The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), in collaboration with Penguin Random House US, hosts an author event with esteemed Filipino writer F.H. Batacan on June 24, 2025 to spark curiosity for crime fiction in Philippine literature among Filipino readers as well as to inspire aspiring writers to explore the potential of crime fiction as a genre.
The seminar-workshop is free to everyone who will submit their crime story pitch until June 10, 2025.
Submit your crime story pitch here: https://forms.gle/BmgcezLS14Fh6bt29.
F.H. Batacan (Maria Felisa H. Batacan) is a journalist and a writer of crime and mystery fiction currently based in Singapore. Her debut novel, Smaller and Smaller Circles, was originally published by the University of the Philippines Press in 1999, which later won the National Book Award for Best Novel in 2002. Her novel was later acquired and republished by renowned New York independent publisher and Penguin Random House client Soho Press in 2015. A movie based on Smaller and Smaller Circles was later released in 2017.
Earlier this year, F.H. Batacan released a collection of Philippine crime fiction stories titled Accidents Happen and Other Stories, which was also published by Soho Press. As part of her book tour organized by Penguin Random House, she will be travelling to the Philippines and spending time in Manila this June, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines will be one of the stops in her tour.
In the seminar-workshop, Batacan will be giving a lecture on writing crime fiction at the CCP. She will discuss her techniques and strategies in creating suspenseful stories that resonate with diverse readers.
For the second part of the workshop, she will provide feedback to previously submitted crime story pitches from the participants. She hopes that through this event, she will be able to help promote more crime fiction writing in the Philippines.
