On the write path

MANILA, Philippines –  “I write because for me it’s the best way to see the world and see the things we normally can’t,” says Miro Frances Capili. “Writing is the best way to encapsulate life – or at least try to. Good literature can explore and improve the human condition.”

A winner in the recent Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, Miro – who is all of 17 years old – made history in the literary scene, being the first to win the top prize in both the Kabataan Essay category and in the Essay main category.

“I’m still surprised. I don’t think I can get my mind around the idea that my writing has been appreciated,” she says of her twin wins.

When Miro started reading at the age of three, writing came soon after. “My mom taught me to read and my parents encouraged my writing early on,” she shares.

Miro recalls her early scribbling were poems and journal entries, or pieces for grade school contests at St. Scholastica’s College-Manila.

“My dad would bring home Palanca short stories for children,” says Miro, adding that this is what made her aware of the award at a young age – foreshadowing, no doubt, her own Palanca wins only a few years after.

Though she took a break from writing during her first few years in high school, Miro inevitably found her way back to literature and in 2008 won her first Palanca in the Kabataan Essay category.

From then on nothing has stopped Miro from achieving her literary dreams.

In this year’s Palanca awards, Miro entered the Kabataan Essay with an essay entitled “The Nature of Nurture.” The topic for the Kabataan Essay was: What about the environment can you protect?

“We can look at the environment or nature in two ways – the surrounding and as something that is innate in each person,” Miro explains. In her essay, she chose to expound on the latter. “It’s really what matters.” This unique take on the essay question surely set her answer apart from any of the others.

She adds, “We actually turn away from nature not because we want to, but because we forget how to care for it,” a sense of nurturing, she says, that is innate in any human being.

WRITING LIFE: Miro receives her first Palanca award for Kabataan Essay in 2008.

“Reviving our very nature to take care of the environment is a prerequisite to working together towards protecting nature,” she says. “Even as young people we can contribute and fulfill the goal.”

For the main category of the Palanca Awards, Miro submitted “Vinyl,” a personal essay about how her father (artist Ross Capili) taught her how to play records. “It is about life, music, and learning.”

In the piece, Miro spins the story of a father and daughter sharing both an ordinary but intimate moment, estimating each beginning in the ridges of the record, being careful not to scratch its surface, dropping the needle with just enough force and grace, failing, and learning.

“The essay is still open-ended. It can still be expounded… I can still inject more insight into it,” says Miro. “Learning never stops.”

Always open to learning more and honing her craft, Miro was a fellow this year in the prestigious Silliman Writer’s Workshop in Dumaguete, an experience she considers as a highlight in her budding writing career. Despite being the youngest, Miro held her own in the three-week workshop, discussing and critiquing works as deftly as any writing fellow.

 “Before I didn’t have much insight into why I write… I usually just wrote for class,” she shares. “Now I have more purpose in writing.”

Miro includes in her influences Wendel Capili, Butch Dalisay and all of the distinguished writers she encountered as panelists in the workshop, including Rowena Torrevillas, Susan Lara, D.M. Reyes, Bobby Villasis, Cesar Aquino, and Krip Yuson.

“I now have a support group of people who will give honest critique but will support my writing,” she says of her workshop co-fellows. “I have learned to write without fear of being critiqued… to write with purpose and the willpower to transcend challenges.”

Already achieving at an early age what so many others can only hope for, Miro has gotten used to being the youngest. “It is always an honor and also very humbling,” she says. “I see these things as responsibilities. This affirms what I can do as a writer and what I can contribute to the literary climate and the world.”

It’s my language and how I play with it,” says Miro on what makes her writing different. A voracious reader, she has been reading a lot of Margaret Atwood, Annie Proulx, and Nicole Krauss.

“I don’t try to emulate them, but I try to make their strengths my own,” she explains. “I try to combine my insights with their way of seeing.”

Miro gets her ideas from life itself. “I try to find insight in everything,” she says. Even the most mundane experiences can become important under her gaze.

“Most of my essays began as stirrings,” she says. “I devote time to detail… I try to create the profound out of the ordinary.”

Aside from reading and writing, Miro loves trying new things, singing karaoke, traveling, rough sports, baking, and eating street food. A sophomore at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, she is a Political Science major. Though she has considered shifting to Creative Writing, she says “I can see the merits of Polsci. It is an interdisciplinary course.” She plans to pursue diplomatic studies while continuing to write.

“I operate on my dreams,” says the young writer. In the future, Miro sees herself as a published writer. She plans on “joining more workshops, helping others improve their writing and continuing what my literary mentors have taught me.”

Miro adds, “I’d like to develop my own voice and aesthetic sensibilities; to be seminal and prolific. I want to be a principled writer, responsible not only for my own sake, but also for the reader’s.”

People of any age often search for that one passion that would make their lives meaningful and worthwhile. At a young age, Miro has found hers in writing.

“I write because I want to give back as much as I take from the world. By merely minding how we walk on streets or play on shorelines, and writing about these things, we validate our existence. And by deliberately heightening perception, we expose ourselves to better experiences,” she says. “Writing allows me to perceive not only more, but richer, things.”