January 2007 Newsletter (Part 2)

January 2007 (Part 2)

Updates--

Exhibitors' Briefing
Volunteers Meeting
Panel Directory
Exhibits
Live Performances
Raffles
Portrait of the Filipino as Reader
Pinoy Readers' Choice Awards
Book Swaps and Book Donations
Attending RodCon 2007
Online Pre-Registration
More Sponsor Acknowledgments


Exhibitors Briefing / Volunteers Meeting


The briefing will take place on January 27 (Saturday) at 9AM at the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Intercontinental. Exhibitors are encouraged to attend. Our booth contractor and volunteer coordinator will both be present. Agenda: Ingress/Egress, Booth Layout, Floor Plans, Parking, Timetables, Technical Inquiries. Intercon will also be giving out ingress/egress forms as well as car passes for exhibitors. We've already informed all the exhibitors about the briefing. If you have not received your invitation, please email us as soon as possible.

The penultimate Volunteers Meeting before the convention will also take place on the 27th. The volunteer coordinator has already been in contact with the new batch of volunteer applicants. For volunteer-related inquiries please attention all emails to Rael Realin or email her personally at rael_realin@yahoo.com.


Panel Directory

We updated the panel listing to reflect updates and revisions on the part of participating organizations. We have also posted a tentative timetable for the function room events: download the PDF file.

The latest on function room events--

The British Council of Manila will be presenting Roger Robinson from the UK performance poetry group "Apples and Snakes" back-to-back with local poets Kooky Tuason (of Romancing Venus) and Juddha Paolo. From the British Council press release:

POETRY WITH A BITE

Roger Robinson of the renowned UK-based performance poetry group Apples & Snakes will be in Manila for the British Council's live literature programmes this month.

On January 29 and 31, Robinson will train a cadre of performance poets with a view to cascading skills and practice to various schools as well as literary and theatre organisations nationwide. There will be two sessions – students can join the morning group at the Quezon City Science High School Conference Hall from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 noon, while more experienced spoken word artists and enthusiasts can join the evening sessions at the British Council's Knowledge and Learning Centre at the 10th floor of Taipan Place, Emerald Avenue, Ortigas Centre, Pasig from 6:00-9:00 p.m.

His tour also includes a special performance in "VENUS TAKES A BITE" at Conspiracy Garden Café on January 30, with special guests Kooky Tuason, Karen Kunawicz, Charms of Matilda, Rinka, Aimee Marcos, and Annabel Bosch, who will do selections from Romancing Venus, to be followed by band music from The Dorques. Merienda-cena will be served at 6:00 p.m.; showtime is at 7 o'clock.

On February 1, he joins the grand finalists of Quezon City Science High School's SCIENTIA POETRY SLAM to be held at the school's covered court, which will be converted into a Literary Café. Robinson also performs at St Paul University Ma nila's Fleurdelis Auditorium on February 2 at 11 a.m. before teaming up with renowned novelist Romesh Gunesekera in handling sessions for the Literature Conference at the Ateneo de Manila University that afternoon. He caps his schedule with another performance for the READ-OR-DIE CONVENTION at Hotel Intercontinental Manila on February 3 at 4:30 p.m., back-to-back with Kooky Tuason and Juddha Paolo.

Robinson is a poet, short fiction writer and lyricist who divides his time between New York, London and Trinidad. In the past he has represented British writing worldwide with the British Council, and independently at venues and festivals including Crossing Borders (Amsterdam), Naples Poetry Festival and Mercury Lounge (Ottawa). In 2002 he represented new British writing with tours and trips to Bulgaria, Greece, Berlin and Finland.

As programmer for Apples & Snakes, he was also featured in the New Generation Poets collection at the National Portrait Gallery. His first anthology of short fiction, Adventures in 3D, was published in 2002 with a subsequent sell out UK tour, and he is now working on his first full-length novel Eat.

As if he doesn't sound busy enough, Roger Robinson can often be found touring with bands. Taking his lyrical finesse to the stage, he has opened shows for De La Soul, Cody Chesnutt, Saul Williams and Linton Kwesi Johnson. He's also featured in stage shows with Attica Blues, Techno Animal, The Bug, Silky Millionaire Syndicate and Speeka.

The UP Creative Writing Institute and UMPIL will be hosting panels on contemporary Philippine fiction, oral poetry, literary translation and regional literatures and creative non-fiction which will be hosted by writers and academics Jun Cruz Reyes, Teo Antonio, Bobby Anonuevo, Romulo Baquiran, and Abdon Balde, among others. A full list of Likhaan and UMPIL writers who will be coming to the convention will be posted later.

The Goethe Institut will be presenting a panel on German literature featuring Professor Susanna Lenz (from the Department of European Languages, UP Diliman). The incoming Goethe Institut Director will also be introduced to the public in the panel. The Goethe Institut be exhibiting collections from their library in RodCon.

The National Book Development Board will be hosting a poetry reading featuring celebrities from popular TV show Super Inggo and their campaign "Get Caught Reading." A tentative list of attendees includes Miriam Quiambao, Herbert Bautista, and Christine Bersola-Babao.

Renowned historian Dr. Jaime Veneracion of UP Diliman and SAMPAKA will be headlining a discussion forum on historical writing. The Dean of the Islamic Institute of UP Diliman Dr. Mashur bin-Ghalib Jundam and selected faculty from the Institute will be speaking on Filipino Muslim literary traditions.

