Jessica Zafra's Blog, page 2

Writers and Money: Living By Our Wits When Everyone Is Scared Out Of Theirs

This is the text of my speech at the UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas) Congress in August 2020. Nobody ever talks about how writers make a living, so I did. Most of us would’ve preferred to meet in person, but this is how we assemble now. I would argue that even before the […]

Writers and Money: How do writers in the Philippines make a living?

This is the text of my speech at the UMPIL (Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas) Congress in August 2020. Nobody ever talks about how writers make a living, so I did. Most of us would’ve preferred to meet in person, but this is how we assemble now. I would argue that even before the […]

Living in Science-Fiction Times

This is the text of my keynote address at the BDAP (Book Development Association of the Philippines) Literary Festival on 29 Nov 2020. In 2016 it occurred to me that the apocalypse had begun. A little late, since many had expected it at the turn of the millennium. This apocalypse is not the stuff of […]

The Ordinary Nurses of Halloween: a short story set in Malate, Manila in the 1990s

The trouble with the good times is that while they’re happening, we do not know that they are the good times. They may even seem terrible. To acknowledge that they are the good times is to curse the rest of our lives: they will not be as fun, it’s all downhill from here. Time is […]

100 Favorite Books, 2021 edition

My annual list. The Oresteia, Aeschylus Life After Life, Kate Atkinson The Collected Poems of W.H. Auden Persuasion, Jane Austen Eve’s Hollywood, Eve Babitz Grand Hotel, Vicki Baum The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett HHhH, Laurent Binet The Decameron, Boccacio Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte Possession, A.S. Byatt The Outsider, Albert Camus Burning Your Boats, The Collected […]

Get Out Of Here: Travel Stories is our first Writing Boot Camp in 2021

We can’t travel just yet, but until then we have our stories. Our first Writing Boot Camp for 2021: Travel Stories. Three sessions in February, Saturdays from 3-6pm on Zoom. Early bird rate until January 30: Php5,000. DM @jessicazafrascats or email saffron.safin@gmail.com to book your place *No writing experience necessary. **No one has ever had […]

What I wrote in 2020

Have you ever thought that if you were locked up in your house with nothing to do, you would write all the stories you’ve been kicking around your head? In 2020 I was locked up in my house with “nothing” to do (but endless chores and disinfecting), so I wrote the stories I’ve been kicking […]

The Age of Umbrage feature: 2016 was the beginning of the Apocalypse—Jessica Zafra

Photo by Ricky Villabona. The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. For e-books and foreign orders, please go to facebook.com/ateneo press. by Joseph L. Garcia in BusinessWorld, 4 November 2020 EVERY generation has a designated wit. For Filipinos of the 1990s and the […]

The Age of Umbrage review: Jessica Zafra’s auspicious debut as novelist

The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. For e-books and foreign orders, please go to facebook.com/ateneo press. by Elizabeth Lolarga, Vera Files, 5 November 2020 Jessica Zafra has been known for her sardonic prose in her columns, particularly her film criticism, and her […]

The Age of Umbrage review: Jessica Zafra’s first novel is for misfits and outcasts

The Age of Umbrage by Jessica Zafra is available at Shopee, Lazada, Mt Cloud, and the Ateneo University Press. For e-books and foreign orders, please go to facebook.com/ateneo press. by Paul John Caña in Esquire, 17 October 2020 In Jessica Zafra’s The Age of Umbrage, we meet Guada. Precocious, no-nonsense and a voracious consumer of […]