Paper Trail Projects

16/07/2025

We're reprinting a very limited number of copies of Angeli Lacson's first book UNBECOMING in the next couple of weeks, and we're opening up the pre-orders from today 16 July until 30 July, to be released August. More details found in the link! https://forms.gle/vCzVmQ5BtrD4Ajh96

11/06/2025

Getting some zines printed for this Saturday.

28/05/2025

Solidarity with the Palestinians calling for the boycott of Frankfurt Book Fair!

28/05/2025

We were invited by the NBDB on behalf of the Office of Senator Loren Legarda and the NCCA and the Guest of Honour Committee to be part of an open forum discussion about the Frankfurt Book Fair boycott. We were asked to talk about our positions about the boycott, so we prepared statements that we read out loud in the forum.

Here’s a link to Chingbee’s statement: https://curiouscouch.wordpress.com/2025/05/28/boycott-the-frankfurt-book-fair/

And here’s a link to my own (Adam): https://open.substack.com/pub/adamdavid/p/a-short-statement-i-read-in-a-forum?r=fcjfn&utm_medium=ios

We will link to more of the statements once more people make theirs available.

Read at the open forum hosted by the PhlGoH Committee, the National Book Development Board (NBDB), and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda on May 27, 2025, 9 to 11 AM, National Museum of Fine Arts …

17/05/2025

Paper Trail Projects is boycotting the Frankfurt Book Fair because of its complicity in the genocide of Palestinians. We urge Filipino cultural workers, especially those who are part of the Philippine Guest-of-Honor delegation in the 2025 FBF, to learn more about the call to boycott FBF launched by the network Publishers for Palestine and endorsed by the Palestinian-led BDS movement: https://publishersforpalestine.org/2025/01/30/international-publishers-call-for-a-boycott-of-the-frankfurt-book-fair/. The IG tiles summarizing the reasons to boycott that we have shared in this post may be downloaded here: https://publishersforpalestine.org/2025/03/22/help-spread-the-word-boycott-the-frankfurt-book-fair/.

According to Patrick Flores, curator of the Philippine Pavilion in FBF, "the book fair is not a travel or trade fair and therefore should not function as a marketing initiative that favors themes easily and readily captured by the populist mind accustomed to the shorthand of advertising. It instead aims to promote Philippine books, including their translation, with care, acuity, style, and intellectual dignity; and share with the world the robust history of writers and readers, the nation's literacy and literature, and the levels of sophistication that these have reached." The Philippine delegation to FBF should take these words to heart and take the FBF to task for providing a platform that, in normalizing the erasure and extermination of Palestine and actively expressing support for genocidal Israel, is in no way allowing the Philippines to present its cultural production "with care, acuity, style, and intellectual dignity."

As GoH, the Philippines is in direct communication with the FBF and is in a unique position to amplify the demands of the boycott which FBF has conveniently ignored.

We call on the writers and artists who are part of the GoH delegation to refuse to showcase themselves and their books on a world stage known for its complicity in genocide.

We call on the university publishers who are part of the GoH delegation to stay true to the pursuit of autonomous knowledge production that university publishers are known for and demand that the so-called world capital of ideas that is the FBF should include the idea and realization of a free Palestine.

We call on the children's book publishers who are part of the GoH delegation to remain committed to their child audience and withdraw from a platform that turns away from, if not supports, the starvation and mass murder of Palestinian children.

We call on the small presses who are part of the GoH delegation to draw from the anti-institutional and anti-capitalist tradition that allows small presses to be the producer of innovative literary works and reject the status quo of genocide that FBF shamelessly upholds.

A Philippine book industry that amplifies the demands of the boycott and pushes for its demands to be met by the FBF is one to be proud of. We call on those privileged to represent the Philippines on the world publishing stage to do us proud and give our cultural production the dignity it deserves by putting it on the side of a free Palestine.

16/05/2025

Salamat sa imbitasyon ng Good Food Community nitong nakaraang taon, nakasama kaming Paper Trail Projects at Another Green World sa isang ongoing creative writing workshop project para sa ilang miyembro ng Correctional Institution for Women sa Mandaluyong. On and off naming ginagawa ang workshop kasama ang GFC at ngayong umaga naganap ang unang workshop na kami lang ng PTP at AGW ang dumalaw - at sobrang productive ng naganap! Dalawang oras ng pagsalu-salo ng pagkain, tula, at kuwentong-buhay.

