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Why I Started This Blog: The Danger of A Single Story

Shweta Ganesh Kumar shared with me this TED Talk from novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie about how "a single story" about another person or country can cause critical misunderstanding, and I felt that the talk really reflected why I started this blog. Please watch it below, if you haven't already: I sometimes teach creative writing to children and teens and have been very shocked to see that the first impulse of my students - all Filipinos or Chinese Filipinos ages 11-15 - is to write stories featuring characters with blond hair and blue eyes. It seems that, like the seven-year-old Adichie, my students have "a single story" about what literature is and do not think that people like them can exist in literature. (Needless to say, I am now trying to expose my students to more Filipino literature and literature from other Asian countries.) I blog because our students, nieces and nephews, children, grandchildren, and godchildren NEED AND DESERVE more than "a ...

Ang INK Open for Applications

Ang Ilustrador ng Kabataan (Ang INK), an association of Filipino artists committed to the creation and promotion of illustrations for children, is open for applications! Application requirements: 1. Accomplished application form . 2. One illustration based on the story "Anong Gupit Natin Ngayon?" 3. Five sample illustrations from your portfolio. Deadline is February 29, 2012, 5 p.m. Email hello@ang-ink.org.

First Daughter: White House Rules by Mitali Perkins, a Fusion Story

This was originally posted at Into the Wardrobe on May 25, 2008. Meet sixteen-year-old Sameera Righton, aka Sparrow, the likeable and very interesting main character of the First Daughter books. Sameera was born in Pakistan and was adopted by an American political family. She grew up as a diplomat's daughter, in communities where people from different cultures and races mingled without much fuss. She is sophisticated and articulate, fierce and opinionated. Sameera is an aspiring journalist and is well on her way to fulfilling her dream of becoming a writer. She has a very popular blog, www.sparrowblog.com , that is read by powerful people in America and by people all over the world. And her dad, James Righton, is now the president of the United States. (By the way, I highly recommend you check out that link! Sparrowblog really exists as a character blog for the First Daughter books. How cool is that?! :o) On the site, Sameera dishes about the real US presidential candidates and ...

Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind

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