I never thought that I would ever get anything published.
As a kid in Manila all my stories were rejected simply because they were Science Fiction or Fantasy and publishers didn’t want them. The Filipinos that did read the “Literature of the Fantastic” preferred American or European authors due to a lingering colonial mentality and/or because nothing else was actually available. Save for Japanese cartoons, half-forgotten myths and the occasional meanderings of local realist writers into the surreal, there were no Fantasy, Horror or Science Fiction authors in the Philippines (at least none whose works were readily available). There were also no venues to read or to submit such stories.
I stopped writing for a very long time. Over the next few years I finished school, left the country and started a family. But I never stopped hoping I would find writers outside the Western mainstream, authors who would write Speculative Fiction with my voice, my experience and my point of view.
Then something magical happened early in the new millennium. Because of the efforts of people like Dean and Nikki Alfar, their Litcritters crew, Paolo Chikiamco, Joey Nacino, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Charles Tan, Eliza Victoria, Kenneth Yu and other pioneers, venues like the Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology series, Philippine Genre Stories and Story Philippines started to appear and somehow, in a way I had not expected, Fantastic stories in all of their strange and delicious flavors became accepted, became (comparatively) popular, and most importantly, became respected.
My wife sent one of my stories to Nikki Alfar and Kate Osias without my knowledge (cheeky girl but I love her so). To my great surprise it ended up in PSF volume 6 and I haven’t stopped writing (or submitting) since.
Later on, I discovered that this renaissance of sorts was also happening (with various degrees of success and acceptance) in many parts of the world outside the Western sphere of influence — including my adopted country of Singapore, where I was lucky enough to become part of Fish Eats Lion (Edited by Jason Erik Lundberg) arguably its first compilation of literary Speculative Fiction.
The Literature of the Fantastic in Southeast Asia is breaking out of the shadows and I am so happy to be part of to this evolving landscape. I hope you like my stories (particularly the Science Fiction ones) and I would really love it if you dropped me a line at the comments box below or at vrocampo (at) gmail [dot] com.
Thank you!
Artwork above by Jon Jaylo from the book “Here be Dragons”
The Infinite Library and Other Stories 