Hometown Smile

A sense of place is not just about your geographical awareness but is packed alongside the nuances of identity and personality. Therefore, being a writer requires one to be at peace with their sense of place and by extension, their identity. Not being sure or certain about their identity will prohibit a person from becoming a good writer, as they cannot locate the material or the inspiration from which they can derive their writing.

If I were to choose my “lugar lang” I would stick with my hometown of Kabacan. I’ve lived my whole life there and I barely left before moving to Davao even during vacations we would just stay there. I’ve developed my own identity and personality in that town, and even if I had moved, those will still follow me here in Davao. I will center my writing around the identity I had built in that town and that probably will not change.