Events, The Writing Community

Love Languages: Notes from the 2024 Philippine Book Festival

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After the January KOMIKET event at Market! Market! a few months ago, I wrote a blog post about Why I like hand selling books. Now, here I am again, about to share with you some nakakakilig moments of the time we hand sold #RomanceClass books at the 2024 Philippine Book Festival.

Organized by the National Book Development Board, the Philippine Book Festival is a free event that aims to showcase Filipino talent through various types of published work. Just like last year, the World Trade Center (official venue of #PBF2024) was divided into four “realms”: Booktopia (fiction and non-fiction books), Komiks (comic books, graphic novels, zines, and art), Aral Aklat (textbooks), and KidLit (children’s books). Book and publishing industry-related balks and workshops also happen throughout the day, divided among the different spaces such as the Main Stage and the Creators’ Lab.

This year we were given the chance to represent Filipino romance the #RomanceClass way at our very own booth, and boy, was it fun!

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Events, The Writing Community

#RomanceClass x The Ateneo National Writers Workshop

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The 21st Ateneo National Writers Workshop + RomanceClass

Exciting news!

The Ateneo Institute of Literary Arts and Practices (AILAP) is working with #RomanceClass to bring you the 21st Ateneo National Writers Workshop (21ANWW)! This year, AILAP aims to explore romance writing that challenges current conventions, as well as contribute to the direction and future of the genre.

This is amazing to me in many different levels, but mainly because as a young aspiring writer who had an inclination toward writing love stories, I was never encouraged to write romance by the academe. Perhaps it was not conveyed directly to me that the romance genre wasn’t welcome in the literary sphere, but the way literature was being taught at the time and the type of short stories and poetry that the school’s publication put out made it seem so. To have an actual academic entity promote the exploration of the romance genre is refreshing to me, and I am looking forward to the stories we’re going to be seeing through this program.

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Events, The Writing Community

#RomanceClass™ will be at KOMIKET next weekend!

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Hey, hey, hey~ we are having our first event of the year! If you missed #RomanceClass™ (yes, we are officially trademarked now, hihi!) at any of our events in 2023, here’s your chance to catch us at this January!

We will be tabling at KOMIKET at the Ayala Market! Market! activity area on January 19-21 (Friday-Sunday), just look for one of the booths right in front of the stage—we’ll be there. Do follow us on social media @romanceclassbks on X and @romanceclasbooks on Instagram for more updates.

And of course, if you’re new to us, romanceclassbooks.com is your greatest resource. We’ve got over a hundred romance novels in English, featuring Filipino characters falling in love. <3

Hope to see you next week!

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Events, Personal

Tara’s Takeaways: What’s my favorite thing about self-publishing?

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It’s true. All so true.

The above image was part of a slideshow I created for a Book Talk I was invited to recently. Most of the details are on this Instagram post, but long story short—I spoke about my self-publishing experience to a group of Grade 7-10 students and had fun. Yes, even if I had NO idea what I was going to do when I got the email invitation.

I mean…it’s a group of teenagers, and I mostly write adult romance. Heh.

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