What Are You Working On?
Writers on their works in progress

Marianne Villanueva

novelist and short story writer

Marianne Villanueva (website) was born in Manila. After completing her Masters in East Asian Studies at Stanford, she was admitted to the university's well-known creative writing program: "I realized I wasn't much of an Asia specialist; I felt much more at home in the Creative Writing Program." She was first published in the U.S. in Story Quarterly. She says, "But I have been published in both places now -- Manila and the States -- and I'm proud of having a bi-cultural identity." She is the author of a short story collection published in 2005, Mayor of the Roses, and a 1991 collection Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila.

 
I'm working on a series of short stories. Right now they're very short, nothing but tales. I'm working off of a voice-- a very ironic and sarcastic voice. I'm not sure yet whose voice it is. It might be a man or a woman. It might be a teacher or a battered woman. It's a Filipino voice, but the English is American English. The stories roam back and forth in memory, and roam quite a bit in location, too. It's a free-floating thing. (The book is) about history and anger.

 
What led you to this project?

I've always been concerned with history, and I've always felt a kind of anger. But I tried to disguise my concerns in previous stories (out of insecurity?). Now I feel much more sure of my voice and my craft.

 
What's been hard to learn or figure out? What challenges are you overcoming?

Plot has been the hardest thing for me to figure out. I could write for weeks, months, with just a voice coming at me, but it would end up pretty deadening. I still need to figure out events, circumstances, situations.

Then there's the wondering whether what I am writing is "true" -- true to my cultural background. As a Filipina writer I feel almost an obligation to write about my culture, but the longer I've lived in California the harder that becomes.

 
What has been the most rewarding part of working on this project?

Well, just the idea of working, writing, creating is very rewarding in itself.

Also, knowing that I look at the world through a filter that enables me to transmute my own experiences into a story lends everything I do a sense of purpose. There are times, of course, when, because I'm too busy teaching or have too many other obligations, I can't do this -- look at my life as a prism for writing -- and those times seem wasted to me. So I'm always trying to retreat from life (at least in my head) and find a space that is my own.

And also, the feeling that I don't think anyone else is writing or thinking about the subjects that concern me, so that my voice is still individual and distinct...

 
When do you expect (or hope) to finish, and what's next for the project? Do you have a book contract, or prospects?

No, I don't have a book contract. I have no prospects, either. But I'm happy to be left alone. I actually feel I wouldn't be able to write well if I knew I was writing in fulfillment of a contract. I've been pretty resourceful about finding publishers on my own. Even though it might take me years, I know I'll be able to get another book published.

I hope to finish whatever it is I'm working on in the next three or four years. I don't know what my next project will be, but I'm tempted to write a screenplay!

Links

Review of Villanueva's short story collection Mayor of the Roses in the 7 Sep 2005 Philippine News

A 2004 interview

Villanueva reviews three Filipino poets in the 4 Dec 2005 SF Chronicle

See more What Are You Working On? interviews.

published 5 April 06 on Too Beautiful. email copyright 2006 Mark Pritchard, Bernal Heights, San Francisco