4 Filipina authors on how they got published in the US without even leaving the country

Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash

There are millions of books getting published each year, and with the rise of self-publishing and digital publishing, it becomes even more difficult to really grasp the numbers. In the US, the so-called Big 5 (Penguin/Random House, Hachette Book Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, and Macmillan) account for more or less a hundred thousand new titles every year.

Can you imagine that some of those books published by the US’ largest publishers were created and written by Filipinos? In fact, a handful of those Filipina authors are actually still based in the Philippines.

While locally we also have our own crop of major publishers, for Philippine-based authors to have their work picked up and distributed internationally is no easy feat. But for these four Filipina authors, it’s become possible to share the Filipino experience with a global audience.

In a panel discussion at the recently concluded Manila International Book Fair, authors Mae Coyiuto (“Chloe and the Kaishao Boys,” Anvil Publishing/Penguin Random House), Caris Avendaño Cruz (“Marikit and the Ocean of Stars,” Macmillan Publishers), Thea Guanzon (“The Hurricane Wars,” Harper Collins), and Gail Villanueva (“My Fate According to the Butterfly,” Scholastic; “Lulu Sinagtala and the City of Noble Warriors,” Harper Collins) talked about how they got published in the US and shared their experiences in creating works that resonate with Filipino and Asian readers.

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A post shared by Thea Guanzon (@theagwrites)

On putting their work out there

For the Philippine-based authors, social media and online platforms played a huge role in getting discovered by agents and publishers. Cruz and Coyiuto both shared how they both tried out Twitter pitch events, where writers could post about stories they’ve written to get the attention of potential agents. One particular pitch event called #DVPit seeks to find stories and authors from marginalized or minority groups.

“[DVPit] was open to anyone who’s been historically marginalized as an author, so anyone who’s a person of color, or in the LGBT community, could pitch a story,” Coyiuto shared. “So in 150 characters, and even just those pitches, that was the first time I felt like, ‘oh, I kind of can see myself in these story ideas.’”

Although Coyiuto wasn’t able to get a book deal through the pitch event, she shared how seeing those story pitches from various authors opened her to the possibility that writers who were ethnically similar to her had a chance at getting published.

While Cruz was able to find an agent through a Twitter pitch, Guanzon, whose debut novel “The Hurricane Wars” comes out this October, took a different route.

Guanzon said she had not considered a writing career prior to being found by an agent and editor because she had been surrounded by family with “traditional” careers in medicine and law. But writing had always been her passion, and so she resorted to using writing as an outlet, publishing stories on the fanfiction platform Archive Of Our Own. There, one of her stories for Star Wars gained a following, and she was then invited by editors to be included in an anthology of Star Wars fiction (“From a Certain Point of View: Return of the Jedi”).

Eventually, this opened up another opportunity for her. “An editor reached out to me, asking if I ever thought about writing an original novel. I was like, well, we are in a pandemic, we are in lockdown, we’re all stuck in our houses, so let me give this a shot,” Guanzon said.

Coyiuto meanwhile offered another option for those looking to get published abroad. Her novel “Chloe and the Kaishao Boys” was already published locally by Anvil Publishing but was later published for international release by Penguin/Random House. Coyiuto said she sent a lot of cold letters to agents.

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A post shared by Mae Coyiuto (@maecoyiuto)

“I kinda describe it as like applying for a job, I had to send cold letters to different agents (who wanted young adult fiction) I found or Googled online… I [also] got my favorite YA books; I’d go to the back (of the book) and [the author would] always thank their agents, so I’m like, ‘okay, I like this book, let me try and contact this agent.’”

Villanueva, meanwhile, shared that the experience was more challenging in the mid-2010s.

“The idea of writing a book that’s set in the Philippines with a Filipino character was basically unheard of, especially by an author who is based here in the Philippines. Another hurdle was that I was visibly, physically, vocally Filipino,” she said.

Agents and publishers at that time had been saying that because of this, they “could not connect” with her and her writing. “Luckily there were efforts by Diverse Books, which is one of the reasons I am a big supporter of their organization… They were one of the forefronts of the diversity push in US publishing.”

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Writing with your own voice

For aspiring writers, especially those who may be aiming to get published internationally, it may be tempting to appeal to themes, tropes, or settings that are already familiar to Western readers. But if there’s anything the stories of the four Filipina authors have shown, it’s that honoring your unique Filipino voice and experience will make for a more satisfying story.

Guanzon shared that the first draft of “The Hurricane Wars” featured a more generic, Western fantasy setting. “I think it’s because it was what I grew up reading. So it just never occurred to me that I was allowed to make it Southeast Asian, that I was allowed to make it Filipino. And so the first draft was very bad, the world-building was so uninspired. I was not invested in it at all,” she said.

Her Vietnamese-American agent was the one who suggested making the setting Southeast Asian. “[She said,] ‘Why not build this fantasy after your home region?’ And that was when something was unlocked for me. I feel like this story became so much richer because of that.” She added that advanced copy readers had messaged her saying they enjoyed the little cultural easter eggs like taho.

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Cruz shared a similar sentiment from her readers, especially because the main character’s name, Marikit, appears in her novel’s title. She recalled receiving messages in which Filipino readers who were also named Marikit, expressed their joy in seeing their own name on a book.

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A post shared by Caris Avendaño Cruz (@carisavencruz)

Although representation in various forms of media is steadily growing, there’s still much work to be done. For Filipinos who are given the opportunity to share their heritage—be it through food, fashion, performing, or writing—there seems to be pressure to get “being Filipino” right.

But for Villanueva, who has already written and published a number of English novels heavily featuring Filipino characters and culture, this shouldn’t be the case.

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A post shared by Gail D. Villanueva (@gaildvillanueva)

“I don’t think they need to feel that they are representative of everybody. Everyone will have a different experience. So if you feel like you have to encapsulate it all, what it feels like to be Filipino, if you want to be as Filipino as you want, go ahead. But you don’t have to feel the pressure na parang you have to represent everybody,” she said.

“My experience is going to be very different from [others’] experience. What may be Filipino for me, may not be Filipino for you. But I’m still a Filipino. And I think that’s something we should all remember.

“Our experiences are all different, and no matter how much we want to represent the Filipino experience, we can’t. But I think that opens up [the opportunity] for more experiences that need to be told.”