The New Worlds Alliance will be presenting three speakers during their function room event:

* "Anatomy of a Villain: The Will to Power and the 'Chosen Destiny'of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named." (Frances Sangil, Pinoy Harry Potter)
* TBA (R.E. de Leon, The Philippine Order of Narnians)
* "Would JRRT Approve of Sending More Troops to Iraq: The Themes of War and Peace in LOTR." (Cristina Montes, The Philippine Tolkien Society)

*This listing is very incomplete; there are a lot of other groups and publishers who have not confirmed their topics or speakers for the convention but who will be attending (see timetable). For programming inquiries, please contact Kristin Mandigma at kmandigma@gmail.com or at 09283555365.


Exhibits

The National Book Development Board will be previewing their latest poster campaign "Get Caught Reading" in a selected gallery in the convention.

Gerry Alanguilan of Komikero Publishing has lent us his collection of pulp magazine and vintage comic book illustrations for display. Watch out for this.

The Goethe Institut will also be displaying their collections.

We had planned to host an exhibit of Nick Joaquin material courtesy of the UP Filipiniana Library. However, due to the fact that the Main Library is currently cataloging and indexing their collections for the UP Centennial Celebrations in 2008, loans of rare material to outside institutions have been proscribed. We will be displaying facsimile prints and showing several slide shows of the National Artist collections in the Library, however.

We will also be exhibiting a set of rare books (signed, unsigned, specially bound, limited and first editions) courtesy of Mr. Jasper Ong of Avalon Books. A few of the titles include signed books by Neil Gaiman, Umberto Eco, Chuck Palahniuk, Gregory Maguire, Nick Hornby, Anthony Bourdain, Marisha Pessl, Jeanette Winterson, Arthur Golden, and much more.

Catalogs will be provided.


Live Performances

The Alitaptap Storytellers, headed by president Manolo Silayan, will be performing onstage on February 3 and February 4 at RodCon 2007. The performance on Saturday will take place at 5:30 PM while the Sunday performance will be held at 3PM. Details to follow.

The Cultural Center of the Philippines will also be staging production numbers on both days. Details to follow.

Good news for Star Wars afficionados: The Philippine chapter of the 501st Legion will be making an appearance in RodCon on February 3. The Stormtroopers will be mingling with guests and convention attendees for pictures and signings. Be sure to come to RoD so as not to miss this opportunity :) Members of the Jedi Order will also be appearing on February 4. With much thanks to Rej and Paolo of the New Worlds Alliance for arranging this for the convention attendees. The New Worlds Alliance will also be exhibiting at the convention (and selling select books and merchandise from their collections) so be sure to drop by.

Raffles

Each convention attendee will be entitled to one raffle ticket for the RodCon book raffles (which will be drawn periodically throughout the convention on stage). Prizes include an awful lot of books, comics, artwork, gift certificates and merchandise. We will also be holding special raffles wherein you will have to buy tickets in order to participate. For instance, Avalon Books has kindly donated a signed limited edition hardbound copy of Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys" for such a raffle. Proceeds will go to our charity beneficiary. Thanks once again to Mr. Jasper Ong.


Portrait of the Filipino as Reader

Once again, all convention attendees are encouraged to participate in Portrait of the Filipino as Reader.All you have to do is bring photos to the convention which follow the contest theme and register them at the Secretriat desk, after which they will be displayed on our community wall for judging. Winners will receive special prizes. :)


Pinoy Readers' Choice Awards

If you haven't voted yet, please do so now. :) The deadline for voting is on January 31, 2007. We also have a special announcement to make with regard to our Pinoy Readers' Choice Award ceremony this year as well as news of the 2008 Awards in the forthcoming (and last) edition of this newsletter. Thank you to everyone who has voted and participated in the awards!


Book Swaps and Book Donations

We are reminding convention attendees to please bring your old/secondhand books to either swap or donate in the convention. The swap will be conducted on the principle of (more or less) equivalent trade. If you bring one book to swap, you will receive one book in return. The more books you bring, the more books you get.

Donations are very much welcome. We can't say it enough. Donated books will be re-routed to charity foundations and other book drive organizations (like RockEd, A Better Chance Foundation, and Books For The Barrios).


Attending RodCon 2007

We've prepared a set of guidelines re: how to make your way in RodCon 2007. Please take a moment to read these guidelines in order to ensure a hassle-free convention experience. We will also replicate these guidelines in our program guide along with the list of our convention policies.


Online Pre-Registration Closed

While online pre-registration has ended, you can still buy RodCon tickets at pre-registration rate until January 31, 2007. Please note that we only have a limited number of tickets on sale. If you have not bought your tickets yet, please proceed to your nearest Powerbooks outlet. We will stop selling tickets in our partner bookstores on January 31, 2007. While tickets will still be available during the convention itself, they will be sold at registration rates.


More Sponsor Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Mr. Jan Vincent Ong of Vivian Sarabia Optical for donating gift tokens for our guests. Thanks as well go to Ms. Rona Co of gmanews.tv and One Philippines and Ms. Laina Junia of Jam 88.3 for the media coverage. Thanks to Ms. Rio Brigino of Vibal Publishing and Ms. Joyce Bernales of Anvil Publishing.