Introducing our beloved teachers. Firie Jill Ramos for Waray (Eastern Visayas)
Firie Jill T. Ramos writes poems, fiction/susumaton, and children’s stories in Waray. She won the 2019 NCCA Writers Prize for the Novel in Waray and Chito Rono Literary Award for Poetry in 2009.
Firie’s poems have appeared in different publications and anthologies here and abroad such as in Memories of Water (Ateneo de Naga, 2016); Tinalunay: Hinugpong nga Panurat nga Winaray (UP Press, 2017); Sustaining the Archipelago, An Anthology of Philippine Ecopoetry (UST Press); Cha: An Asian Literary Journal ( Hongkong. July 2017); Pinili (KATIG 2018), and Philippine Graphic (August 11, 2019 issue).
Her short stories appeared in Anmaly Issue #34, and in Ulirat: The Best Contemporary Stories in Translation from the Philippines (Singapore. 2021). She co-edited the book Garab: Hinugpong nga mga Bag-o nga Susumaton ha Waray (March, 2023)
She also translates stories and other materials from Waray to English such as the story Sandangaw published by Sari-sari Books in New York.
Firie Jill is the current Workshop Director for the Lamiraw Creative Writing Workshop, a workshop for writers in the Waray language, now in its 20th year. She is a founding member and officer of the KATIG WRITERS Network Inc., a federation of practicing writers in Eastern Visayas.
She is a Special Education Practitioner and continues to practice as an independent SpEd professional.
Firies writes about women and their lives in the islands of Eastern Visayas.
You may want to read: