Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Power of Pen Food Writing Forum Visayas Tour Speakers


Wazzup Pilipinas!

Food has gone out of the confines of the kitchen. For many years now, its emergence in art has influenced our experience with cookery. Aside from the act of preparing a dish; our contemporary culture has opened to many other subjects of interest such as food blogging, food styling, and food writing in general.

In fact, the vast surfacing of blogs and social media platforms have instituted food blogging as a career path for those who would like to establish themselves in the culinary world.

Food writing and critiquing however are not merely made of personal commentaries of one’s experience of a specific dish or restaurant. Its arising demand for discourse and discussion have initiated The Power of Pen, a food writing forum workshop that aims to instruct both amateur and professional writers and culinary practitioners as to how they should utilize writing in their chosen fields of either exploration or expertise.

 On its 5th year, The Power of Pen is touring Visayas with the University of Cebu as its co-­‐presentor and official venue. The forum will be studded by highly commendable personalities from our culinary and cultural threshold from chefs and restaurateurs to authors and publishers.



To give a general overview of food writing is Anne Marie Ozaeta, Editor-­‐in-­‐chief of the Philippine’s largest selling culinary Magazine, FOOD by ABS-­‐CBN Publishing. Previously, she served as the editor-­‐in-­‐chief of F&B World Magazine, the country's premiere foodservice magazine. She has also edited several culinary books, most recently Philippine Cookery: From Heart to Platter written by Chef Tatung Sarthou. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Brown University and a Master's Degree in Communication from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She landed her first full-­‐time job at the University of The Philippines Diliman where she taught essay and research writing, and literature to college undergraduates.

Michaela Fenix, an editor, and a food writer in Philippine Daily Inquirer will bring into discussion Food Knowledge: Building a Food Library and The Importance of Research for Food Stories and Ideas. Michaela Fenix is a veteran food writer who has toured various regions in the Philippines and has written explications about our diverse but all-­‐encompassing culinary flavors in her weekly column, Country Cooking. To date, she has written two books namely, Country Cooking, Philippine Regional Cuisines, and Cooking with Filipino Chefs and has co-­‐authored A Culinary Life: Personal Recipe Collection with Nora Daza.


Myrna Segismundo, founder of the Doreen Gamboa-­‐Fernandez Food Writing Competition and the former director of 9501 Restaurant (exclusive executive restaurant of ABSCBN), will speak about the technicalities of recipe writing for culinary practitioners who will someday want to author their cook books. She has written two culinary books and has participated as a chef author in Kulinarya: A Guide to Philippine Cooking”.

Addressing the topic of Practicing What You Write: Regional Cuisine and Heritage Writing is Cebuano author Louella Therese Alix, an alumna herself of the University of San Carlos Cebu. A graduate of Bachelor of Arts in English -­‐ her love for food, history, and writing has led her to accomplish six books which richly contain stories of her hometown and their culinary history. The most recent addition to her works is entitled Hikay: The Culinary Heritage of Cebu which is published by the USC Press.

To talk about Writing and Editing for Publications is Dr. Jobers Reynes Bersales, the manager of the University of San Carlos Press and the curator of USC Museum. He has authored and co-­‐ authored a number of books including Salapi, The Numismatic Heritage of the Philippines (BPI Foundation 2013) which won the Grand Anvil and the Gold Anvil in the 50th Anvil Awards held in 2014 and Pagsulay: Churches of Bohol Before and After the 2013 Earthquake (USC Press 2014), a National Book Award finalist.


This one-­‐day forum is open to both students and professionals with or without an educational background in writing. It will be held on November 19, 2016 at the Dingman Hall, University of San Carlos, Cebu.

Registration fee of Php1,200.00 per person will include the refreshments and the Certificate of Attendance signed by all the speakers. Special rate for students currently enrolled is also being offered at Php 600.00 per student (Valid school ID for the current school year required before anyone can avail of this).

To register, please call STRAM, INCORPORATED, (02) 352.31.87 & (02) 927.72.08 or you may also email: info@strameventsinc.com.

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