CONTRIBUTORS: THE NOVELISTS

Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines. He is a nature lover, an environmental advocate, and loves all animals particularly dogs. His poetry and fiction have appeared in hundreds of literary journals and anthologies, including Windhover, The Lyric, Star*Line, Poetry Kanto, Dark Matter, Marsh Hawk Review, That Literary Review and The Anglican Theological Review. His poetry collections include Meditations (Alien Buddha Press), Songs from My Mind’s Tree and Multiverse (Clare Songbirds Publishing House), 50 Acrostic Poems (Cyberwit, India), In the Donald’s Time(Poetic Justice Books and Art), and his speculative poetry collection, Pan’s Saxophone (Weasel Press). He loves to self-study the sciences. Healers is his first novel.

John Bloomberg-Rissman is an editor and mashup ethnographer slash maker of texts. Among other projects, he has co-edited one volume of the series Poems for the Millennium and a two-volume anthology called The End of the World Project, as well as currently co-editing The Collected Poems and Verse Translations of Anselm Hollo. His own work is ongoing and has been for about 15 years. It's called Zeitgeist Spam, of which three sections have been published; the fourth is currently in progress. He is aging-in-place in San Diego, California. 

Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the award-winning author and editor of twenty-one books, including the novels: When the Rainbow Goddess Wept, The Newspaper Widow, Magdalena; and short stories collections:  Vigan and Other Stories, Acapulco at Sunset and Other Stories, and Woman With Horns and Other Stories. Her work has been translated into Finnish and Turkish, and many of her writings are used in classrooms. Cecilia has received a California Arts Council Fellowship in Fiction, a Brody Arts Fund Award, a Special Recognition Award for her work dealing with Asian American youths, as well as a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Senate, 21st District. She received the prestigious Filipinas Magazine Arts Award, and the Outstanding Individual Award from her birth city, Cebu, Philippines. She has received several travel grants from the USIS (United States Information Service). She has lectured and performed in worldwide literary arts organizations and universities, including UCLA, USC, University of Connecticut, University of the Philippines, PEN, Beyond Baroque, Shakespeare & Company in Paris, and many others. Her website is http://ceciliabrainard.com

Cynthia Buiza lives in Los Angeles and runs a non- profit helping immigrants and refugees in California. She is also a California State Commissioner. Her poems and essays have appeared in Ani, The Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday Magazine, Our Own Voice, Tayo Magazine, Migozine, Chopstick Alley, Paloma Press anthology collections and other anthologies in the U.S.

Luke G. Casipe – A poet of Surrealistic, Metaphysical and Political poetry, heavily influenced in that area by Filipino poets like Jessica Hagedorn and Sam Tagatac. Is also a novelist (working on 1^st novel) inspired by writers like Tom Clancy, Larry Bond, Dan Brown, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, David Brin, Bienvenido Santos, Jose Rizal, Carlos Bulosan, Kim Harrison, Peter Hamilton, Carl Von Clauswitz, Sun Tsu, Mickey Spillane, Tanith Lee, Marshall McLuhan, the list goes on.

Holly Crawford is cross media artist, behavioral scientist, economist and art historian. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Essex in Art History and Theory, B.A  and M.A. in Economics and M.S. in Behavioral Science from UCLA.  From 2004-2006, she was a non-clinical Fellow at NYU Medical School Psychoanalytic Center.  Her art and poetry (www.art-poetry.info) give new meanings and draws categories themselves into question through transformative juxtapositions. Publications: Attached to the Mouse, 2006 and catalogue essay, “Disney and Pop” in Once Upon a Time Walt Disney Studio; Artistic Bedfellows, edited, 2008 and 7 Days, My Art Life, edited, 2017.  Projects: Critical Conversations in a Limo, NY 2006 & 2007 in Melbourne and 2008 in San Francisco; Offering, Orphans, Punctuation Performance and other projects.  AC which she created and directs, www.acinstitute.org is a non-profit in NYC for research, exhibition and publication of contemporary art. She was born in California and now lives New York.

