Spring 2024 with Sawaga River Press
Happy Spring, Friends! It’s our favorite time of the year—not too hot, not too cold—and we feel hopeful.
There’s much to celebrate so let’s get right to it!
PAST EVENTS UPDATE
Rooted in Practice Launch + Kamayan Feast with Pinay Powerhouse Collective, Oakland, CA
On March 7, 2024, Pinay Powerhouse launched the Rooted in Practice, Pinays in Law anthology with a very special Kamayan Feast curated by chef Yana Gilbuena of the SALO Seriess. (Here is a New York Times article on Chef Yana and her kamayan pop-ups serving Filipino food across the Unites States and other countries.) What a feast it was! Chef Yana’s delicious offerings included Sinigang Poke Inari, Mushroom Sisig, and Pili Nut Kare-Kare.
But before the feast, we spoke about the inspiration behind the collaboration between SRP and Pinay Powerhouse and the work to publish the anthology. Afterwards, the collective sold copies of the anthology (and ground coffee from Jolo, Sulu, courtesy of Titania Buchholdt) to raise scholarship funds for those interested in attending the 7th Pinay Powerhouse conference in San Diego on March 22-24, 2024.
Thank you to the Pinay Powerhouse co-founders who were present—Vanessa Candelaria, Christine Start, Jennifer Sta. Ana, and Mari Bandoma Callado—for envisioning this collective and womanifesting our collectve dreams! We look forward to more storytelling collaborations in the future!
If you’re interested in purchasing a copy of the anthology, find it here.
Nueva School Filipino American Celebration
On March 9, 2024, the Nueva School invited SRP to participate during their Filipino American cultural event. Invited along with us were fabric artist Carrie Agasid and the Parangal Dance Company headed by Eric Solano. Of course, there was a long table of delicious Filipino food and desserts, from champorado to pandesal to lumpia, pancit, sisig, barbecue pork, turon, leche flan, and many other delicacies. After lunch, Parangal entertained the guests with cultural dances. Carrie Agasid followed the performances with a demonstration of basket weaving and fabric dyeing. We closed the day with a reading of one of the books published by SRP, Jack & Agyu, and gave a general talk about how the SRP started, the need for community-based publishing, and a summary of the publishing process.
Thank you to Pearl Chaozon for inviting SRP!
Independent Book Publishers Association- Publishing University
Lastly, the Independent Book Publishers Association hosted their Publishiing University on April 25-27, 2024, in Denver, Colorado. The details are here. We are proud to have been part of the conference and the closing panel. We shared about how we are “rising and disrupting” the publishing world. We also met many publishers, especially the four other publishers who, like us, were chosen for the Innovative Voices program last year. There was so much to learn! We hope to continue learning and creating relationships within the publishing sphere!
BOOKS UPDATES
In our last blog post, we gave an update on the books that we aim to publish in 2024. We are happy to report that we are on track to have 8 books by the end of this year!
Mama, Mama, Do You Know What I Like?
This year, we ran out of Mama, Mama so we are working on reprinting this well-loved book. This book was our first book in 2017 and we learned so much from it. (If you’d like to revisit our publishing journey for this book, go here.) A little over six years after its first publication, we dare say it is even more lovable and joyful and life-affirming. This was unexpectedly fun to reprint! We are trying not to make too many changes as we love the charm of this book. However, we did change some of the illustrations in the outer space adventure spread and the color of the cover’s background.Which one do you think we chose? You’ll find out soon enough when the books arrive this summer! If you would like to pre-order this book for the kids in your life, find the link here. This book will arrive in Summer 2024.
Jack & Agyu
Also this year, we ran out of the lovable and charming Jack & Agyu book illustrated by Lynnor Bontigao. We are reprinting it with no changes. And because this award reminder popped on our Facebook feed, we might as well share this award from 2020 as a reminder of this book’s general appeal. And if you feel like ordering a copy, find the link here. This, too, will arrive this Summer 2024.
Mungan and Lola
Our newest book is going through the printing channels and will arrive in May or June! We have been working hard on this book for a long time and we’re very happy to be seeing it in our hands soon. This book was such a joy to make with many in the community. It is about rituals of care and healing and, certainly, the process of making this book was so healing for us! We conversed with Dr. Robyn Rodriguez, founder of Amado Khaya Foundation, formerly the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, and we have scheduled an event for Mungan and Lola at the Remagination Farm on November 9, 2024, to celebrate indigeneity and the ancestors (for All Soul’s Day/Undas/Dia De Muertos). It feels like a long time from now but we’d like to flag this and we will keep you posted. It’s going to be a joyful event! The links are here if you’d like to pre-order or find out about the Mungan and Lola publishing journey.
Party Na! (Party Time!)
We are super excited about our first board book illustrated by Dione Kong! This one features our Filipino parties. Karaoke singers and line dancers will feel super represented! This book also features simple Bisaya and Filipino words. We can’t wait for this book to come out this summer! If you’re already feeling moved and would like to pre-order, find the book here. This book will arrive in October/November 2024.
Our Bahandi, Our Wealth
This book, formerly titled Know History, Know Self, is shaping up! Illustrator Albert is dilligently working on the collages depicting the 25 participants’ immigration stories, dreams, gratitudes, and other stories. As we do with our other books, we collaborate closely with many in our community to create this book. We hope to engage as many community members as possible and share this power in being able to tell our stories the way we want to. This book is also arriving in October/November 2024. Pre-order here if you’re interested.
The Salamat Book
Finally, our last work-in-progress, The Salamat Book, is a poem of gratitude for our human and more-than-human ancestors,. It honors our bodies and our Filipino and Filipino American history. This book is slated to arrive in October/November and if you’d like to pre-order, you can do it here.
FUTURE EVENTS
We’re taking it easy with events as we focus most of our efforts on producing books. However, this May 17th, SRP will be at the John Muir Elementary School in San Bruno, California to celebrate May as Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. We look forward to sharing about publishiing and storytelling with the students!
THANK YOU!
We’re rolling along and feeling good about the work we’re doing. We aim to send you a monthly newsletter. We are also working on our Instagram account. Once that’s up and running, we hope you will follow us there.
Until next time!
