By ANNE-MARIE JENNIFER ELIGIO

It was a year after I graduated from college that I decided to enter Silliman. After months of working as a cub reporter for a daily and a brief stint with an ad agency in my hometown, I realized I wanted to write for a different audience.

I first heard of the National Writers Workshop back in high school. The Tiempos, to me, seemed to be icons. When my parents couldn’t afford to send me to Silliman for college, I told myself I’d let her wait; my opportune time would just arrive.

And so, May of 1993, I set foot on Silliman. I tried to “read” the place and the atmosphere it exuded. After a month, I went back, enrolled, and dared to risk the whole of me to the Creative Writing Program.

The first semester consisted of months of “serious” work—study, research, reports. I wasn’t very particular with joining a clique or creating one. I was determined to leave a good impression on my instructors, especially since this was the first semester. But it was during this semester that I saw the real scenario of the Creative Writing Program. There weren’t enough professors to teach me: the Tiempos had retired, Cesar Aquino had gone back to Manila, and the rest, to name a few—Merlie Alunan-Wenceslao, Jaime Am Lim, Anthony Tan—had long left. They left, I would suppose, to seek for greener (read: financially fulfilling) pastures. I think the English Department panicked when I came in. I was the first one to enroll for a Creative Writing degree again after Timothy Montes defended his master’s thesis. I never knew then that the program was in shambles, , and all those graduating hopefuls—Creative Writing majors who are one step away from having an M.A. degree (if only they’d finish their theses)— were turning helpless. For lack of professors to teach, the program was dead.

It would explain the kind of panic which struck the department. Who would teach this virtually unknown newcomer? They would have to take a close look again at the subjects I would have to enroll in. I could only look back at it now: I might have been the small spark which made the program alive again.

The semester that followed was one I would consider my writing stage. From my major subjects, I was exposed to writers and their techniques: Poe’s organic unity, Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness, Updike’s peripheral-tangential. But far better than this, I labored to understand the writers themselves and their angst: Faulkner’s “human heart in conflict,” Kafka’s “ontological crisis,” Durell’s “pain becoming literature.” I was not aware that I had dug deeper into Truth in literature. I wasn’t just writing for myself: fiction, I learned, possesses universal values.

The first National Writers Workshop I attended—in 1994—exposed me to a newer and more challenging dimension in writing: literary criticism. I actually was in front of the literary giants—criticizing, praising, underestimating, glorifying, poking fun at, or taking seriously, the manuscripts I submitted. Mom Edith remained sweet-looking even when she delivered her attacks, Ate Marj was always the “ever-charming” panelist even in the middle of her punches, Butch Dalisay was restrained and particular with the language used, Ricky de Ungria had that pretty smile on his face especially after workshop time but would give us a stiff look when everyone would be awaiting his verdict, Cesar Aquino was forgiving and had that memorable hand gesture which I liked best because that would mean he’s very interested in your work. And Doc Ed? To survive a workshop is to survive Doc Ed.

Friendships bloomed the remaining semesters. The English Department revived the Sands & Coral, and we, the bunch who would meet Saturdays, sorted through hundreds of manuscripts. Kuya Noel, Ton-Ton, Dinah, Bobby, Tim, Jared, Angeline, and the rest of the staff shared a common bond which we did not have to make obvious: a deep interest in the revival of literary talent on campus. Our efforts have been rewarded: issues have been appearing each year on the stands.

The following summer, I joined the 2nd Iligan National Writers Workshop. I survived that workshop, too, despite the “blasphemy” my story earned. I still remember telling Dr. Cirilo Bautista that I might not again write a story on how the world would end.

Those two long years proved to be arduous. But my last year was equally painstaking. I strove to write more stories and saw them published. I “devoured” books for a probable thesis. I tried to beat the past record I had when I was still reviewing for my comprehensive exams—an 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily ordeal in the library. Time was proving to be more cruel. Juggling my time in-between teaching and researching, I felt that everything seemed to be more difficult. I was at a crossroads.

I attended the summer workshops in Dumaguete after my first. Those times, I was a veteran. Fresh, young faces were there, experiencing what it takes to consider oneself a writer. I remember looking at all their flustered and/or happy faces. I was there once.

All my years in Silliman are present in who I am now—including that long stretch of academic learning. But greater still would be the moments undocumented by words: they are found in the Self I was finally re-introduced to.

[Reprinted from Sands & Coral Centennial Issue, 2001]  

Anne-Marie Jennifer Eligio earned her M.A. in Creative Writing at Silliman University.