YourArtsyGirlPodcast

This week I am talking to the inaugural Hartford Poet Laureate, Frederick-Douglass Knowles II, whom I've known personally for many years because I also claim Norwich as my "hometown", and as colleagues, we have seen each other "grow up" in the literary scene. Listen to Frederick-Douglass talk about how it was growing up in Norwich and his evolution from spoken word, to the academics, and onto the literary page.  He is prolific with literary and social justice projects literally all over the world while performing his Hartford Poet Laureate duties.  So, listen in. You'll be inspired!

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

http://frederickdouglassknowles.com

You can purchase BlackRoseCity here: 

https://www.amazon.com/BlackRoseCity-Frederick-Douglass-Knowles-II/dp/1456729535

Bio:   Frederick-Douglass Knowles II is the inaugural Poet Laureate for Hartford, CT. His collection of poetry, BlackRoseCity, was featured at the 2018 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP). His works have featured in the Connecticut River Review; Poems on the Road to Peace: A Tribute to Dr. King by Yale UP; Fingernails Across the Chalkboard: Poetry on HIV/AIDS by Third World Press. The Mississippi University for Women nominated his poem “Mason Freeman Cuts Jenkins Down” for a Pushcart Prize. He is the recipient of the 2019 Nutmeg Poetry Award. Frederick-Douglass is an Associate Professor of English at Three Rivers Community College.

Suzanne Frischkorn is a talented and prolific poet living in Connecticut, my home state. Listen to her explain how she got into poetry and the poetry scene and what influenced her work and the many similarities that we shared "growing up" in CT as women writers and poets in our formative years.

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

You can purchase Girl on a Bridge here: https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/girl-on-a-bridge/

Poem from Girl on a Bridge ---

Great Lash

You wear too much eye makeup. My sister wears too much. People think she's a whore.

Our cornfields were paved in asphalt, sulfur
lights snuffed our stars. When one of us had
no shoes, we went barefoot, walking streets
laid with tar. First we coated lashes blackest
black from tubes of green and pink, our eyes
lined kohl. If it was Thursday we found
boyfriends and waited by the liquor store for
anyone to buy us Smirnoff. Anyone at all.
We were not sweet girls.

*

We were not sweet girls, yet we wore silver
chains with silver hearts & crosses, onyx
rings, blush, lipstick, powder. Hair flipped
by vent brush before entering a night without
stars. Our parents were line dancing, were bank
tellers, were absent. We were a family that knew
nothing about its members.

*

We cut school and watched Foxes.
We cut school and drank vodka.
We cut school and got stoned,
did our makeup, walked the streets.
One of us got out. One of us ran
into our connection working a shoe store,
one of us glimpsed another with a baby,
one of us marries her Thursday night
boyfriend and shatters her image.

*

We were not sweet girls, no. If there had
been corn, or stars? Maybe the deep
sweet girlness would have surfaced ― dreamy
fresh-faced girls ― petals listening to rain.

You can purchase Lit Windowpane here:  https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/lit-windowpane/

Poem from Lit Windowpane--

Window 

A damp windowsill means nothing— it’s no bird tapping 

     on a pane— I am waiting 

for the swallow’s stone, the anodyne 

     to illness brought by sparrow song.

This morning rain gathers in still puddles and the songbirds

     sing without percussion― loud notes echo 

the empty street— they sing and 

     sing and sing. No owl has brushed its wing

against our windowpane and sunlight

     overcomes the clouds.

Thrush birdsong: lacey throated stars. The April 

      of our fifth year reeds withered around the pond. 

Last summer I painted the porch ceiling 

     robin’s egg blue. Spring now and the sparrows 

weave a nest in our dryer vent.

     I watch you ladder your way into their world, lift 

bits of twine and sticks and string, yet

     you know they will return. How I love you

then— how I should have loved you all along.

BIO:  Suzanne Frischkorn is the author of Lit Windowpane (2008), Girl on a Bridge, (2010) and five chapbooks.  Her honors include the Aldrich Poetry Award for her chapbook, Spring Tide, selected by Mary Oliver, an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Writer’s Center, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism.

