| QUICK FACTS: – Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop is a series of writing workshops, with the first episode focused on PROSE. – The event will be held at the Luxent Hotel along Timog Avenue in Quezon City from February 27 to 28 (Friday to Saturday),10 a.m. to 4 p.m. – The workshop will be facilitated by award-winning writer Susan S. Lara. – This FIRST episode is STRICTLY FOR COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATES. No age limit, but will require a signed and duly noted parental consent for anyone below 18 years old. – Compile all requirements into one (1) zip file and send via email to submit.pglw@gmail.com. – ONLY 30 PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ACCEPTED PER PGLW EPISODE. Qualified applicants will be notified by email. – DEADLINE OF SUBMISSION OF MATERIALS: February 6, 2026 (11:59 p.m). There will be NO EXTENSION. |
In its long history, the Philippines Graphic has always been a home for writers and their stories. With the Philippines Graphic’s centennial celebration on the horizon, we are launching our own workshop for writers who wish to sharpen their skills and broaden their knowledge: the 2026 Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop or the PGLW.
We are announcing an OPEN CALL for those who wish to become part of this workshop.
The 2026 PGLW will be held for two days. It will include lectures and hands-on workshop activities with an award-winning short story writer, who will guide the students in crafting their stories.
The FIRST episode of the 2026 PGLW series focus on PROSE and will be held at the Luxent Hotel, along Timog Avenue in Quezon City on February 27 to 28, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This is a FREE workshop.
LECTURER: SUSAN S. LARA
Susan S. Lara is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Her story “The Reprieve” won first prize in the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in 1984.
In 1998, she won the coveted National Book Award for Fiction for her collection, Letting Go and Other Stories.
Ms. Lara held the Henry Lee Irwin Professional Chair in Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University in 2011.
She was Director-in-Residence of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop (SUNWW) in 2013-2014.
Currently, she is the chairman of the panel of judges in the prestigious Nick Joaquin Literary Awards (NJLA) of the Philippines Graphic. She also serves as judge in the Palanca Awards and as panelist in writers’ workshops, including the IYAS-USLS National Writers Workshop and Silliman University Writers Workshop.
REQUIREMENTS
PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING DETAILS CAREFULLY AND THOROUGHLY.
- This FIRST EPISODE will be open STRICTLY for COLLEGE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS currently enrolled in ANY college or university in the Philippines.
- Should the student be from outside of the Metro Manila area, any willing participants should ensure that they will have their own accommodation within the area to avoid any potential difficulty in getting to the venue. Room accommodation will NOT be provided by the event organizers.
- A scanned copy proof of enrollment (valid and up-to-date school registration form that will serve as a proof that the participant is CURRENTLY enrolled in a university as an undergraduate student)
- NO age limit.
- For anyone below 18 years old, we will require a signed and duly noted parental consent allowing the applicant to attend and partake in PGLW activities during the two-day run of the event in Luxent Hotel.
- Author bio (min. of 50 words, max of 100 words, written in third-person perspective)
- Author photo (file size of photo should NOT exceed 3MB)
- Accomplished registration form indicating the following details: name, age, address, school or university, active email address, contact number, and college degree currently taking. Click the link here or at the end of this page for the registration form.
- In the files to be submitted, we require you to include a screenshot of your successful completion of the Google Form.
- Submit ONE (1) Sample work — any aspiring participant should provide a sample short story that they have personally written, which best display their style, voice, and current grasp of the short story medium. Min. of 100 words and max of 250 words. Strictly written in English only. The formatting for the sample work should be as follows:
- BODY TEXT — The main text of the sample works should be clean and properly typed in the following format: Arial, 12pt, justified, double-spaced.
- TITLE — The title of the sample work should be Arial, 16pt, and in BOLD format. DO NOT USE AN UPPERCASE FORMAT FOR THE TITLE, UNLESS IT IS INTENTIONAL.
- AUTHOR NAME — The name of the author should be under the title of the sample work in Arial, 13pt, ITALICIZED.
