Our Authors

Erwin Romulo is a Filipino artist, curator, and cultural instigator.

Since 2000, his work has shaped contemporary art in the Philippines. He has been involved in diverse fields in the art scene —including moving image, sound, publishing, public installations—to push Filipino contemporary artistic forms both locally and abroad, focusing on closing the gap of Philippine representation in international institutions.

In 2023, he worked with the British Council, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and the ICA London for an exhibition of experimental videos called Parallel Histories. In 2024, he conceptualized and co-curated JUMPCUT 5: Videoke Philippinen, a survey of Philippine moving image works at the Daadgalerie in Berlin. For his most recent exhibition in Manila, he commissioned, and curated 25 artists to make sound objects.

Romulo also works as a sound designer and composer for films. He worked on the sound design and music of Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis, which won the Alfred Bauer Prize at the 66th Internationale Filmsfestspiele Berlin. He also composed the original music for On The Job: The Missing 8, which was in competition at the 78th La Biennale di Venezia.

As an artist, Romulo is intent on the unknown as an element of his work. Part of his method is informed by the Philippine cultural concept of Bahala Na (i.e. to hold space for the divine to intervene) and is a key tenet in his process: to invite the aleatory and curate errors to keep the work dynamic and evolving.

Howie Severino is a veteran journalist with nearly forty years of experience and more than 200 documentaries to his name, many of them award-winning. He is a co-founder of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and a former Vice President of GMA Network, where he led journalist training and safety programs. He has served as news anchor, editor-in-chief of GMA News Online, and reporter covering major national events. His five documentaries on José Rizal are widely used in classrooms across the Philippines, and he now lives by Taal Lake, where he continues to produce films and teach.

Laurel Flores Fantauzzo is the author of the young adult novel My Heart Underwater (Harper 2020), a Kirkus Best Book and Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, and the nonfiction book The First Impulse, a finalist for the Philippine National Book Award. Her essays have appeared in High Country News, CNN Philippines, The New York Times, and The Baffler. A former Erasmus, WRiCE, and Fulbright fellow, she has taught literature and creative writing in Manila, Singapore, and Honolulu.

Jason Tan Liwag is a scientist, actor, writer, educator, and film curator whose criticism appears in publications such as CNN Philippines Life, Vogue Philippines, Filmmaker Magazine, Documentary Magazine, MUBI Notebook, and Little White Lies. A fellow of international film criticism programs in Locarno, Rotterdam, Udine, Yamagata, and Manila, he founded the QCinema Critics Lab and serves on festival juries around the world. He is the first Filipino member of FIPRESCI and programs shorts for QCinema and the Leeds International Film Festival.

Lourd Ernest H. de Veyra is a Filipino poet, musician, novelist, and journalist. He has written four volumes of poetry: Subterranean Thought Parade in 1998, Shadow Boxing in Headphones in 2001, Insectissimo! in 2011, and Markang Demonyo in 2024.

His debut novel, Super Panalo Sounds! came out in 2011.

De Veyra has won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature, the Free Press Literary Award, and the inaugural National Commission for Culture and the Arts Writers' Prize for Poetry.

Oliver X. A. Reyes is a former Writer-at-Large for Esquire Philippines and UNO Magazine. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone Philippines, Rappler, ABS-CBN X, CNN Philippines, and GMA News Online. He co-founded the internet rights advocacy group Democracy.Net.Ph and is a Senior Lecturer at the UP College of Law, where he teaches Constitutional Law. At the UP Law Center he works on policy projects involving technology, data, and AI governance.

Yvette Tan is the Philippines' most celebrated horror writer. Aside from short fiction collections in English and Tagalog, she's written a feature film that received nationwide release and co-wrote a libretto for a ballet that was performed by Ballet Philippines on the main stage of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

She was the official scribe of the Manila Biennale in 2018, and her story was the companion piece to the artwork that adorned the Philippine pavilion in the 2021 Frankfurt Book Fair.

She co-hosted "Trese After Dark," the behind-the-scenes companion to the Netflix hit anime "Trese." She was also a creative consultant for a Filipino game inspired by the country's mythical creatures and the collection Seek Ye Whore and Other Stories was nominated for the 41st National Book Awards.

Her works have been translated into Spanish, Czech, Hungarian, and French. She is currently Agriculture Editor of Manila Bulletin and Editor-at-Large of Infinito, Vibal Publishing's horror, mystery, and esoteric imprint.