Interview with Joel Vega by Prince G. Binondo
Million miles away and oceans apart are the physical attributes of an expatriate raconteur. Though these storytellers are living in the foreign shore but the desire to be in the bosom of their motherland is still running in their veins. Joel H. Vega, a Palanca winning poet, is living in the Netherlands for decades, but his literary voice remains the inflection for those marginalized Filipinos; though, he always sees windmills in his windows but his essays are still coated with the resiliency of a Philippine bamboo; though he smells the yellow daffodils in the Dutch green fields but his poetry still has the touch of sampaguita and gumamela. A product of UPLB, Joel is as an activist, essayist, LGBT advocate, painter, and poet. In this conversation, Joel reveals his philosophy as a writer, the struggles of an expatriate raconteur, and his rules in order to become a successful writer. Here is the full inter...