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Here Be Dragons at the Internationale Jugendbibliothek in Munich

Victor Fernando R. OcampoLeave a comment

These two copies of my Romeo Forbes Award-winning children’s book “Here Be Dragons” are on their way to join the collection of the Internationale Jugendbibliothek (The International Youth Library) in Munich, Germany.

Housed in Blutenburg Castle, the IB holds the world’s largest collection of children’s literature, with over 600,000 volumes in 150 languages. I am happy that they will contribute to the representation of works by immigrants in general, and the Filipino diaspora in particular.

Here Be Dragons was published by CANVAS Press in 2015 with illustrations by Jon Jaylo and a Filipino translation by Rhandee Garlitos.

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A New Story in the Quarterly Literature Review of Singapore

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Thank you to the editors of the Quarterly Literature Review of Singapore for including my short story “As If We Could Dream Forever” in QLRS’ 17th volume.

Set 150 years in the future, this work deals with the concept of Free Will and using humans as receptacles for AI automation,  teenage angst, and extending National Service to young women.

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This story was inspired by three different, totally unrelated works – the comic book “Planetary” by Warren Ellis, Gregorio Brilliantes award-winning short story “The Cries of  Children on an April Afternoon in the year 1957” and of course,  Goh Poh Seng’s seminal novel “If We dream Too Long ” (from which the title of my story is derived).

As if we Could Dream Forever

Three Quick Reviews of The Infinite Library And Other Stories

Victor Fernando R. Ocampo2 Comments

A great big ‘Thank you!” to everyone who has read my book and and an even bigger shout-out to those who have sent me kind words over social media — especially to the three excellent folks below who took the time to write me reviews:

(1) First there is vlogger Rachel Tan who does her Rachel’s Now Reading reviews on Youtube.  You can check out here video here .

Rachel Reads Review

(2) I am a big fan of Ng Yi-Sheng‘s work, whether it be his poetry, stories, performances or his important advocacy work for LGBTQ issues. Thank you for spending some time to read my stories!

Screenshot_20181020-180607_Facebook(3) Lastly, thank you to the anonymous BooksActually Elf that did the review for “The Infinite Library And Other Stories”.  You can read it here.

BooksActually Review

You can get copies of my book delivered to you by BooksActually here.

Dune Panel Discussion @ Kult Kafe

Victor Fernando R. OcampoLeave a comment

Studio and Art Gallery and  Kult Kafe invited Comic Book writer Kelly Bender, visual artist Howie Kim, and myself to discuss our  process for conceiving and building science fiction universes over pizza and beer.  This panel discussion was one  of the companion events to Dune: A Sci-Fi Art Show which featured paintings, prints, virtual reality and projection mapping multi-media works inspired by Frank Herbert’s seminal novel Dune. You can watch a video of the panel Dune.

 

 

Flash Fiction Workshop

Victor Fernando R. Ocampo1 Comment

Another late post;

I ran a flash fiction workshop late last year which turned out to be a most interesting experience. There were about 12 participants who ranged in age from 12 to 71. Most had not done any serious writing previously. It was great teaching them the fundamentals of story structure and how to provide a complete prose narrative in a very concise and compact format. What I enjoyed the most was discovering the reasons why people wanted to write:

“I have so many stories inside me” – a 71-year old retiree

“I want to be able to communicate better in English.” – a Japanese expat’s housewife

“I want to surprise my girlfriend.” – a college student

“It will help me do my work.” – a business manager

“I want people to know who I am.” – a 12 year old girl.

 

Flash Fiction Workshop 2018

Exceedingly Late Post: The 2017 Singapore Writer’s Festival Wrap-up

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It’s almost time for the 2018 Writer’s Festival and I realize that I had never posted my pictures from last year’s run.

