I set up a meeting with a friend of a friend, both of whom are writers in the Philippines, to get some book connections here. I’ve never actually met either friend in person so it took me a bit out of my comfort zone, but was totally worth it.

Jahric came to the condo after having worked overnight and we talked for a couple hours about each other’s lives and writing experiences. Jahric has been passionate about writing his entire life and started a boutique publishing company in his college years. At that time it was hard to find available capabilities to print books so he worked with a college thesis printing shop to design and create those capabilities, thus adding a printing arm to his publishing company.

The friend who introduced us, Mark, is a creative writing teacher in his province (Masbate) and has a project to develop a library there. See his Facebook page regarding the library here. https://www.facebook.com/thebookmarkprojectfaemhs

One thing about being a reader since a child is that, at my age, you realize that collecting books your entire life doesn’t work because normal people will run out of space. These days half my reads are e-books or library books. Of course, I still like paper, but it’s also nice to pass them on to others that will enjoy reading them. Mark’s looking for book donations so I brought him some of my favorites to share and Jahric will get them to him.

In addition, Jahric is a huge Stephen King fan and has been lusting after a specific boxed set of his books that was not readily available in the Philippines. So, I brought these over for him. They were heavy, but now he owes me, lol.

After our visit, we exchanged some books each of us have written and had a yummy lunch at RackShack in Circuit Makati.

Getting to know authors and readers in other cultures (which can even include areas other than the midwest in the US) is one of the things that keeps my passion for reading and writing alive. What do you do to feed your passion?

Find links to Jahric’s book site here:

https://shopee.ph/tbcpublications

https://www.facebook.com/TBCPublications/

https://www.instagram.com/tbcpublications/

To see my other posts on family, travel, food, and bookclub, head to:

https://karthlake.com/

https://griffonneurpress.com/