A Different Kind of Mystery/Detective Novel — Cecilia Brainard’s The Newspaper Widow

A DIFFERENT KIND OF MYSTERY/DETECTIVE NOVEL — THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard

PALH (Philip­pine Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary House) is proud to announce the forth­com­ing release of the US edi­tion of the nov­el, THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW, by Fil­ip­ina Amer­i­can author, Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard.

Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard’s nov­el, THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW, is a lit­er­ary mys­tery set in the Philip­pines in 1909, short­ly after the Spaniards lost to the Amer­i­cans, and the Amer­i­cans occu­pied the Philip­pines. The wid­ow Ines and her friend the French seam­stress Melisande solve the crime of the dead priest in the creek in order to free the son of Ines from jail. Inspired by her great-grand­moth­er who was the first woman pub­lish­er in the Philip­pines, Brainard has writ­ten a char­ac­ter-dri­ven nov­el that rais­es inter­est­ing and com­pli­cat­ed ques­tions about moral­i­ty and jus­tice while the pro­tag­o­nist search­es for the priest’s true killer. What begins as a mur­der mys­tery trans­forms into some­thing greater as love, loy­al­ty and friend­ship are test­ed and refined. Short­list­ed for the Inau­gur­al Cir­i­lo F. Bautista Prize for the Nov­el, Brainard’s nov­el is a cap­ti­vat­ing read.

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Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard is the Fil­ipino-Amer­i­can author and edi­tor of over 20 books, includ­ing the nov­els: WHEN THE RAINBOW GODDESS WEPT, MAGDALENA, and THE NEWSPAPER WIDOW. Her SELECTED SHORT STORIES was recent­ly released by the Uni­ver­si­ty of San­to Tomas Pub­lish­ing House in 2021.

Born and raised in Cebu, Philip­pines, she but migrat­ed to the Unit­ed States to do grad­u­ate work at UCLA. She draws from her Fil­ipino and Fil­ipino Amer­i­can expe­ri­ences for her stories.

Aside from writ­ing fic­tion, Cecil­ia has edit­ed fic­tion and non­fic­tion col­lec­tions, includ­ing the two vol­umes of Grow­ing Up Fil­ipino, Con­tem­po­rary Fic­tion by Fil­ipinos in Amer­i­ca, Fic­tion by Fil­ipinos in Amer­i­ca, and more..

She has received awards, includ­ing a Cal­i­for­nia Arts Coun­cil Fel­low­ship, a Brody Arts Fund Fel­low­ship, an Out­stand­ing Indi­vid­ual Award from her birth city of Cebu, a City of Los Ange­les Cul­tur­al Grant, a Spe­cial Recog­ni­tion Award from the Los Ange­les Board of Edu­ca­tion for her work deal­ing with Asian Amer­i­can youths, and more.

She has taught at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, UCLA, the Writ­ers’ Pro­gram at UCLA-Exten­sion, and the Cal­i­for­nia State Sum­mer School for the Arts. She con­tin­ues to lec­ture and per­form in lit­er­ary arts venues such as Cul­ture Rapi­de in Paris, Fil­ipino Amer­i­can Inter­na­tion­al Book Fes­ti­vals, PEN, and Library events in Skok­ie Illi­nois, Jack­son Ten­nessee, among others.

As a for­mer Exec­u­tive Board Mem­ber of the writ­ers’ group PEN, she rep­re­sent­ed PEN USA West in Inter­na­tion­al meet­ings in Barcelona and San­ti­a­go de Com­postela. She served as an offi­cer in such groups as Pacif­ic Asian Amer­i­can Women Writ­ers Wept, Arts & Let­ters at the Cal State Uni­ver­si­ty LA. She co-found­ed PAWWA (Philip­pine Amer­i­can Women Writ­ers and Artists) a sup­port group that received fund­ing from the Cal­i­for­nia Arts Council.

Her offi­cial web­site is ceciliabrainard.com .

tags: #wom­ensleuths #detec­tiven­ov­el #crimen­ov­el #Philip­pine­books #Philip­pinefic­tion