Nag-umpisa kami sa pagsusulat ng tula na ang objective-correlative ay pagkain! Isang napaka-intimate ngunit napaka-universal na experience - pagkain ng pagkain, paghanda ng pagkain, kung anong pagkain ang hilig o hindi hilig - na maaaring paghugutan ng maraming emosyon na puwedeng ipagkabit-kabit sa loob ng isang tula. Sa sunod na pagkikita, pagtutula naman ng talambuhay nila. Salamat rin sa mapping workshop nina Cian Dayrit at medyo nakatutok na sila sa pagsiyasat sa buhay bilang mga grupo ng impormasyon o datos na puwedeng pira-pirasuhin at ipagsunud-sunod sa malikhaing paraan - nagkomiks workshop na rin kami kung saan ang pagkukuwento rin ay pira-piraso, kaya sobrang halaga rin ng anyong ito para sa mga susunod na assignment na ipapagawa. Gumagawa na rin sila ng komiks!

Ang plano ay makabuo ng tuluyan na zine na sana ay mailabas namin sa Pasko bilang fundraising para sa kanila. Umaasang pagiinteresan ng karamihan! Salamat sa CIW sa patuloy na pagsuporta sa proyekto na’to.

17/04/2025

The Bakit Boykot? forum is now available as a podcast episode via Gantala Press. Hope you give it a listen! We hope the writers and publishers who are part of the Philippine contingent as Guest of Honor in this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair decide to join us, support the boycott, and put their books on the side of the Palestinian struggle. We must refuse to transact in a “world capital of ideas” (how FBF describes itself) that actively erases the idea and realization of a free Palestine.

https://podcasts.apple.com/ph/podcast/chicas-a-gantala-press-podcast/id1565852395?i=1000703755464

https://open.spotify.com/episode/31mHjW01ruyO5IvSutr3Oy?si=TFRxTRYLSKW5S_Xk0pYcJQ

04/04/2025

RECALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: BRAVE NEW WORDS VOLUME 2

What if in the near future, most of us are disabled? With a failing neoliberal healthcare system, all our bodies subject to increasingly carcinogenic and polluted environments, the rising cost of living coupled with stagnant wages, and state resources deployed to terrorize the poorest among us, it seems inevitable that disability and illness will become the reality for the vast majority of us. Yet most utopian futures rely on ableist beliefs that disability can be cured, and in doing so fail to consider accessibility as a central feature of a better world. The reality of widespread disability should compel us to reframe accessibility as more than ramps and elevators — it is a lens through which we can radically reimagine our world. Disability justice is central to creating a world wherein everyone’s needs are met.

Paper Trail Projects is opening a call for submissions for creative and critical work focused on imagining and creating the accessible future: can we reimagine care beyond capitalist notions of profit and productivity? Can we dream of societies where no one needs to perform their disability in hopes of securing an ID for paltry benefits? Can we create communities where accessibility and inclusion are not solely the concern of the disabled? How can we reform our healthcare system and our social security policies to protect the most vulnerable among us? Paper Trail Projects is encouraging everyone to create Brave New Words that broaden the horizon of the accessible future and position it as a deeply political issue that concerns the vast majority of us.

This volume of BRAVE NEW WORDS is edited by Angeli Lacson, author of UNBECOMING (PTP, 2023).

* A maximum of 3 poems per submission and up to 3,000 words for prose pieces;
* Up to twelve pages of grayscale 300dpi JPGs for any sort of images at 5” x 7” or any page size proportional to those dimensions (we especially welcome submissions from non-verbal people);
* Written in English, Filipino, or any language used in the Philippines (accompanied by a translation to English or Filipino);
* No AI work unless you did the programming yourself (and if that’s the case, we would love to see the code and the algorithm used for its learning)!

Send your work to [email protected] with the subject line BRAVE NEW WORDS VOLUME 2. Deadline is May 16, 2025. The book is tentatively scheduled for a December 2025 release.