Visit her website: https://suzannefrischkorn.com/

Tony Remington is a photographer and painter who practices many other art forms. Listen to us discuss his humanistic photojournalist style and portraiture, his vision and desire to continue to create in many genres such as cartooning. 

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

https://www.instagram.com/xtoid/

https://tonyremington.wixsite.com/mysite

Article on the Al Robles Express, 2019, by Lisa Suguitan Melnick: 

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/the-al-robles-express-is-on-the-right-track

Article on Tony Remington's exhibit by Carlos Zialcita:

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/tony-remingtons-launching-point-to-fil-am-consciousness

Bio:

Tony Remington grew up in San Francisco's Haight/Ashbury and has lived in many parts of San Francisco such as Daly City and West Oakland. Although he had experience many Balikbayan trips to the Philippines with his parents, in 2005 he began a series of extended visits to the Philippines that accumulated to more than seven years.

In 1970 he began his life as a photographer, became involved in Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State College, and developed an interest in Eastern Philosophy.

Upon leaving college and after completing his first major photographic essay in the Philippines, he began his work in the post-International Hotel community of San Francisco with poet/activist Al Robles and poet/social worker Presco Tabios. It was here working as food delivery person for home-bound seniors in a makeshift re-established post "Manilatown" he photographed the "Manongs" from 1977 to 1981.

The bulk of his economic life span included odd jobs such as handyman carpentry, but most notably to commericial photography, working 15 years as a commercial digital product photographer for two prepress/printing companies.

The mainstay of Tony Remington's vision is rooted in his ongoing body of work as a social realist photographer. This influence formally began to transfer into his paintings in 2017 as the official artist of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation's 50th Anniversary of the International Hotel Eviction of August 4.

In his own words "I believe in a deeper indigenous sense of continued spiritual evolution."

Manong Wilfred Ventura, post Manilatown era, Amparo Hotel, San Francisco, CA, 1979, by Tony Remington

Ocean Beach, San Francisco, CA, 1975, by Tony Remington

Ondoy Flood, Philippines, 2009, by Tony Remington

"Greetings from an Old Soul", Artex Compound Barangay, Panhulo, Malabon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, 2009, by Tony Remington

Laga Festival, Kalinga Apayao, Cordilleras of Luzon, Philippines, 2019, by Tony Remington

Juanita Tamayo Lott at the 5th Annual Filipino American International Book Fest, San Francisco Public Library, October 2019, by Tony Remington

John Davis Jr. is a Floridian poet residing in the Tampa Bay area. He has been writing and publishing for about 20 years.  Listen to us discuss how the Florida landscape and his love for travel influences his work and about his future projects. 

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com

http://poetjohndavisjr.com

You can purchase "Hard Inheritance" here: https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Inheritance-John-Davis-Jr/dp/1944355197/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1508088573&sr=8-2&keywords=Hard+Inheritance

You can order "Middle Class American Proverb here: https://www.amazon.com/Middle-Class-American-Proverb-Davis/dp/0942544129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414094131&sr=8-1&keywords=Middle+Class+American+Proverb

Bio:  John Davis Jr. is a Florida poet. His books include Hard Inheritance (Five Oaks Press, 2016), Middle Class American Proverb (Negative Capability Press, 2014), and two other collections. His poems have been published internationally, with appearances in magazines like Nashville Review, Barren magazine, The American Journal of Poetry, The Common online, and Steel Toe Review, among many others. He holds an MFA from University of Tampa in addition to a master's in education. He presently serves as associate dean of academic affairs for Keiser University in Clearwater.  

Listen to my interview with Elmer Omar Bascos Pizo, currently residing in Hawai‘i, an amazing poet with raw insight and stories. I had the chance to meet him out in San Francisco in October at the 5th Annual Filipino American International Book Festival where I learned of his work and found out that we also share some interesting parallels and intersections. Listen to him read and discuss his poems from his debut full-length poetry collection, "Leaving Our Shadows Behind Us" published by Bamboo Ridge Press in 2019.

