s3e13 – Rewind – Vida Cruz-Borja on Speculative Fiction and the Inactive Protagonist
Vida Cruz-Borja, Martha Cinader, Elizabeth Perlman, Lena Norris Ramen, Richard Clements, Kellie RIchardson, Caitlin Jans, Jan Smith, Judy Talaugon, Meredith Leigh, New Music from Jay ROdriguez Sierra
s3e13
May 1, 2025, November 5, 2025
This week we take the opportunity to revisit this illuminating conversation between Tony Robles and Vida Cruz Borja, which originally aired on May 1, 2025.
Tony Robles welcomes Vida Cruz-Borja to talk about Philippine speculative fiction, the inactive protagonist, and where stories begin. Poetry by Martha Cinader, Lena Norris Ramen on writing for self compassion, Richard Clements on the legacy of Barry Harris, new music from Jay Rodriguez Sierra, and a visit to 1992 Columbus Day protests at San Francisco City Hall with Judy Talaugon on the mic.
“Sometimes your
Vida Cruz-Borja for Listen & Be Heard
protagonists cannot act on the story. They are not inactive because they want to be,
but sometimes you don’t have a choice. And also sometimes being inactive, at least
the definition of inactive, which sometimes sounds like not fighting at all,
not fighting against something, not struggling against something. Sometimes It is a
choice not to do that because if you struggle, there are bigger things at stake.
There are people who will be affected. There will be dominoes that fall.“
CREDITS– HOSTS: Martha Cinader, Tony Robles, Elizabeth Perlman. FEATURED GUEST: Vida Cruz-Borja. GUESTS: Lena Norris Ramen, Kellie Richardson, T.R. Johnson, Caitlin Jans, Jan Smith, Richard Clements, Meredith Leigh, Judy Talaugon. SPOKEN WORD, Martha Cinader MUSIC: Live at the Bluenote, Jay Rodriguez – Tenor Saxophone, John Benitez – Bass, Preston Fullwood – piano, Damon Duwhite – drums. Three Chords and Truth – Jay Rodriguez – Tenor sax, Tom Brown- trumpet, Al Macdowell – electric bass, Billy Spaceman Paterson – guitar, Genji Sirasi- drums, Bill Ware- Vibes, Pablo Vergara – piano, Chris Theberge – percussion. ORIGNAL SOUNDTRACK, MIXING, MASTERING, SOUND DESIGN: Jay Rodriguez Sierra. BANNED BOOK THEME VOICE & WORDS: Yvette Murray.
FEATURED GUESTS
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Vida Cruz-Borja – Fantasy and Science Fiction Author
Read more: Vida Cruz-Borja – Fantasy and Science Fiction AuthorVida Cruz-Borja is a Filipina fantasy and science fiction writer, editor, artist, tarot reader, and conrunner. Her short fiction and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Expanded Horizons, and various anthologies. She won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Creative Nonfiction for “We are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive…
ALSO FEATURED
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Caitlin Jans – Publisher, Teacher, Writer
Read more: Caitlin Jans – Publisher, Teacher, WriterCaitlin Jans is the co-founder of Authors Publish Magazine and the Writer’s Workshop at Authors Publish, as well as The Poetry Marathon. She has an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and has taught at Seattle Pacific University, and Berkeley College, Her work has been published widely including: The Rumpus, Poets & Writers, The Adroit Journal,…
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Elizabeth Perlman – Writing Teacher
Read more: Elizabeth Perlman – Writing TeacherElizabeth has a BA in Media Arts and a Masters in Transformative Arts, the study of creative expression for healing, connection, and growth. She is also a certified Group Leader in The Amherst Writing Method. Before launching TIWP in 2013, Elizabeth worked for over a decade as a graphic designer and art director in the advertising…
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Jan Smith – SOMOS Bookstore
Read more: Jan Smith – SOMOS BookstoreJan Smith has an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College, was the curator of the SOMOS Summer/Winter Writers Series from 2009-2015, and is currently the Executive Director of SOMOS(since 2014). She is a 2012 recipient of an award from Southwest Writers for her short story, “Breasts,” …
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Judy Talaugon -Land Protector, Storyteller
Read more: Judy Talaugon -Land Protector, StorytellerJudy Talaugon is a Chumash and Filipina Land Protector from the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. She is the daughter of farmworkers and immigrant leaders. Growing up among Mexican and Filipina communities in California, she has been a long-time activist in numerous struggles, ranging from human rights to housing, land rights, and the fight…
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Kellie Richardson – Author
Read more: Kellie Richardson – AuthorKellie Richardson is a writer, artist, and educator born and raised in Tacoma, Washington. Kellie’s work primarily explores themes of love, loss and longing, with particular attention to how those themes intersect with Black American humanity. Kellie’s relationship with art is defined by the metamorphosis that happens when art is a liberatory practice.