31/03/2025

Mula pampang hanggang sa playa, ang Palestina ay lalaya!

BAKIT BOYKOT?
A Forum on the Frankfurt Book Fair and Palestine
April 2, 2025
8 PM / Zoom

THIS WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2 2025, IS INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S BOOK DAY. AS ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS CONTINUES, THIRTY CHILDREN WILL DIE ON THAT DAY, ADDING TO THE ALREADY MORE THAN 17,000 PALESTINIAN CHILDREN KILLED SINCE OCTOBER 7 2023.

SINCE OCTOBER 7 2023, THE FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR HAS REPEATEDLY EXPRESSED ITS SOLIDARITY WITH THE GENOCIDAL STATE OF ISRAEL THROUGH CORPORATE SPONSORSHIP, SILENCING OF PALESTINIAN VOICES, AND REFUSAL TO CONDEMN ISRAEL’S CRIMINAL ACTS.
THE PHILIPPINES IS THE GUEST OF HONOR FOR THIS YEAR’S FRANKFURT BOOK FAIR. A BOYCOTT FROM PHILIPPINE PUBLISHERS WOULD SPEAK VOLUMES ON THE SOLIDARITY OF PHILIPPINE AUTHORS WITH THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.

23/02/2025

Cultural work is political, and the way we conduct ourselves as members of this community - active, passive, makers, audience, et al - directly affects not just the community itself but also reflects the morals we bring into and what we want to see more of in the community.

Happy and proud to be part of this principled group of people who regard cultural work - specifically komiks production - not just as a way to earn a living but also as a way of life. In life and in work, we cannot support cultural institutions that seek to promote and finance the continuing oppression, abuse, dehumanisation, and eradication of people and cultures that they consider as “other.”

To continue to support cultural institutions like the Frankfurt Book Fair and the industry it seeks to promote as it continues to finance the Israeli Death Machine is to continue to prioritise the market over the deaths of thousands of people since October 2023, thousands upon thousands since 1947. We are hoping more people will make the right decision and withdraw their support, their participation in, and their promotion of the Frankfurt Book Fair. After all the hashtags and profile photo frames and ordering food from Palestinian kitchens, praxis where it matters is still the best policy.

18/02/2025

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: BRAVE NEW WORDS VOLUME 2

What if in the near future, most of us are disabled? With a failing neoliberal healthcare system, all our bodies subject to increasingly carcinogenic and polluted environments, the rising cost of living coupled with stagnant wages, and state resources deployed to terrorize the poorest among us, it seems inevitable that disability and illness will become the reality for the vast majority of us. Yet most utopian futures rely on ableist beliefs that disability can be cured, and in doing so fail to consider accessibility as a central feature of a better world. The reality of widespread disability should compel us to reframe accessibility as more than ramps and elevators — it is a lens through which we can radically reimagine our world. Disability justice is central to creating a world wherein everyone’s needs are met.

Paper Trail Projects is opening a call for submissions for creative and critical work focused on imagining and creating the accessible future: can we reimagine care beyond capitalist notions of profit and productivity? Can we dream of societies where no one needs to perform their disability in hopes of securing an ID for paltry benefits? Can we create communities where accessibility and inclusion are not solely the concern of the disabled? How can we reform our healthcare system and our social security policies to protect the most vulnerable among us? Paper Trail Projects is encouraging everyone to create Brave New Words that broaden the horizon of the accessible future and position it as a deeply political issue that concerns the vast majority of us.

This volume of BRAVE NEW WORDS is edited by Angeli Lacson, author of UNBECOMING (PTP, 2023).

* A maximum of 3 poems per submission and up to 2,000 words for prose pieces;
* Up to twelve pages of grayscale 300dpi JPGs for any sort of images at 5” x 7” or any page size proportional to those dimensions (we especially welcome submissions from non-verbal people);
* Written in English, Filipino, or any language used in the Philippines (accompanied by a translation to English or Filipino);
* No AI work unless you did the programming yourself (and if that’s the case, we would love to see the code and the algorithm used for its learning)!

Send your work to [email protected] with the subject line BRAVE NEW WORDS VOLUME 2. Deadline is April 12, 2025. The book is tentatively scheduled for a December 2025 release.