On November 23, 2022, UPV Literati, in collaboration with the UPV Language program, conducted the Artist Talk and Mini-Workshop 2022 at the GCEB AVR of the University of the Philippines Visayas Iloilo City campus. The two-hour event was facilitated by one of the foremost creative nonfictionists in the Philippines, Professor Ferdinand Pisigan Jarin, who gave a lecture to over 50 participants on writing creative nonfiction, particularly, Malikhaing Sanaysay, a form similar to creative nonfiction but with its own nuances and localized aesthetics.
Aside from the engaging discussion, Professor Jarin helped sharpen the participants’ skills by giving them a short exercise called "your life in a page."
UPV Literati's Artist Talks promotes literature and writing, especially the writings of Filipino sensibility, social consciousness, and the regions. Through this, UPV Literati seeks to make literature accessible, bring it closer to the populace, and to feature local literary artists as well.
Different from the Artist Talks in the previous years, Artist Talk 2022 is also a mini workshop intended to hone the participants' skills in the craft.
Professor Jarin has told the participants that one can only write something substantial during a fall, when the world around them seems to stop and they find themselves noticing something that arouses feelings of discomfort and disturbance. But these stories are not a mere sharing of one’s life. They are a documentation and an exposure of the realities that other people tend to overlook. They awaken others and push them to become more conscious, as the writer rediscovers themselves during the writing process.
It is the hope of the organizers that the event did not only supply the participants with additional knowledge and techniques in writing creative nonfiction but also motivated them to start writing and using their learnings from the event, as everyone has a story to share worth reading and learning from.
