Jade Mark Capiñanes

writer

latest book

buy now

PRAISE FOR HOW TO GRIEVEOne of the “best Filipino books of 2022” by CNN Philippines“This short yet hard-hitting collection of stories … captures how everyday objects can remind us of loves lost, found, and forgotten.”
— Rappler“Poignant, clever, and at times humorous.”
— Tatler Asia“Capiñanes … deliver[s] his own points, with style and clarity … Though it tackles grief, the writing exercises sobriety and restraint, spared from being corny and cheesy.”
— The Philippine Star“[Capiñanes] shows us grieving as a farce.”
— Esquire Philippines“How to Grieve is good, full stop … And it hurts so much.”
— CNN PhilippinesView on Goodreads

BLURBS“How do you deal with a broken heart? In typical Jade Mark Capiñanes fashion, How to Grieve offers helpful if sardonic advice that you should either take with a grain of salt or use as a menu of survival strategies for the next minute your world falls apart. Conveniently classified according to the coping mechanism of your choice, the very short stories in this collection run the gamut of loneliness and longing with wit that would have rendered them thoroughly hilarious had they not originated from all-too-familiar suffering. Through Jade’s deceptively simple narrative riddles, paths open up to those of us who have gotten lost in the hot mess of relationships and breakups. Each story is a distillation of pain, beauty, ordinariness, and strangeness—each one a koan of heartbreak to contemplate as we stub our toes on the long, rocky road to healing.”— Anna Felicia Sanchez, author of How to Pacify a Distraught Infant: Stories“How to Grieve is a story collection that understands the brevity of the form, the brevity of our lives—and of the relationships we hope—and often fail—to build. Jade Mark Capiñanes is a master at showing us that the root of our longings is that we’ve all been here before—here being that liminal space of inattention in between grieving and moving on. Here is a must-read manual to help us survive our present-day unreason, at the seeming impossibility of planning, of a future, of the future. You have to read this more than once because we probably need more than one reminder of our lives thus far to be fully alive again.”— Edgar Calabia Samar, author of Alternatibo sa Alternatibong Mundo: 13 Metakuwento/Malakuwento“At the core of these stories are characters, often alone, attempting to cope with the loss or leaving of the beloved. It is this apparent sameness that points to the author’s genius: in the act of reconfiguring the same internal conflict, Jade Mark Capiñanes presents an expansive view of life, punctuated by surreal humor, allusions that range from pop culture to concepts from classical philosophy, and sharp turns into poignant—at times sobering—insights. For all its brevity, this collection could be read like the most complex of novels. The more we read and reread a narrative, the more we discover something different about it. The more we understand our own lives and (lost) loves. We not only feel How to Grieve; it goes way beyond, and for this, we, readers, rejoice!”— George Gonzaga Deoso, author of Horseman’s Revolt and Other Stories

HOME WORK BIO CONTACT RESOURCES

WORK

book
• How to Grieve (Everything’s Fine, 2022)ebooks, zines, etc.
• not in the mood for love (2023)
• Here as Well as There (2022)
• Digital Loves (2020)
• Nazi Literature in the Philippines (2018)
• Vince & Kath & Derrida (2017)creative nonfiction
• “Some Forever, Hopefully for Better” (Dadiangas Review, June 2021)
• “Reading Is a Privilege” (ANCX, April 2020)
• “Politics and Peanuts” (New Mandala, April 2019)
• “Paano Magsakay ng Tricycle sa General Santos City” (Cotabato Literary Journal, August 2018)
• “Abal” (Cotabato Literary Journal, September 2017)
• “A Short History of Nearly Every Window I Have Once or Twice Contemplated Throwing Myself Out Of” (Cotabato Literary Journal, May 2017)
• “A Portrait of a Young Man as a Banak” (Cotabato Literary Journal, January 2017)
• “Children of the Sea” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, August 2014)opinion
• “Should Poets Be Threatened by AI?” (CNN Philippines, June 2023)
• “On Writing Mindanao Fictions” (Dagmay, April 2023)
• “Real Talk: Don’t Waste Your 20s on People Telling You How to Live Your 20s” (ANCX, August 2021)
• “Let Michael Pacquiao Rap” (ANCX, August 2020)
• “How Not to Make Fun of Rodrigo Duterte” (New Mandala, July 2018)fiction
• “My Beautiful Mind, A Sapiosexual Love Story” (ANCX, August 2019)
• “Meet My iBae” (ANCX, June 2019)
• “Nazi Literature in the Philippines: A Critical Overview” (Kill List Chronicles, January 2018)
• “Of Books and Dreams” (Dagmay, March 2016)
• “Scrabble” (Dagmay, February 2015)humor
• “Juan Ponce Enrile, Valentine Birthday Boy, Is Older Than You Think” (ANCX, February 2020)
• “The Metamorphosis of Persida Acosta” (ANCX, August 2019)
• “Marcoses Attempt to Set Record for World’s Largest Food Poisoning Incident” (ANCX, July 2019)
• “Finding Tito” (ANCX, June 2019)poetry
• “Eh ‘Di Howl!” (Dagmay, January 2017)
• “Passion” (Dagmay, August 2016)

HOME WORK BIO CONTACT RESOURCES

BIO

Jade Mark Capiñanes is the author of the flash fiction collection How to Grieve, published by the indie press Everything’s Fine in 2022. In 2017 his personal essay “A Portrait of a Young Man as a Banak” won 3rd Prize in the Essay Category of the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He was a fellow for poetry at the 2023 Iyas National Writers Workshop, as well as a fellow for creative nonfiction at the 2019 Ateneo National Writers Workshop, 2017 University of Santo Tomas National Writers Workshop, and 2016 Davao Writers Workshop.Born and raised in Davao City, he earned his BA in English from Mindanao State University in General Santos City. He is currently taking his MFA in Creative Writing at De La Salle University in Manila.

HOME WORK BIO CONTACT RESOURCES

CONTACT

For business inquiries (and everything else), feel free to email me at [email protected].