Hi! I’m Stephanie, a Chinese Filipino community manager, editor, and writer.
I’m interested in challenging hierarchical systems and imagining and creating alternative (i.e., anarchist) forms of relating with others and oneself—dynamics that are conducive to compassion and acknowledge the inherent dignity in all living beings. My current engagements lie in the literary space, where I’ve interacted in for over ten years now, since my days as a creative writing major. Since 2021, I’ve been helping foster community, instead of competition, in fellow Southeast Asian writers through decolonized writers workshops, forums, and writing parties, among others.
I bring similar values to my role as an editor of a literary magazine and email newsletter. Eschewing the deliberation of works against each other and my biases, the zine seeks to publish all submissions, because a piece of writing doesn’t have to be “better” than others to make an impact on a person. I see the potential in each work and help the author fine-tune their piece based on their intentions.
My writing explores my relationship with myself, my home, nature, and art. I often turn to the personal essay, also known as creative nonfiction, writing in vignettes and braiding various topics together to stay true to my tangential way of thinking and highlight the entanglements a person can have.
Outside of literature, I like to embroider, watch cat reels, and volunteer to work in people’s gardens, farms, or food forests that adopt the principles of syntropic agroforestry or permaculture.
My projects
SEA Lit Circle is a community of Southeast Asian writers and readers founded in 2021. We challenge and inspire each other to write fresh, compelling work that’s true to ourselves, and we encourage each other to read and be more open to new works, stories, and perspectives within and beyond the region.
Pandan Weekly is a free bi-annual zine celebrating art made with and for a community + a weekly email newsletter delivering hearty pieces from Asia and the diaspora. Each piece comes with an artist statement and an audio recording of the author reading their work.
My essays are my way of interrogating a topic that grips me. I rarely write from a place of knowledge or expertise, so the writing, as well as the research that comes with it, becomes a cathartic experience. My work has appeared or is forthcoming in In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction, diaCRITICS, Spellbinder, The Lumiere Review, Anak Sastra, and After the Art, among others.
Speaking engagements and features
Mentor for Nonfiction — (2023 January) I led a public writers workshop organized by WriterSkill, the creative writing organization of Ateneo de Manila University.
Moderator for Creative Nonfiction — (2022 December) I did a short lecture on creative nonfiction at the Creative Writing Crash Course of SEA Lit Circle.
Speaker — (2022 May) I co-facilitated Create Your *Lit* Submission Kit, a five-week activity that guided writers to find literary magazines they could submit their works to and helped them organize their works and plan their submission strategy.
Resources on anarchism
Nonfiction — The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, by James C. Scott
Fiction — The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Podcast — Everyday Anarchism, by Graham Culbertson
YouTube channel — Andrewism, by Andrew Sage
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