Fiction and arts writer Lynn Crawford is a founding board member of Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD), a 2010 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow, and a 2016 Rauschenberg Writing Fellow. Her work appears in various anthologies (Oulipo Compendium, Fetish, Detroit Research, Brooklyn Rail, Fence) and journals (Art in America, Infinite Mile, Hyperallergic, Tema, Celeste, McSweeney’s, Lilies and Cannonballs, Parkett, Bookforum, Metro Times). Most recently she contributed a story, “TNW and Me” to The-N-Word, a monograph on African-American painter Peter Williams, and an essay to Detroit, The Dream is now, a collection of photographs of art food and design by Michael Arnaud (Abrams Books). Her books include, Solow, Blow, Fortification Resort, a series of art-related sestinas, Simply Separate People, Simply Separate People, Two and  Shankus & Kitto: A Saga. Her newest novel, Paula Regossy, was published in May, 2020 by Trinosophes, Detroit. Lynn earned a MSW from New York University and has worked in various psychiatric, community, hospital, museum and school settings. She lives with her family north of Detroit.

Tess Crescini was born and raised in Pasay City, Philippines. She graduated from San Jose State University with a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a Masters in Engaged Humanities with emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her poetry can be found in Reed Magazine, Maganda Magazine, Stay Awhile: Poetic Narratives on Multiculturalism and Diversity, Hay(na)Ku15 anthology, among others. Her fiction and nonfiction work has appeared in many anthologies: Three: An Anthology of Flash Nonfiction, Philippine American Short Story anthology, Field of Mirrors anthology, and Beyond Lumpia, Pansit and Seven Manangs Wild anthology. The main subject of her poetry, short stories, and nonfiction are about the role of a woman of color straddling the identities of her Filipino and American culture.  She writes to heighten the awareness of writing as a political, social, and literary tool in her community. Tropical Storm is the first chapter of her book in progress, Two Countries, One Ocean.

Heather L. Davis is a fan of 5 a.m. writing sessions, strong coffee, and neurodiverse brains. Her books of poems The Lost Tribe of Us won the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Gargoyle, Northern Virginia Review, and Fledgling Rag. She also writes fiction and nonfiction and works full-time in international public health communications. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband, the poet Jose Padua, and their daughter and son. 

Ken Edwards is a writer and musician. His many books are listed on his personal website/blog.  He ran the small press REALITY STREET, which published more than 60 titles comprising mainly poetry but also other sorts of imaginative writing, between 1993-2016. Reality Street continues, but no longer publishes new titles. These days Ken plays bass guitar with the St Leonards-based band Afrit Nebula.

Sesshu Foster taught composition and literature in East L.A. for 35 years. His most recent books are World Ball Notebook (City Lights, 2008); and City of the Future, poetry (Kaya Press, 2018). His forthcoming novel, a collaboration with artist Arturo E. Romo, is ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines (City Lights, 2020), an "actual history of a fictional airship company": "Written and presented as an 'actual history of a fictional company,' this surrealist, experimental novel is a tour de force of politicized fantastic fiction, a work of hybrid art-making distilled into a truly original literary form. Developed over a ten-year period of collaborations, community interventions, and staged performances, ELADATL is a furiously hilarious send-up of academic histories, mainstream narratives, and any traditional notions of the time-space continuum."

Ed Go’s writing has appeared in multiple print and online journals, and his chapbook Deleted Scenes from the Autobiography of Ed Go as told by Napoleon Id is available from Other Rooms Press. Find him online at edgosblog.wordpress.com

 

Lee Matthew Goldberg is the author of the novels THE ANCESTOR, THE MENTOR, THE DESIRE CARD and SLOW DOWN. He has been published in multiple languages and nominated for the 2018 Prix du Polar. His first YA series RUNAWAY TRAIN is forthcoming in 2021 along with a sci-fi novel ORANGE CITY. After graduating with an MFA from the New School, his writing has also appeared in The Millions, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, LitReactor, Monkeybicycle, Fiction Writers Review, Cagibi, Necessary Fiction, the anthology Dirty Boulevard, The Montreal Review, The Adirondack Review, The New Plains Review, Underwood Press and others. He is the editor-in-chief and co-founder of Fringe, dedicated to publishing fiction that’s outside-of-the-box. His pilots and screenplays have been finalists in Script Pipeline, Book Pipeline, Stage 32, We Screenplay, the New York Screenplay, Screencraft, and the Hollywood Screenplay contests. He is the co-curator of The Guerrilla Lit Reading Series and lives in New York City. Follow him at LeeMatthewGoldberg.com

M. Liberto Gorgoni lives on a matrix of faultlines. His work has appeared in the Eunoia Review and Otoliths. He lights the sun with questionable lucidities behind the Hollywood sign.

