July’s been a fun month for fans of YA (young adult) lit! National Bookstore brought in Alyson Noel, author of The Immortals series, for a signing at Greenbelt (July 20). Team MJ then attended the Kwentillion YA Readers Carnival the next day (July 21), at Bestsellers Galleria.

Kwentillion is a local magazine featuring YA comics, stories and book previews. The afternoon started off with a rundown of “hot” YA titles and authors, such as the Twilight series, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, Rick Riordan, and Cassandra Clare. (Which were available at a 20% discount to attendees, courtesy of Bestsellers.)

In one session, Filipino YA writers and artists Mina V. Esguerra, Charles Tan, Tepai Pascual, Aileen Santos and Karen Francisco answered questions about writing for a Filipino teen audience.

“YA Literature Creators” panel. Photo courtesy of Kwentillion.

Another session featured the artists and writers whose work graced Kwentillion‘s first issue (of many we hope): Timothy James Dimacali, Chester Ocampo, Budjette Tan, Hannah Buena, John Raymond Bumanglag, Robert Magnuson, Andrew Drilon, and Paolo Chikiamco.

L-R: Chester Ocampo, Budjette Tan, Hannah Buena, John Raymond Bumanglag, Robert Magnuson, Andrew Drilon, and Paolo Chikiamco

Fans of the artists and writers who worked on the first issue of the magazine got first-hand insight on the objectives of Kwentillion and its creators. “What we wanted to do was provide a platform for Filipino writers and artists for their work,” said Kwentillion editor Paolo Chikiamco, “and the widest platform we could think of was a young adult platform… We wanted to create new fans for Filipino creators, and the teen age for me was the age where [fans are created] for particular authors.”

Kwentillion, published by Summit Media, is available in National Bookstore/Bestsellers/Powerbooks branches. Please like their Facebook page at facebook.com/Kwentillion.

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