- Ensure a clean formatting of the sample work.
- The sample work should be in PDF format. Ensure that the PDF file is properly working.
- Signed Letter of Authenticity — send a letter in PDF format, properly signed and dated by the applicant, testifying that the sample work submitted to the PGLW is an original work written by the applicant, and was not, by any means, created, in part or in whole, using ghostwriters or generative AI, or stolen from works by another author. See our stance on generative AI writing below.
ALL TEXT-BASED REQUIREMENTS SHOULD BE IN PDF FORMAT.
Place ALL requirements into ONE SINGLE ZIP FILE.
To name the ZIP FILE, use the following format:
Surname_Given Name_SCHOOL ABBREVIATION_PGLW
EXAMPLE OF ZIP FILE NAME:
DelaCruz_Juan_UST_PGLW
DELACRUZ_JUAN_ADMU_PGLW
Email the ZIP FILE to submit.pglw@gmail.com.
Be sure to clearly indicate the following on the subject line of your email: your surname, given name, school / university name abbreviation, and PGLW Submission.
EXAMPLE of acceptable EMAIL SUBJECT LINE:
DeCoco, Nata (JRU) — PGLW Submission
Bron, Mal [PLM] — PGLW SUBMISSION
ONLY 30 PARTICIPANTS WILL BE ACCEPTED PER PGLW EPISODE. Because of the volume of registrants that we receive, we cannot promise that we will be able to reply to every single email but we will do our best.
DEADLINE OF SUBMISSION: February 6, 2026 (11:59 p.m)
Ensure that you have successfully accomplished ALL the requirements indicated above BEFORE you submit to the PGLW. Any applicants with missing requirements will NOT be considered.
THERE WILL BE NO TOLERANCE IN THE USE OF GENERATIVE A.I. (including in the sample works submitted.)
ON GENERATIVE A.I.
In line with our commitment to uphold literature, the spirit and nature of writing, and the integrity of the publication and of the craft, the Philippines Graphic DO NOT ACCEPT any writing made in part, in whole, or in any way with generative artificial intelligence tools such as, but not limited to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Deepseek, Copy.ai, and Paperpal, among many other large language models (LLM) or any artificial intelligence (AI) or generative AI.
Any author found to have submitted such work is permanently banned from submitting to the Philippines Graphic, Philippines Graphic Reader, and the Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop.
The Philippines Graphic upholds the value and essence of writing, of thinking, and of being a human being. We STRONGLY REQUIRE our contributors to be human, to act human, and to write as a human being.
The use of generative AI, which was trained using millions of books without the permission of the authors, not only insults millions of authors, but also undermine the very creative process which sits at the soul of art.
Artificial intelligence may be of great help to many other fields, but its variation—the LLM or any generative AI models—has no place in the creative field.
AI should neither replace the writer nor co-author the writer’s work. The creative field is creative because it is a human being looking for answers and for ways to answer or critique the human condition. We strongly urge our contributors to veer away from the use of artificial intelligence and/or generative AI in creating their work.
We wrote masterpieces before AI. Let us celebrate our humanness by being human and writing as one.
NOTE: THROUGHLY REVIEW the entire submission guidelines above and the files you will be submitting to ensure there will be NO errors in your application. Ensure that there will be NO corrupted files.
We will announce the accepted applicants on our social media pages so be sure to follow the Philippines Graphic on Facebook and Instagram to ensure that you are up-to-date with announcements regarding the PGLW February 2026.
Click this link to register and submit the deliverables to the following email: submit.pglw@gmail.com
DEADLINE for SUBMISSION: February 6, 2026 (11:59PM)
See you there and good luck!
The Philippines Graphic Literary Workshop (PGLW) is hosted by the Philippines Graphic and Luxent Hotel.
For questions that are not answered by this article, please email us at submit.pglw@gmail.com. Use the subject line “INQUIRY” strictly for questions. Questions that are not sent with the specified subject line will not be entertained.