Vince Gotera teaches at the University of Northern Iowa, where he served as Editor of the North American Review (2000-2016). He is also former Editor of Star*Line, the print journal of the international Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association (2017-2020). His poetry collections include Dragonfly, Ghost Wars, Fighting Kite, The Coolest Month, and the upcoming Pacific Crossing. Recent poems appeared in Altered Reality Magazine, Crab Orchard Review, Dreams & Nightmares, The Ekphrastic Review, Philippines Graphic (Philippines), Rosebud, The Wild Word (Germany) and the anthologies Multiverse (UK), Dear America, and Hay(na)ku 15. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar.

Andrew Joron is the author of The Absolute Letter, a collection of poems published by Flood Editions (2017). Joron’s previous poetry collections include Trance Archive: New and Selected Poems (City Lights, 2010), The Removes (Hard Press, 1999), Fathom (Black Square Editions, 2003), and The Sound Mirror (Flood Editions, 2008). The Cry at Zero, a selection of his prose poems and critical essays, was published by Counterpath Press in 2007. From the German, he has translated the Literary Essays of Marxist-Utopian philosopher Ernst Bloch (Stanford University Press, 1998) and The Perpetual Motion Machine by the proto-Dada fantasist Paul Scheerbart (Wakefield Press, 2011). As a musician, Joron plays the theremin in various experimental and free-jazz ensembles. Joron teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University.

Caroline Kennedy has worn many hats in her life – radio producer, journalist, author, theatre director, actor, humanitarian aid worker, mother, grandmother and intrepid traveller. Her number one best-selling book, How the English Establishment Framed Stephen Ward, was turned into a musical by Andrew Lloyd-Weber. She currently lives in Los Angeles and is divorced from Filipino National Artist, Ben Cabrera (BenCab) with whom she has three children, Elisar, Mayumi and Jasmine. Their son, Elisar, died of cancer in July 2020. 

Martha King, born in Virginia in 1937, attended Black Mountain College in the summer of 1955 and soon after left the South for San Francisco where she married Basil King. They have lived in NYC since 1958. Her recent books are her memoir Outside / Inside, just outside the art world's inside (2018), and a whodunit Max Sees Red (2019). She is looking forward to a reading with Margaret Randall at the Poetry Project at St. Marks which had to be postponed until 2021. Both of them will read from their memoirs.

 

John Leadbeater (1917–2005) was born in West Bromwich in the industrial heartlands of the English West Midlands. After serving in the Royal Navy during the Second World War he settled down to married life in Wolverhampton. He spent the greater part of his working life as Joint Managing Director of a firm in neighbouring Willenhall that was a manufacturer of metal pressings. Deeply affected by his wartime experience, he became a Quaker and joined the local Society of Friends. Passionate about sport, he was a lifelong member of West Bromwich Football Club and Worcestershire Cricket Club. For a period of several years he took up writing in his spare time, completing two novels and a series of short plays. After the death of his first wife, he married an American whom he met in Cambridge, England. He and his second wife moved to Somerset in his retirement where he took up painting as an alternative to writing.

 

Neil Leadbeater is an author, essayist, poet and critic living in Edinburgh, Scotland. His short stories, articles and poems have been published widely in anthologies and journals both at home and abroad. His publications include Librettos for the Black Madonna (White Adder Press, Scotland, 2011); The Worcester Fragments (Original Plus Press, England, 2013); The Loveliest Vein of Our Lives (Poetry Space, England, 2014),  The Fragility of Moths (Bibliotheca Universalis, Romania, 2014) and Penn Fields (Littoral Press, 2019). His work has been translated into several languages.