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Richard Clements – Pianist, V.P. & Founder, Barry Harris Institute of Jazz
Read more: Richard Clements – Pianist, V.P. & Founder, Barry Harris Institute of JazzRichard Clements is a pianist. In the 1970’s Richard played in various R & B bands in the northern California area. In the early 1980’s, he moved to New York City to pursue his Jazz studies with Jazz master pianist Barry Harris. Richard has worked with Clifford Jordan, Abby Lincoln, Leon Thomas, Charlie Persip and His…
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Sherrie Flick – Author, Professor in Creative Writing at Davidson College
Read more: Sherrie Flick – Author, Professor in Creative Writing at Davidson CollegeSherrie Flick is the 2025 McGee Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing at Davidson College. She received a 2023 Creative Development Grant from the Heinz Endowments and a Writing Pittsburgh fellowship from the Creative Nonfiction Foundation. She served as co-editor for the Norton anthology Flash Fiction America and series editor for The Best Small Fictions 2018.…
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T. R. Johnson – Professor of English, Author
Read more: T. R. Johnson – Professor of English, AuthorT. R. Johnson is a Professor of English and Weiss Presidential Fellow at Tulane University. He is the author of New Orleans: A Writer’s City (2023) and the editor of New Orleans: A Literary History (2019). He has also written books about psychoanalysis, teaching, and prose-style. For over twenty years, he has lived in the…
FEATURED SPOKEN WORD
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Martha Cinader, Author, Performance Artist
Read more: Martha Cinader, Author, Performance ArtistMartha Cinader is a poet and author living in Harlem, NY. Her young adult novel, Marq and the Queen Fish, is forthcoming in 2026 from Atmosphere Press. Cinader is the founder and Director of the Listen & Be Heard Network, where she hosts and produces The Listen & Be Heard Hour, and Beyond Borders, both non-commercial podcasts and syndicated radio shows…
FEATURED BOOKS
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Gabriela Lee, Anna Felicia C. Sanchez and Sydney Paige Guerrero – Mapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative Fiction
Read more: Gabriela Lee, Anna Felicia C. Sanchez and Sydney Paige Guerrero – Mapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative FictionMapping New Stars: A Sourcebook on Philippine Speculative Fiction is a groundbreaking collection of essays tracing the history and practice of speculative fiction in the country, with contributions from a constellation of readers and practitioners of the craft.
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Meredith Leigh – The Ethical Meat Handbook
Read more: Meredith Leigh – The Ethical Meat HandbookEthical Meat is meat from an animal that had a good life, a good death, a good butcher, and a good cook. Ethical Meat is a movement that seeks to repair entire regional meat supply chains, and much work is underway by brave hardworking farmers, butchers, processors, chefs and cooks. Working to create the capacity…
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Patricia Evangelista – Some People Need Killing, A Memoir of Murder in My Country
Read more: Patricia Evangelista – Some People Need Killing, A Memoir of Murder in My CountryFor six years, journalist Patricia Evangelista documented killings carried out by police and vigilantes in the name of then president Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs—a crusade that led to the slaughter of thousands—immersing herself in the world of killers and survivors and capturing the atmosphere of terror created when an elected president decides that some lives are…
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Randy Ribay – Patron Saints of Nothing
Read more: Randy Ribay – Patron Saints of NothingJay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte’s war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what…
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Taymour Soomro, Deepa Anappara – Letters to a Writer of Color
Read more: Taymour Soomro, Deepa Anappara – Letters to a Writer of ColorA vital collection of essays on the power of literature and the craft of writing from an international array of writers of color, sharing the experiences, cultural traditions, and convictions that have shaped them and their work.
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Victor Fernando R. Ocampo – The Infinite Library and Other Stories
Read more: Victor Fernando R. Ocampo – The Infinite Library and Other StoriesFrom a mysteriously timeless interior of a map shop to a space elevator thousands of miles away from the metropole, these 18 stories masterfully straddle manifold layers of Filipino history, identity, and mythology, reconstructing the past and conjuring new futures for the nation and region at large. Ocampo’s transnational consciousness brilliantly navigates class, colonialism, and…
VIDEOS
We were not able to embed this video on our page, but you can view it on YouTube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InQkoIGtpYg — Finally Got The News #27 Weekly Public Access show by Paper Tiger TV West. October 1992 – Quincentennial: Queen Isabella Coronation disruption at San Francisco City Hall, Columbus Day protests. Opening artwork: Rigo 92, Opening music: The Looters
SUBMISSIONS
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