Marla Miniano
Since she was a third-grader, Marla Miniano already knew she wanted to write. But it wasn't until she was in the sixth grade when she unofficially began her career as a writer. Marla was assigned to write the script for a play in their school program and her English teacher praised her writing, saying that she should keep doing it. She never stopped since then.
When she was studying AB Interdisciplinary Studies at the Ateneo de Manila University, Marla became a part of
Candy Magazine
's Council of Cool. Former Candy editor-in-chief Ines Bautista-Yao read Marla's undergraduate thesis, which was a collection of short stories. Ines remembered her thesis years later when she was already working for Candy Magazine and tapped her to write a book for Summit Media.
So in 2008, two years after she graduated from college, Marla's dream came true when her first book Every Girl's Guide to Heartache was launched to the public by Summit Media. Every Girl's Guide to Heartache was the first of the Every Girl's Guide trilogy which was received well by Filipino readers.
Since then Marla has written five books for the publishing house, including her very own short stories collection Table for Two. Marla is also editor-in-chief of Summit Books at present.
Source:
Marla Miniano: From Childhood Playwright to Summit Books Author
by Belle Yambao
“Did I ever tell you that my mother and father started out as pen pals? They wrote these long, unabashedly affectionate love letters to one another, peppered with clichés and pie-in-the-sky proclamations of eternal devotion. Despite my father’s eventual dishonesty and unfaithfulness, I have to believe he meant every word he wrote at that time, and it was admittedly romantic, uncovering my parents’ yellowed letters, all soft, crumbling corners and black ink stains, one rainy afternoon. Because how can anyone scrawl lies, really, in their own handwriting, the evidence of your own betrayal right in front of you? I sat cross-legged on the floor, holding my breath as I unfolded each letter, fragile and expectant, like a little girl opening her presents on Christmas morning. I sat there and soaked up my parents’ love for each other, and then I wondered where all those feelings had escaped to. I wondered where love went when it was lost—did it travel far, across miles and oceans and forests and deserts, or did it linger somewhere nearby, just waiting for a chance to be summoned again? Wherever it was, I could only hope it had ended up settling somewhere quieter, safer.”
“It doesn't matter how many possibilities they've missed - thousands, millions, billions - what matters is this possibility, right here and right now. A new day begins with purpose, and with promise.”
“When you think about it, everything is fleeting. Every second of every minute of every hour. The race and the rush and the choices and the chances. The love that grazed your fingertips, possibilities that brushed past you on your way to work or play or save the world, a happy ending you may have believed in with a faith beyond anything you could have imagined you were capable of.”
“You can’t help wondering if this is the year that you’d be getting a good story again. It was the same thing you wondered last year, and the year before that, and the year before that. In light of everything and in spite of everything, it seems foolish to expect and demand for anything. It seems foolish to even hope. Yet, you still do.”
“Sometimes, people just stop wanting to be with you, plain and simple. It happens. And it's always best to just leave it at that. It's always best to just let it all go.”
“I would have done anything for him. But these days, I don't want to do anything. I don't want to get drunk or go to a wild party or make out with random boys-not that I've ever wanted to. I don't want to watch chick flicks or eat ice cream or get a haircut or buy out half of the mall. I don't want cold, cruel revenge. I don't want to see him suffer when karma catches up with him and kick his ass. I don't even want to talk to him right now, simply because it would be awkward and pathetic and I wouldn't know what to say to him. Yes, there is self-control, preventing me from being stupid and acting like a desperate doofus in the manner most heartbroken people do. But there is also a weary numbness threatening to consume every inch of me: Isn't there a way for me to skip straight to the part where I'm fine again?”
“Matter occupies space, and you can only have space for what really matters.”
“And as far as moving on with your dignity intact is concerned, I believe self-esteem boosts should always be a priority.”
“I am done slowing down, giving people their time and space, letting them explore their options.”
“When people say they don't want to get into a relationship, it should never be taken into face value because it is never really the whole truth. It is usually a vast collection of issues and fears and complications, forced to conceal one tiny hope lurking underneath it all: that someday, somebody will come along to discover, accept and understand and strengthen that feeble hope.”
“Goodbye is a strange concept - if the person being left behind resents it and refuses to accept it, is it still goodbye, or simply a departure?”
“Guys are so easy to drive out of your life, especially when their interest in you has mostly been sustained by your blind, naive, hopelessly hopeful interest in them.”
“It's the little things she needs someone for, like someone to hold her hand at the end of a long day, or someone to watch stupid comedies with, or someone to curl up with on the couch on a lazy Sunday morning as she reads the newspaper and eats her cereal. Which probably means she doesn't 'need' someone in the strictest sense, although at the end of a long day, or while watching a stupid comedy, or on a lazy Sunday morning, having someone would be very much appreciated.”
“...falling in love and trying to make someone fall in love with you and working to stay in love and forcing yourself to fall out of love with someone who will never love you back is much, much more exhausting than being alone.”