Eugene Lim is the author of the novels Fog & Car, The Strangers, Dear Cyborgs and the forthcoming Search History (Coffee House Press, 2021). His writings have appeared in Granta, The Baffler, The Believer, Fence, Little Star, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. He is the librarian at Hunter College High School, runs Ellipsis Press, and lives in Queens, NY.

Mary Mackey became a writer by running high fevers, tramping through tropical jungles, dodging machine gun fire, being swarmed by army ants, making catastrophic decisions about men, and reading. Her published works consist of fourteen novels including The Village of Bones, which won a 2018 CIIS Women’s Spirituality Book Award from the Department of Diversity and Inclusion; The Year The Horses Came; and A Grand Passion, which was translated into 12 foreign languages and made The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle best seller lists. She is also the author of eight collections of poetry including Sugar Zone, which won the 2012 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award; and The Jaguars That Prowl Our Dreams, which won the 2019 Eric Hoffer Award for the Best Book Published by a Small Press. Her work has been praised by Wendell Berry, Pat Conroy, Jane Hirshfield, D. Nurkse, Al Young, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Marge Piercy for its beauty, precision, originality, and extraordinary range. Professor Emeritus and Former Writer in Residence at California State University, Sacramento, she received her B.A. from Harvard and her PhD from the University of Michigan. Mackey, who presently lives with her husband in northern California, is related through her father’s family to Mark Twain. You can contact her at https://marymackey.com/ and follow her on Twitter @MMackeyAuthor. To be the first to know when she publishes a new novel or collection of poems you can subscribe to her quarterly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/CrLHT

Monica Macansantos holds an MFA in Writing from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in Creative Writing from the Victoria University of Wellington. Her work has been recognized with residencies from Hedgebrook, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Storyknife Writers Retreat, the I-Park Foundation, and Moriumius. Excerpts from her unpublished novel, People We Trust, have appeared or are forthcoming in Anomaly, WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly, TAYO, and Oyster River Pages, while her nonfiction has recently appeared in Vol.1 Brooklyn, Lunch Ticket, The Pantograph Punch, Another Chicago Magazine, SBS Voices, and VICE. 

Brian Marley has published books of poetry, music criticism and fiction. His novel, Apropos Jimmy Inkling [Grand Iota, 2019], revealed that when gangsterism meets showbiz the possibilities are limitless and all bets are off. A palimpsest novel, Crime, My Destiny, set largely in Soho, will follow in due course.

Jim McCrary lives in Lawrence, KS with his wife, Sue Ashline a painter. Latest work coming in an anthology of text based on thoughts about the I35 corridor which splits us here in the middle. Latest DIY chapbook Red Hot Sonnets. Working on new series titled Late Lost Last poems.  Has outlived all his expectations and turns 80 in September (2021).

Sandy McIntosh is a poet and memoirist. He is publisher of Marsh Hawk Press. More information is available at www.sandymcintosh.info

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan currently lives in Ottawa, where he is home full-time with the two wee girls he shares with Christine McNair. He is the author of three works of fiction—white (Mercury Press, 2007), Missing Persons (Mercury Press, 2009) and The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books, 2014)—as well as two collections of literary essays, a tourist guide to Ottawa and more than two dozen full-length poetry titles, the most recent of which include A halt, which is empty (Mansfield Press, 2019) and Life sentence, (Spuyten Duyvil, 2019), with a further poetry title forthcoming in 2022 from University of Calgary Press. He won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2010, the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2012 and 2017. In March, 2016, he was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour. An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground press, Touch the Donkey (touchthedonkey.blogspot.com) and periodicities: a journal of poetry and poetics (periodicityjournal.blogspot.com). He is editor of my (small press) writing day, and an editor/managing editor of many gendered mothers. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices at robmclennan.blogspot.com

Reine Arcache Melvin, born and raised in Manila, is a Filipina-American writer and the author of A Normal Life and Other Stories and The Betrayed (Ateneo de Manila University Press). The Betrayed won both the National Book Award and the Palanca Grand Prize for the Novel. A Normal Life won the National Book Award for fiction, and was translated into French and published as Une Vie Normale (Esprit des Peninsules, Paris). She has an MFA in Writing and Literature from Warren Wilson. She received first prize in the Philippine Graphic Literary Awards and a Standard Chartered Bank fellowship to the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, and has been a participant and panelist at the Ubud Writers’ Conference, Bread Loaf, the AWP Conference in the U.S., the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, University of London), and other literary events and festivals. Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary reviews and anthologies in the United States, France and the Philippines. She has worked as a journalist, translator and editor for various international publications, including the International Herald Tribune; co-edited literary reviews in New York and Paris; and edited an anthology of contemporary Philippine poetry. She lives in Paris.

