VIRGINIA COULDN’T BE MORE WRONG.
Women writers have more on their plate than most other writers. There are familial roles to fulfill, community demands to meet, biological and mental stressors to deal with. Given the little that writing pays, and the limited options for writers in general, women are given no reason to drop everything and write.
Here, where we come from, a room of one’s own is not all that women need.
THE SISA PRIZE is a writing prize for Filipino women residing in the Philippines.
One that’s premised on the kind of madness it takes for women to create in the context of a present that burdens them uniquely and differently, with more than what should be bearable.
One that creates a space for (re)defining the contemporary Filipino woman writer — her sanities and hysterias, her kinds of power and her weaknesses, her becoming and refusals included.
One that we hope will ultimately make it worthwhile for more women to spend time writing, despite the fact that, and because, they are women.