VOTM: What’s the most unusual experience you’ve had at a reading?
SOLIVEN: The most unusual experience I had at a reading was being heckled by an angry white guy who didn’t believe that mail order brides existed in real life.
Marivi Soliven has taught writing workshops at the University of the Philippines and the University of California at San Diego. Stories from her 16 books have appeared in anthologies and creative writing texts in Manila and the United States. She won awards for her children’s fiction in 1991 and 1992 and the Grand Prize for the Novel in 2011, all three conferred by the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, the Philippine counterpart of the Pulitzer Prize. The same novel The Mango Bride was published by Penguin Books in the April, 2013. Grupo Planeta is publishing a Spanish translation this year, while National Book Store is currently developing the Filipino edition. A film adaptation of the novel is being negotiated. In June, the San Diego Book Awards named The Mango Bride Best Contemporary Fiction of 2013.
Come see Marivi read at 3rdSpace in San Diego on Saturday, August 2 at 7pm.