Joe Mendoza graduated with a BA in English in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University in 2019.  He published a book of poetry and a short story titled, “Dear Father, I am Maria” in 2019. Now 56, his wanderlust has him temporarily situated away from Berkeley and in his hometown of Davao, Philippines. He previously worked for the University of California–Berkeley and Accenture. He plans to release his second book of poetry and debut novel, Kismet at the Durian Tree, in 2021.

Sharon Mesmer is a poet and prose writer dividing time between Brooklyn, NY and rural PA, and trying to find the magic in this shadow-of-a-garbage-fire year. 

Eunice Barbara C. Novio is a Thailand-based freelance journalist. She is also an English for Foreign Language (EFL) Lecturer at Vongchavalitkul University in Nakhon Ratchasima. Her articles have appeared on Asia Correspondent, America Media, and the Nation. She is also a contributor to the Bangkok Post and Thai Enquirer and a stringer to Inquirer.net. She is a two-time Plaridel Awardee from the Philippine American Press Club. Some of her poems are published in the Philippines Graphic, Sunday Times, Dimes Show Review, Blue Mountain Arts, Ha(y)naku, and elsewhere. Her first poetry chapbook O, Matter was translated in Thai. It is currently available in Thailand.

Jose Padua was born in Washington, DC and is a veteran of New York’s spoken word literary scene. His first book. A Short History of Monsters, was chosen by Billy Collins as the winner of the 2019 Miller Williams Poetry Prize and is out from the University of Arkansas Press. His poetry and essays appear regularly at Vox Populi (voxpopulisphere.com) and he writes the blog Shenandoah Breakdown. After spending over ten years with his wife (the poet Heather L. Davis) and children in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, he and his family are back in his hometown, Washington DC.

Cristina Querrer was born and raised in the Philippines, post-Vietnam War, during the Marcos regime, pre-Mount Pinatubo eruption, as a (US Air Force) military child. She graduated high school from former Wagner High School, Clark Air Force Base, Philippines, in 1985 and received her MFA in Creative Writing. Querrer has two published books of poetry, By Astrolabes & Constellations and The Art of Exporting. She is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and podcaster: You can listen to her podcast at http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes and visit her website at: http://cristinaquerrer.com. The Butterfly Catcher is her first novel-in-progress set in the Cordillera mountain region of the Philippines during World War II.

Cymbeline Refalda-Villamin graduated with an AB in Literature from Far Eastern University and studied Creative Writing at Ateneo de Manila University. She was a writing fellow in the National Writers’ Summer Workshop–University of the Philippines in 1976. Some of her works are available at Amazon.

Tony Robles, "The People's Poet," was born in San Francisco and currently resides in Western North Carolina. He is the 2020 Carl Sandburg Writer in Residence and an individual artist grantee of the San Francisco Art Commission. 

Renee Macalino Rutledge is an Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices finalist and 35 Over 35 honoree, and her debut novel, The Hour of Daydreams, is a 2017 Foreword INDIES Gold Winner and Powell’s Top 5 Staff Pick. She works as a nonfiction book editor for Ulysses Press and is currently completing her second novel.

Christopher X. Shade is author of the novel The Good Mother of Marseille (2019) and the book of poems Shield the Joyous (2020). He is co-founder and co-editor of Cagibi, at cagibilit.com, a journal of poetry and prose. He teaches fiction and poetry writing at The Writers Studio. Raised in the South, he now lives in New York City. His debut book of poems Shield the Joyous (April 2020) is about the loss of loved ones to the disease of addiction. Visit christopherxshade.com.