Top to bottom, left to right: (1) SWF Opening, (2) Outside the festival grounds, (3) Watching a panels while seated on LKY’s chair,  (4) With Junot Diaz, (5) “Writing between Genre Lines” panel with Desmond Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé (moderator), Aliette de Bodard, Jason Erik Lundberg and O Thiam Chin, (6) With Dean Alfar, (7) With Lavie Tidhar, (8) Crab dinner with Aliette, Jason, Nikki, Pat and Dean, (9) Peranakan lunch with Ken Liu, and (10) birthday dinner with Aliette.

Here are some pictures from my panels:

  • The Real Science in Science Fiction – with Shelly Bryant, Kevin Martens Wong, and Dave Chua moderating
    5 Nov, Sun 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    The Arts House, Living Room
  • A Brave New World: Speculative Fiction in Singapore – with Jon Gresham, Christina Sng , and Gene Tan moderating
    6 Nov, Mon 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
    The Arts House, Chamber

Lastly, check out the special packaging for my book The Infinite Library and Other Stories  which was only available at the festival venue.

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“Brother to Space, Sister to Time” is on the honourable mention list of BNSS V3

Victor Fernando R. OcampoLeave a comment

My L33t Speak/JEJEMON story “I M D 1 IN 10” was in the 2016 volume of Best New Singapore Stories (Jason Erik Lundberg, editor).

This year, my Pinoy space-opera story from Lontar Volume 6 made it to the honourable mention list of the Best New Singapore Stories Volume 3 (Cyril Wong, Guest Editor). I was a bit surprised (but grateful!) to see this, because it is the most Hard Science Fiction work I had ever attempted.  Congratulations to all  that were selected or shortlisted!

“Brother to Space, Sister to Time” is lovingly dedicated to my brother Hector Francisco V. Ocampo and my sister Noreen Maria-Regina Ocampo Oconer. Strangely enough, despite the genre trappings, this is also the most personal story I have ever written. There is so much for a reader to discover between the lines.

BNSSV3

My SWF 2017 Schedule

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SWF_LOGO

The Singapore Writers Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and I am happy to be part of an event that includes such literary and genre heavy weights such as Gemino Abad, Dean Alfar, Simon Armitage, Aliette de Bodard, Shelly Bryant, Junot Diaz, Ken Liu, Marjorie Liu, Isa Kamari, Jason Erik Lundberg, Ng Yi-Sheng, Tony Parsons, Edwin Thumboo , Cyril Wong and JY Yang to name just a few.

The festival’s theme this year is the Tamil word அரம் (Aram) whose meaning embodies goodness, equity and justice. Used extensively in older Tamil literature, it is a word has rich connotation and an ideal of goodness and generosity for humanity to aspire to. It is today a quality much needed in our increasingly complex and difficult world.

Some of the best Science Fiction stories also share this normative, Utopian vision and I hope to  be able to talk about it in my panels. You can find my SWF schedule here:

Lastly Math Paper press will be launching my book The Infinite Library and Other Stories along with The Story of Number Nine by Josiah Ng. I hope to see you all there!

New Titles by Math Paper Press III:
The Story of Number Nine and The Infinite Library
7 Nov Tue 8.30pm – 9.30pm
Gallery II, The Arts House                                                                                                   (Free Event)

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The “Surreal Worlds of Southeast Asia” panel at #WorldCon75

Victor Fernando R. OcampoLeave a comment

Singapore-based Speculative Fiction author and Lontar Journal founding editor Jason Erik Lundberg moderated a lively panel on Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction at yesterday’s #Worldcon75, with Nebula award- winning author Aliette de Bodard and myself. Like my other panel, this one was quite well attended and we were very happy to see that so many people were interested in Southeast Asian speculative fiction.

Aliette and I did a reading from one of our works and we spent the rest of the time taking questions and recommending many fine SEA authors from the region such as Dean Alfar (Philippines), Zen Cho (Malaysia) and JY Yang (Singapore).

P.S. – I provided a quick sneak peak of my first short story collection “The Infinite Library and Other Stories” during this panel 🙂

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