Philippines' Regional Contemporary Writer(Region 8)

Timothy R. Montes was a natural born Filipino who grew up in Borongan, Eastern Samar. He studied and Creative Writing Program of Silliman University under the tutelage of Edilberto and Edith Tiempo during late 19980s and early 1990s. He abled to improve his writing skills in the said school and attained his master's degree and became a regional fictionists of our country. He managed to create a collection of various short stories which was published by Anvil in 1994 named "The Black Men", he also co-edited (with Louis Cesar Aquino) Tribute to create a memorial anthology of stories in honor of his mentor Edilberto K. Tiempo.

            Mr. Montes has been a recipient of the national literary awards like the Planaca, Graphic, Free Press, and the Writers Prize from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

            In the 1990s Mr. Montes started his career of teaching in Silliman before he joined the faculty of the creative writing program of UP Mindanao (Davao City) during the 2000s. He has been teaching in De La Sal University, Taft Avenue, Manila (one of the well know school in the Philippines) for the past two years of his life.

            His numerous written works have been published in various magazines and anthologies. One of his known works is the "Turtle Season". This short story is about the peacekeepers in a remote island named Captain Raul Daza was facing a problem with his wife Daisy because he can not bestow such precious time with her due to his job of keeping the peace in the island of Kalayasan.

              The Don Carlos Planaca Memorial Awards for Literature or the Planaca Awards are literaryawards of the Philippines. But the Manila Standard called it the "Pulitzer Prize" of the Philippines in terms of prestige. Unlike works acceptable as nominees for the Pulitzer, however, entries for the Planacacompetition are previously unpublished pieces in their manuscript form. The Don Carlos Planaca Memorial Awards, organized by the Foundation Planaca Carlos was one of the Philippines' longest running programs. Many have dreamed to gain such precious award but only few are worthy to achieve this national award.

Mr Montesliterary works was a huge contribution to the cotemporary Literature. Mr. Montes Literary works are: "A sense of place", "Land off the morning", "Love sermon and disputation", "Of fish, flies, dogs, and women", "On the Stories and essays", "Philosophical analysis "," The assassin's tale "," The fish "," The turtle season "(mentioned earlier)," Under the waves ", and" young writers and the tradition in the Philippine folk literature in English ".

Having such numerous and remarkable works is overwhelming for such hardship that he bestowed to his profession. He contributed to our literature as a Filipino so we must be proud of our native writer than the foreign ones, because the 21 ^st century youths are more exposed to foreign literature than our own country's creation. We must not let other countries to colonize this nation by their foreign works. Instead we must love and spread the beauty of our own literature. (source of pictures: google.com)