THIS IS common on Facebook Messenger: Out of nowhere, a student shoots me a private message.
Usually in this vein—
“Good day, sir. I’m actually one of your big fans. I read your poem Waling-waling [or any other poem or story required in their curriculum], at marami pa pong iba.
“As for now, our teacher in 21st Century [I suppose, English—21st Century English course in the K-12 program] required us to have a conversation with at least one National Artist[s] of the Philippines.
“Kung okay lang po sana sa inyo, sir, can I ask a few questions?”
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And I wish people would read my website first for biographical information and some press about me before asking me the same questions again and again.
I mean, it is precisely for these student researches that I spend money on keeping my website, and in redesigning it to be more all- and multi-platform friendly so people can access them through their PCs, iPads, laptops, iPhones, androids, iMacs, and whatever else the “i” generation uses to transact their life and money businesses online.
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On July 1st, to celebrate my road to 50, my new fortified website — petersolisnery.com, developed and redesigned by the amazing Eric Barbosa, Jr., went live.
It has my usual stuff: Basic biography, bibliography, filmography, press, my Hiligaynon language advocacy, my obra maestras in Hiligaynon literature, and contact information.
It has more video links now, so you’ll see me actually moving and talking.
More alive than just portrait photos of my last website design.
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It has links to my social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
In addition, my PayPal account! So you can actually send me money now.
You can send donations.
Or you can buy stuff from me. Like my books, or movies, artworks, Peter Solis Nery memorabilia, et cetera.
It’s really cool.
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My contact page on the website has my email addresses.
Of course, these become obsolete with Facebook messenger. But they are there for a purpose.
And I like corresponding with my readers.
They give me the affirmations that writers from before the internet age did not enjoy.
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And that’s why I can do and write whatever I do and write — because I’m so in touch with my public.
I don’t have to force you to read me here at Panay News.
You just read me because you are afraid that you are missing something big and beautiful in your miserable life.
Who would think that my kind of writing would survive in the Op-Ed of a newspaper?
And we are talking about the largest regional newspaper in the country!
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Why do I have such power in the newspaper?
Because I bring a whole chunk of readership with me.
This is the funniest thing: Even my haters read my columns! They think I’ll write about them. Haha.
Losers!
But my fans are real.
And though at times they can be tedious, I make an effort to answer the same questions again and again.
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From the sender above: “How old are you when you started writing stories?”
I’m pretty sure I’ve written stories even when I was in the elementary grades.
But I distinctly remember writing a teenage love story of a certain length (I mean, publishable length) involving a red sweater in my high school campus paper.
I think I was in third year high school (what is now Grade 9) at that time. So I must have been 15 or 16.
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But at that time, I was also big into what I thought was poetry!
High school poetry. Juvenilia of the youth.
Nobody told me that those works of mine were not poems. But simply teenage angst and sentiments written in lines.
Some strange words stringed by the imagination of an adolescent.
It cannot be faulted under the circumstances.
Nobody taught me poetry like I teach poetry to the new generation now!
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Then, in the summer break after high school, I wrote a story for the now defunct Yuhum Magazine.
It was called “Sniffles”, which, of course, got inspired by the tiny blue people I saw on TV called Smurfs.
It featured characters based on showbiz personalities of my time like Ike Lozada and German Moreno.
It is the missing Peter Solis Nery!
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I mean, I’ve been looking for a copy of that story since I started to be famous.
I never really saw it in print, to be honest.
But a college teacher of mine, a literary connoisseur, complimented me on how well I wrote the story.
He said he remembered the story, and my name, because it is that good!
After he told me, I looked for a copy of the Yuhum issue, but I couldn’t find one.
Sold out, I was told.
At that time, I was too poor to offer rewards.
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Today, I am willing to pay P10,000 for a copy of that story. Maybe more if you give me the copy of Yuhum where it is published.
Your clue: Yuhum Magazine 1986, likely April, May or June edition. Again the story is called “Sniffles”.
I must have been paid P150 for that story.
That was the going rate for Yuhum short stories in the late 1980s.
(To be continued as Iloilo and the Gay 90s) (500tinaga@gmail.com/PN)