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

Me & Elmer at the 5th Annual Filipino American International Book Festival in San Francisco, October 2019, organized by PAWA, Inc. & San Francisco Public Library.

You can order his book here at: Bamboo Ridge Press

--------------------------------------------------

SIBULAN
Negros Oriental, Philippines

At the mouth of the sea
where the Ocoy River ends,
brown bodies of naked boys
pop in and out of the swirling
water, like fish gasping for air.

Foaming soapsuds stained
with dirt from clothing
women scrub on the river banks
dissolve in the green water,
like this half spoonful of sugar
I just dropped
into my cup of tea.

AFTER THE LOVE-MAKING

Be honest, you insist,
catching your breath.
I want you to describe
how I made love to you.

Do you really care? I ask.
You nod.
All right then, I say,
swiping my wet lips
with my tongue. 

You're a half-ripe tangerine,
somewhat sweet,
a bit sour,
even after dipped in salt.

BIO:

Elmer Omar Bascos Pizo is an emerging voice in local literature, who translates his feelings into his poetry, reinterpreting his life experiences and working diligently to maintain authenticity. His poems are uniquely provocative, often sad in depicting his journey from an abusive childhood in the Philippines, through the trials of an overseas Filipino worker enduring and witnessing injustice and torture in the Middle East, to the challenges of a hard-working immigrant in 21st-century Hawai‘i. This is an important collection that offers a glimpse into a life of laboring to survive. Sometimes self-deprecating and occasionally humorous, Pizo’s distinctive poetry affirms the redemption found in the small sparks of humanity.

Nick Flynn agreed to come on YourArtsyGirlPodcast, so I got a chance to pick his brains a little! We talk about his upbringing, the production of his film, "Being Flynn" that was based on his famed memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City", some of his writing process, his new work, as well as hear him answer a question posed by one of my listeners, P.K. Harmon out in Guam. 

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

http://nickflynn.org

You can order Nick Flynn's new collection of poetry here:

https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/i-will-destroy-you

  https://wwnorton.com/books/Another-Bullshit-Night-in-Suck-City

Bio:  Nick Flynn has worked as a ship's captain, an electrician, and as a case-worker with homeless adults.  He is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times best-selling memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City".  His most recent book is "I Will Destroy You" (Graywolf, 2019).  He has received fellowships from (among other organizations): The Guggenheim Foundation, The Fine Arts Work Center, and The Library of Congress.  His work has won two PEN prizes, been a finalist for France's Prix Femina, and has been translated into fifteen languages. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the National Public Radio's "this American Life".  Since 2004, he has spent each spring in residence at the University of Houston, where is a professor on the Creative Writing faculty.

Nick Flynn agreed to come on YourArtsyGirlPodcast, so I got a chance to pick his brains a little! We talk about his upbringing, the production of his film, "Being Flynn" that was based on his famed memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City", some of his writing process, his new work, as well as hear him answer a question posed by one of my listeners, P.K. Harmon out in Guam. 

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

http://nickflynn.org

You can order Nick Flynn's new collection of poetry here:

https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/i-will-destroy-you

  https://wwnorton.com/books/Another-Bullshit-Night-in-Suck-City

Bio:  Nick Flynn has worked as a ship's captain, an electrician, and as a case-worker with homeless adults.  He is the author of twelve books, including the New York Times best-selling memoir "Another Bullshit Night in Suck City".  His most recent book is "I Will Destroy You" (Graywolf, 2019).  He has received fellowships from (among other organizations): The Guggenheim Foundation, The Fine Arts Work Center, and The Library of Congress.  His work has won two PEN prizes, been a finalist for France's Prix Femina, and has been translated into fifteen languages. Some of the venues his poems, essays, and non-fiction have appeared in include The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and the National Public Radio's "this American Life".  Since 2004, he has spent each spring in residence at the University of Houston, where is a professor on the Creative Writing faculty.

