loves dogs, making comics and gardening, in that order.