Got this from Ian Casocot; check out the unofficial website of the Palanca Awards.

Ian, who’s brought home a number of Palanca Awards, is happy to report that while the site is unofficial, it has the blessing of the people in the Palanca Foundation. He’s giving his special thanks to Ma’am Babes, and to Fernando Gonzalez who did the legwork.

The site contains everything you wish to know about our country’s most prestigious literary contest, including downloadable forms and the list of winners from 1951 to 2004. The names of this year’s winners will be posted after the awards night on Sept. 1.

Congratulations to all the awardees! And kudos to Ian for all he’s done over the years to promote Philippine literature. Visit A Survey of Philippine Literature if you can — please just be patient since the site is sometimes inaccessible due to massive traffic.

I’ve decided to create a new blog for all posts regarding hackenslash, the gaming site I edit for INQ7.net.

Check it out and read about one of the hackenslash projects we’ve been working on for the past few weeks — this one involving Philippine online game publisher Level Up!

Congratulations to Dean and Nikki Alfar, who both won in this year’s Palanca Awards. It’s Dean’s 8th Palanca Award, Nikki’s 1st.

Dean won the grand prize for his novel “Salamanca,” while Nikki won third prize in the English short story for children category for “Menggay’s Magical Chicken.”

Truly a magical performance for this husband-and-wife team. It’s also interesting to note that both works had their roots in blogging. “Salamanca” was Dean’s NaNoWriMo novel which he wrote in 30 days (and posted on a blog as part of BlogSpot’s complementary NaNoBlogMo initiative) back in November. Meanwhile, “Menggay’s Magical Chicken” was first published in three parts on Nikki’s blog.

Congratulations, Dean and Nikki!