"UST MaKatha Circle" – The Infinite Library and Other Stories

Thank you to the UST Faculty of Arts & Letters and the UST MaKatha Circle for inviting me to share my writing journey at their ” Roots & Refractions: Bridging MaKatha Traditions” event last 27 February. I really enjoyed interacting with so many young writers.

Keep reading what makes your heart sing. Fill yourself up with all the beauty that life throws your way. And keep writing — because young creatives like you are our best defense against all the terrible and ugly things darkening our reality. Once you realize what this world is worth, you will fight to defend it.

Write a new world for all of us…

#MaKaATIN

Up next, meet Victor Fernando R. Ocampo, a Filipino author of speculative and experimental fiction stories!

A fellow at the Milford Science Fiction Writers’ Conference in the UK and the Cinemalaya Ricky Lee Film Script Writing Workshop in the Philippines, he currently resides in Singapore where he was also a writer-in-residence at the Jalan Besar at Sing Lit Station. His works have been shortlisted for the International Rubery Book Award in 2018, and he won the Romeo Forbes Children’s Story Award in 2012.

Victor’s most recognized stories include:

THE INFINITE LIBRARY AND OTHER STORIES. Three Filipino siblings fighting an enemy that uses words as weapons, sigbin monsters in space, a banned children’s book hiding a secret that could save a doomed generation ship, a slow-motion disaster turning people into living math equations,?! Name it and this book surely has it. Grab this collection of stories that goes beyond what our mind deems possible and be carried away by all its mystical twists and turns.

Grab a copy:

HERE BE DRAGONS. Ever wished to have a map that would make life easier? Well,

Isabella met the perfect guy that makes a map of just about anything! Would she take the risk

when she would face her biggest nightmare?

Read online here: https://lookingforjuan.com/products/here-be-dragons

You can also find more of his works free to read online below, as recommended by the author himself!

“Blessed are the Hungry” , a Filipino space opera set on a generation ship, first appeared in Apex Magazine issue 62 in July 2014 (Editor: Sigrid Ellis) – https://apex-magazine.com/short-fiction/blessed-are-the-hungry/

“Synchronicity”, his initial stab at Weird Fiction, first appeared in issue #507 of Bewildering Stories online magazine in December 2012 (Editor: Don Webb). It won a Mariner Award in the short story category that same year. – https://worldsf.wordpress.com/2013/05/14/tuesday-fiction-synchronicity-by-victor-fernando-r-ocampo/

“An Excerpt from the Philippine Journal of Archaeology (04 October, 1916)”, a Lovecraftian metafiction story told in footnotes, first appeared in Likhaan Journal 8 by the U.P. Institute of Creative Writing in December 2014. – https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/lik/article/viewFile/5072/4577

“The Easiest Way to Solve a Problem” is a short story about adding the consciousness of expat Filipino PMET workers to a massive corporate AI in Singapore. It appeared last April, 2022 in the book Get Luckier: An Anthology of Philippine and Singapore Writings (Singapore: Squircle Line Press, 2022), edited by Migs Bravo Dutt, Claire Betita de Guzman, Aaron Lee Soon Yong, and Eric Tinsay Valles. – https://www.get-luckier-anthology.com/victor-fernando-r-ocampo

“I m d 1 in 10” , his experimental story inspired by Anicius Manlius Severinus Boëthius’ De Consolatione Philosophiae, first appeared in the July 2014 issue of The Future Fire (Editor: Djibril al-Ayad). It was written with Latin, L337, IM and SMS speak, emoticons and a Filipino argot called Jejemon. – http://futurefire.net/2014.30/fiction/imd1in10.html

Immerse yourselves in Victor Ocampo’s works with this playlist!