Dr. Melinda Luisa de Jesús is definitely a Renaissance woman! She is a scholar, a classical singer, a poet, & a visual artist. Listen to her discuss her journey into creativity through her earlier beginnings as a classically trained mezzo-soprano. As a feminist scholar, it wasn't until she found her voice in poetry with various publications to her first poetry collection "peminology", did her world open up even more to include visual arts in her artistic and intellectual repertoire.  

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

Order "peminology" here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/melinda-luisa-de-jes%C3%BAs/peminology/paperback/product-23634481.html

PEMINOLOGY
by Melinda Luisa de Jesús
Published by Paloma Press
Release Date: March 2018
ISBN: 9781387483686
Pages: 80, full-color
Available on Lulu and at select bookshops

In honor of International Women’s Day, Paloma Press is proud to announce the release of PEMINOLOGY, a first poetry collection by Melinda Luisa de Jesus, a feminist of color who teaches and writes about critical race theory, girlhood and monsters, and believes, “as did the ancients, that a poem can change the world.”

Excerpt:

Jealousy

1.
Wanting to be blonde-haired, blue-eyed,
small-boned and delicate

ivory-complexioned, sweet and ladylike
a fairy princess,

or green-eyed and red-haired
like a mermaid

Anything but brown-skinned
brown-eyed

black-haired
loud

big
fat

different.

2.
I love your poems

I hate your poems
I want to lick them,

chew the paper they’re on
savor each line

then
swallow them whole

make them mine.

3.
Wishing I felt more connection

Planted in American soil
wilting

bleached
I long to be coconut, carabao brown.

Advance words:
“Melinda Luisa de Jesús’ debut collection of poems comes from a space of longing, rebellion, grief, love, poetics and politics. Bold, unafraid and uncompromising, peminology carves out a space for de Jesús’ vision and her generation of Filipinas in immigrant America. She speaks in multiple voices and registers, as a daughter, to a daughter, as a mother, to a mother, as a storyteller, dredging up a past and confronting fiercely the present. peminology is poetic auto ethnography. It must be read. It must be heard. It must be listened to. This is Asian-America. This is post-Trump’s America. This is the America we live in.”
—Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, author of The Postcolonial Citizen: The Intellectual Migrant

“peminology is bold, raw, and honest. Weaving between past and present, de Jesús creates a narrative of traumas that connect girlhood to womanhood. Charting the intersections of racial and feminist awakenings, these poems offer avenues for shame and rage to become strength and resistance. “The Tractor,” “Patriarchy,” and “Imagine That” are but a few examples of the timely critiques—anthems, even—that de Jesús situates amidst her chronology of oppression and opposition. Her experimentation with form, including the hay(na)ku, the hay(na)ku sentence, and the pantoum, interrupts Western poetic conventions as much as the language and imagery itself. The stand out poem—“Bellies”— followed by “Pantoum for Eloisa,” explores the heartbreaking complexities of brown women negotiating motherhood and white imperialism. This collection will leave you simultaneously heartbroken and empowered, ready to rise out of your seat to demand recognition, and sit down with your child to nurture self-love. A must-read for 2018.” —Linda Pierce Allen, co-editor of Global Crossroads: A World Literature Reader and Questions of Identity: Complicating Race in American Literary History

Bio:

Melinda Luisa de Jesús is Associate Professor and former Chair of Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts. She writes and teaches about Filipinx/American cultural production, girl culture, monsters, and race/ethnicity in the United States. She edited Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory, the first anthology of Filipina/American feminisms (Routledge 2005). Her academic writing has appeared in Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices; Completely Mixed Up: Mixed Heritage Asian North American Writing and Art; Approaches to Teaching Multicultural Comics; Ethnic Literary Traditions in Children’s Literature; Challenging Homophobia; Radical Teacher; The Lion and the Unicorn; Ano Ba Magazine; Rigorous; Konch Magazine; Rabbit and Rose; MELUS; Meridians; The Journal of Asian American Studies, and Delinquents and Debutantes: TwentiethCentury American Girls’ Cultures.

