I have a confession to make: I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. Oh, I read and enjoyed all the books (maybe except for Book 5), and watched all the movies (still think the 3rd was the best), but every time the story would try to present itself as being a worldwide magical conflict, I'd have to battle an urge to sigh. I just didn't see a lot of non-Western magical types/motifs represented in the Harry Potter world. As for specifically Philippine magic, yeah... no. While that's hardly surprising, that kind of thing still keeps me from truly immersing myself in that world, even if I found aspects of it very inviting, because it felt like a world that has no place for people from my neck of the woods. And that's a shame, because there's a rich diversity of magical practices in the Philippines. So I've always thought about what a Philippine magical school might be like, one which used and taught magic in a way that magic has appeared in our culture, our old stories and urban legends. When I was asked to contribute to the first issue of LONTAR (https://lontarjournal.com/), I realized I didn't want to submit a story. What I wanted to do was imagine that Philippine school of magic, and in providing a list of courses that are taught within its hypothetical halls, give some insight into our own traditions of magic. It was a... much more daunting task than I'd originally anticipated, and in no way does the list I created even scratch the surface of the myriad magical traditions, ancient and modern, found in these islands. But it's a start. (Cover image is tangentially related, an inforgraphic primer on Philippine sorcery by Mervin Malonzo and myself for Kwentillion.)

He saw her from the high window of the new apartment he just transferred into. She wasn't like the rest of the girls living in the Bronx. She was different. She never wore pants without a jacket around her waist to complete her whole outfit.I don't think he'd ever seen her without holes in her pants either . She was so mysterious until he saw her outside of the abandoned playground on 3rd and Parks. He followed her. She then pulled two cans of paint from the jacket around her waist's pockets and she sprayed on the wall. He almost couldn't believe it. She was drawing graffiti ! The mysterious girl from 1st Street in the Parksplace apartment complex was doing something illegal. His jaw had to be put back in place by his hands as he waited for her to finish expecting something of a stick figure that was deformed . It was about 26 minutes before she stepped away and took a look no longer than 10 seconds, after she ran like she was about to loose her life. She didn't look back. He emerged from my hiding place and stood before the painted brick. What he saw was a work of art better than anything he'd ever seen done by spray paint, let alone a girl with spray paint. That's the day she became The Graffiti Artist. (c)2014

Sierra just wanted to have a normal, fun-filled summer with her friends, but strange howls emanate from a mysterious tower in downtown Brooklyn, soldiers bust up a party and then a whole new, monster-filled world reveals itself. The original draft of the award-winning, NY Times bestselling YA fantasy SHADOWSHAPER was a very different book. Join Sierra and her friends as they jump headfirst into the mysterious battle raging at the secret heart of Brooklyn. You can read the completed SHADOWSHAPER here: https://www.amazon.com/Shadowshaper-Cypher-Book-1/dp/133803247X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= Cover art by Mildred Louis http://artofmlouis.com/