Mina V. Esguerra's Blog, page 47

Set your readers to steamy

Do we have enough English-language adult romance by Filipino authors? I thought we didn't, and that it's such a shame. Some people agreed with me.

So for five weeks in 2014, we did something about it. I offered a class in adult-romance writing. 60 people signed up. Buqo agreed to sponsor it, and offer ebook distribution to anyone who finished their "steamy read" in time. 23 stories were in draft

Writing as business and art

Let's get a few things out of the way: Wattpad and its popularity in the Philippines just blew away many misconceptions people have had about writing and the state of reading among Pinoy youth.

An interesting consequence of this is that so many young authors are getting published, or self-publishing. I'm happy for them (I too was a young writer just dreaming to see my name on an actual book),

Who are you, at Luna East?

Since we launched Luna East volume 1, I've been invited to speak at schools and give writing exercises. So what did I asked students to write about? Luna East!




We created this fictional universe for adults who wanted to write YA. But would kids be able to do this too?

Turns out, yes. At least, the fourth grade students at Miriam College were able to give it a shot.




Anyone can write a

The answer is: whatever you imagine

I'm happy.

A lot of you know that I don't really do book launches. I've fortunately been able to do signings and events, sure (thanks Summit), but an event specifically to show people the first copies of one of my books? Not really. Well, never. It's a strange idea, because when I publish these days I just click "PUBLISH" and boom, it's launched. No need to party.

But when I started working

KIDS THESE DAYS: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy volume 1 (Art Feature)

This is so exciting! *gasp pant wheeze*



Welcome to my stop on the Kids These Days: Stories From Luna East Arts Academy blog tour. I'm part of this collection of short stories (all set in high school) but I'd like to showcase the art that appears in the book here.



Because we encouraged the writers contributing a Luna East story to post their work online, many of the stories in the book

#romanceclass party on Feb 8 - and you're invited!

I'm so very, very proud of #romanceclass and what we've been able to achieve together. (Buy the bundle if you want proof!) Fine, so maybe even they were skeptical of what they could actually do in a short amount of time, but they've proven to themselves and everyone else that they can write, finish, publish a book - and do it again and again.


We consider you, authors and readers, part of this -

Playing Autumn (limited first edition) paperback giveaway

So here's the deal -- Playing Autumn, my novella included in the Rock Gods of Romance bundle, is going to eventually be released as a solo book. I delayed those plans because an exciting opportunity for the book popped up, but it required expanding the story, which I haven't started on yet. (Next month, promise!)

And then I fast-tracked the printing of a paperback because Dia Frampton and Meg

Spark, my YA paranormal romance project with Katrina Ramos Atienza

When I first visited Bacolod and its neighboring cities, I thought, wow, somebody should write a YA paranormal novel set here. There's so much history (and secrets), how could you not? I encouraged Katrina Ramos Atienza, whose family is actually from Negros Occidental, to do it. We decided to write one together. (Which is more fun than just telling people to write books for me haha.)

It's not

Work in progress: Anti Dynasty

Last year an idea came to me, and I wrote a short story thinking I'd be able to get it out of my system.



I did that, but obviously it wasn't finished, because I kept returning to those characters, kept checking in on what had happened to them after I had written "The End." It's kind of annoying. 



Then I realized that I was avoiding writing their story because I was afraid of what would

Out in January 2014: Stories from Luna East Arts Academy, volume 1 (YA/English)

I'm happy to share that the first #romanceclass YA anthology will be out in paperback in January. Yay!


During one of the #romanceclass monthly meetups, the authors present started talking about what they could do next, after trying to write their romance novellas. And we started talking about our love for YA, which is how a lot of us started reading and writing.



So now we have Luna East Arts