M. Earl (Martin) Smith is an instructor of English and creative writing at Somerset Community College, in Somerset, Kentucky. His scholarship includes work in the fields of rare books, material texts, the history of the book, writing for children and young adults, and local/regional history. He has authored 11 books, with volumes on local history, the history of sports, children’s nonfiction, and literary fiction. Martin holds degrees from Chatfield College, Morehead State University, Pine Manor College, and the University of Pennsylvania. He currently resides in Somerset with his two children (Nicholas and Leah) and his two Shetland Sheepdogs (Che and Berry).

Emily St. Marie has a bachelor's degree in Linguistics from the University of Alberta. She writes YA fiction, historical fiction, memoir, and short stories. Her first novel The Old-Fashioned Dollhouse is set to be completed in 2022; Twitter and Instagram links are, respectively, https://twitter.com/theolddollhouse and https://www.instagram.com/oldfashioneddollhouse/ . Her first book, Meet the Mermaid Babies, is an easy reader for young children available at Amazon.

Eileen R. Tabios has released over 60 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in ten countries and cyberspace. In 2021 she released her first long-form novel, DOVELION: A Fairy Tale for Our Times. In previously attempting the novel, she couldn't get past seven chapters, but managed to release a collection of these short novels: SILK EGG: Collected Novels 2009-2009  (Shearsman, 2011). Her 2020 books include a short story collection, PAGPAG: The Dictator’s Aftermath in the Diaspora; a poetry collection, The In(ter)vention of the Hay(na)ku: Selected Tercets 1996-2019; and her third bilingual edition (English/Thai), INCULPATORY EVIDENCE: Covid-19 Poems. Her award-winning body of work includes invention of the hay(na)ku, a 21^st century diasporic poetic form, and the MDR Poetry Generator that can create poems totaling theoretical infinity, as well as a first poetry book, Beyond Life Sentences, which received the Philippines’ National Book Award for Poetry. Translated into 11 languages, she also has edited, co-edited or conceptualized 15 anthologies of poetry, fiction and essays. More information is available at http://eileenrtabios.com 

Jason Tanamor is the critically acclaimed author of the novels Anonymous and Drama Dolls. His new novel Vampires of Portlandia is a NA urban fantasy about Filipino folklore -- aswang.

His writings have appeared in more than 250 publications. He's interviewed personalities such as Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins), Pete Rose, and Dane Cook, and has covered U.S. President Barack Obama.

Tanamor currently lives and works in the Portland, Oregon area.

Addie Tsai teaches courses in literature, creative writing, dance, and humanities at Houston Community College. She collaborated with Dominic Walsh Dance Theater on Victor Frankenstein and Camille Claudel, among others. Addie holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman's University. The author of the queer Asian young adult novel Dear Twin, her writing has been published in Banango Street, The Offing, The Collagist, The Feminist Wire, Nat. Brut., and elsewhere. She is the Nonfiction Editor at The Grief Diaries, Assistant Fiction Editor at Anomaly, and Associate Editor at Raising Mothers.

Born as Belinda Ty in Malabon, Philippines in 1931, Linda Ty-Casper spent the World War II years with her grandmother while her father worked in the Philippine National Railways, and her mother in the Bureau of Public Schools. Her grandmother told her innumerable stories about the Filipino's struggle for independence, that later became the topics of her novels. Linda Ty Casper graduated valedictorian in the University of the Philippines, and later earned her Master's degree in Harvard University for International Law. In 1956, she married Leonard Casper, a professor emeritus of Boston College who is also a critic of Philippine Literature. They have two daughters and reside in Massachusetts.
        Her works include the historical novel DreamEden and the political novels Awaiting Trespass, Wings of Stone, A Small Party in a Garden, and Fortress in the Plaza. She has also published three collections of short stories which present a cross-section of Filipino society.

        In 1992, Tides and Near Occasions of Love won the Philippine PEN short story prize; another at the UNESCO International Writers' Day, London; and the SEAWrite Award in Bangkok. "Triptych for a Ruined Altar" was in the Roll of Honor of The Best American Short Stories, 1977.

        Her novel Awaiting Trespass which is about the politically sensitive theme of torture by the Marcos regime was published by Readers International of London. This work gained her major critical attention in the United States for the first time, and in Britain the novel was chosen as one of the five best works of fiction by a woman writer published in 1985–86.     —from Wikipedia