She is also a poet and her chapbooks, Humpty Drumpfty and Other Poems; Petty Poetry for SCROTUS Girls’ with poems for Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama; Defying Trumplandia; Adios Trumplandia!; James Brown’sWig and Other Poems; and Vagenda of Manicide and Other Poems were published by Locofo Chaps in 2017. Her first collection of poetry, peminology, was published by Paloma Press in 2018.

In Spring 2019 Melinda was the Muriel Gold Senior Visiting Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada where she organized the Pinay Power II: Celebrating Peminisms in the Diaspora conference (see pinaypower.ca for more info).

She is a mezzo-soprano, a mom, an Aquarian, and admits an obsession with Hello Kitty. More info: http://peminist.com

Twitter: @peminology 

Dr. Melinda Luisa de Jesús is definitely a Renaissance woman! She is a scholar, a classical singer, a poet, & a visual artist. Listen to her discuss her journey into creativity through her earlier beginnings as a classically trained mezzo-soprano. As a feminist scholar, it wasn't until she found her voice in poetry with various publications to her first poetry collection "peminology", did her world open up even more to include visual arts in her artistic and intellectual repertoire.  

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

Order "peminology" here:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/melinda-luisa-de-jes%C3%BAs/peminology/paperback/product-23634481.html

PEMINOLOGY
by Melinda Luisa de Jesús
Published by Paloma Press
Release Date: March 2018
ISBN: 9781387483686
Pages: 80, full-color
Available on Lulu and at select bookshops

In honor of International Women’s Day, Paloma Press is proud to announce the release of PEMINOLOGY, a first poetry collection by Melinda Luisa de Jesus, a feminist of color who teaches and writes about critical race theory, girlhood and monsters, and believes, “as did the ancients, that a poem can change the world.”

Excerpt:

Jealousy

1.
Wanting to be blonde-haired, blue-eyed,
small-boned and delicate

ivory-complexioned, sweet and ladylike
a fairy princess,

or green-eyed and red-haired
like a mermaid

Anything but brown-skinned
brown-eyed

black-haired
loud

big
fat

different.

2.
I love your poems

I hate your poems
I want to lick them,

chew the paper they’re on
savor each line

then
swallow them whole

make them mine.

3.
Wishing I felt more connection

Planted in American soil
wilting

bleached
I long to be coconut, carabao brown.

Advance words:
“Melinda Luisa de Jesús’ debut collection of poems comes from a space of longing, rebellion, grief, love, poetics and politics. Bold, unafraid and uncompromising, peminology carves out a space for de Jesús’ vision and her generation of Filipinas in immigrant America. She speaks in multiple voices and registers, as a daughter, to a daughter, as a mother, to a mother, as a storyteller, dredging up a past and confronting fiercely the present. peminology is poetic auto ethnography. It must be read. It must be heard. It must be listened to. This is Asian-America. This is post-Trump’s America. This is the America we live in.”
—Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, author of The Postcolonial Citizen: The Intellectual Migrant

“peminology is bold, raw, and honest. Weaving between past and present, de Jesús creates a narrative of traumas that connect girlhood to womanhood. Charting the intersections of racial and feminist awakenings, these poems offer avenues for shame and rage to become strength and resistance. “The Tractor,” “Patriarchy,” and “Imagine That” are but a few examples of the timely critiques—anthems, even—that de Jesús situates amidst her chronology of oppression and opposition. Her experimentation with form, including the hay(na)ku, the hay(na)ku sentence, and the pantoum, interrupts Western poetic conventions as much as the language and imagery itself. The stand out poem—“Bellies”— followed by “Pantoum for Eloisa,” explores the heartbreaking complexities of brown women negotiating motherhood and white imperialism. This collection will leave you simultaneously heartbroken and empowered, ready to rise out of your seat to demand recognition, and sit down with your child to nurture self-love. A must-read for 2018.” —Linda Pierce Allen, co-editor of Global Crossroads: A World Literature Reader and Questions of Identity: Complicating Race in American Literary History

Bio:

