Team Mango Summer, we have an update
TL;DR We’re producing an audiobook!
In 2019, we started pre-production to adapt Agay Llanera’s Mango Summer as a web series. There was a crowdfunding component, through this site. We didn’t get to raise a full amount for a web series, but we had plans for how to get the rest of it. Some plans included fundraising events/dinners, approaching other prods. We were supposed to start filming in the first quarter of 2020. We had attached lead actors, a director, screenwriters, and a production team.
We did not get to start production in 2020. (Because of covid, in case people forgot.) In 2021, another production company took over development of Mango Summer as a series or film adaptation. I’m confident this will happen, it’s just a bit beyond my control.
What do we do that’s a bit more in our control? That can get some members of the core team back and working on this? This week I sent an email to the fund contributors, and told them the new plan –we are producing a MANGO SUMMER audiobook. (If you contributed to this, please check your email–it includes refund options too.)
Why an audiobook?
– It’s a format that’s accessible, and has always led to more readers and more immersion in the story. (Personally, audiobooks helped me in 2020-2022 when I found myself unable to read a full book–if it was in print or an ebook.)
– It’s a format that can involve our friends in the performing arts community again. We’re absolutely working with human narrators. Who are Filipino. If you know anything about the audiobook industry, our voices (and correct pronunciation) are woefully underrepresented there.
– It’s a format that we can stream.
Agay’s book is gorgeous. I think we should experience it in all the formats.
Buy Mango Summer here (Amazon link, CW grief, recent death of parent).
If you want to help us produce more audio editions, “buy me a coffee” here: ko-fi.com/minavesguerra (put AUDIO in the message field).
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