Melinda Luisa de Jesús is Associate Professor and former Chair of Diversity Studies at California College of the Arts. She writes and teaches about Filipinx/American cultural production, girl culture, monsters, and race/ethnicity in the United States. She edited Pinay Power: Peminist Critical Theory, the first anthology of Filipina/American feminisms (Routledge 2005). Her academic writing has appeared in Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices; Completely Mixed Up: Mixed Heritage Asian North American Writing and Art; Approaches to Teaching Multicultural Comics; Ethnic Literary Traditions in Children’s Literature; Challenging Homophobia; Radical Teacher; The Lion and the Unicorn; Ano Ba Magazine; Rigorous; Konch Magazine; Rabbit and Rose; MELUS; Meridians; The Journal of Asian American Studies, and Delinquents and Debutantes: TwentiethCentury American Girls’ Cultures.

She is also a poet and her chapbooks, Humpty Drumpfty and Other Poems; Petty Poetry for SCROTUS Girls’ with poems for Elizabeth Warren and Michelle Obama; Defying Trumplandia; Adios Trumplandia!; James Brown’sWig and Other Poems; and Vagenda of Manicide and Other Poems were published by Locofo Chaps in 2017. Her first collection of poetry, peminology, was published by Paloma Press in 2018.

In Spring 2019 Melinda was the Muriel Gold Senior Visiting Professor at the Institute for Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada where she organized the Pinay Power II: Celebrating Peminisms in the Diaspora conference (see pinaypower.ca for more info).

She is a mezzo-soprano, a mom, an Aquarian, and admits an obsession with Hello Kitty. More info: http://peminist.com

Twitter: @peminology 

Upon my visit to San Francisco to attend the 5th Annual International Filipino American Book Festival, I had the pleasure to learn about Betty Ann Besa-Quirino's work and her prolific Filipino cookbooks.  However, after interviewing her and learning more about her on YourArtsyGirlPodcast, I found Ms. Betty Ann to be even more fascinating than ever that I wanted to keep on talking to her. For as most authors, she does more than writing Filipino cookbooks and food blogs, she is a journalist, creative writer and an artist as well!

http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com/episodes

https://www.asianinamericamag.com/about/

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1723844802/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1977701973/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

Bio:  Elizabeth Ann Besa-Quirino, is a journalist, and a multi-award-winner of the Plaridel Writing Awards and has been a winner of the Doreen Gamboa Fernandez Food Writing Awards. She is the author of her newest cookbook “Instant Filipino Recipes: My Mother’s Traditional Philippine Food in a Multicooker Pot”. Other cookbooks she has written are: “My Mother’s Philippine Recipes” and “How To Cook Philippine Desserts, Cakes and Snacks”. She is a correspondent for Positively Filipino online magazine; and blogs about Filipino home cooking on her site AsianInAmericaMag.com

Betty Ann, as she is fondly called, was born in the Philippines and raised in Tarlac province where her way of life was molded early on by her parents’ farming and agricultural business. From the time she was a little girl, Betty Ann learned how to cook traditional Philippine dishes from her mother and has transformed these culinary skills to modern day Filipino cooking in her American kitchen. Based in New Jersey, Betty Ann is a member of the International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP-New York); the New York Women’s Culinary Alliance; the Association of Culinary Historians of the Philippines.

Instant Filipino Recipes Cookbook: My Mother’s Traditional Philippine Food In a Multicooker Pot. (2018; Amazon.com) – This is perhaps the first Filipino cookbook published in America with recipes for the popular kitchen appliance, the Instant Pot or multicooker. The author has put together 36 traditional Philippine recipes, each with full color photos and shares a faster way to cook these classics without losing the soul of mom’s cooking.

My Mother’s Philippine Recipes (2017; Amazon.com) – The author shares a collection of her mother’s recipes from her childhood, often served to family and friends who stopped by their home in Tarlac. The Besa home was known to locals as “the home along the highway”, a stopover of friends and family enroute to Baguio. Friends relished the multi-course meals her mother prepared with produce ingredients harvested from their farm, expertly grown by her father.

War & Forgiveness article: 

http://www.positivelyfilipino.com/magazine/war-and-forgiving

Instagram: @bettyannquirino

Twitter: @bettyannquirino

Pintrest: BettyAnnBesa Quirino