Meaningful Life

Reach got the chance to interview renowned children's book designer Mike Wilks, popular for his old master's painting style of Escher and surreal character collections. Wilks is also the author of his personal novel, Mirrorscape, a fantasy book series for the Harry Potter crowd. Mike describes some very interesting insights and attitudes about the craft of illustration and his work as a painter and writer.

Michael Swanwick is one of the most revered sci-fi fantasy novelists and is the author of the subversive YA book, The Iron Dragon's Daughter. As a story, the relationship of Jane and Melancthon reads like something straight out of some cult anime series--elves in mafia suits and sentient cyber-dragons-of-war that hate the Goddess of the realm. In our interview, Michael talks about writing as craft, his new book The Iron Dragon's Mother, and plenty more insights about sci-fi and pulp hero adventure books.

John Klima is a well respected scifi editor who got his chops from running a critically acclaimed fanzine called The Electric Velocipede. It ran scifi short stories from 2001 to 213. Klima has also worked for Asimov Analog, Tor books and the Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He is currently a professional librarian working for a Wisconsin community library. We took to his work after reading Logorrhea, a genre short story collection which worked stories off a theme of strange words. Other antholiges Klima edited are Happily Ever After and Glitter and Mayhem, the latter a genre romp inspired by disco, rollerblading and nightclubs.

Pat Mills is one of our favorite subersive writers for his horror epic, Requiem Vampire Knight and his post-apocalyptic sci-fi soldier romp: ABC Warriors. Mills founded 2000AD, a comics magazine that pioneered plenty of dark sci-fi tales like Nemesis, ABC Warriors, Slaine the Horned God, and may have been the seed for the grimdark subgenre in apocalyptic sci-fi. We talk to Pat Mills about horror stories (Pinoys' timeless fiction fetish), 2000AD Comics, and ABC Warriors.

The Pinoy horror movie, Ilawod is a possession-haunting film featuring a folk myth creature called the Ilawod. Yvette Tan is a Filipina-Chinese, published horror writer and is doing her first indie screenplay with director Dan Villegas, acclaimed indie filmamker for romantic comedies. REACH interviews Yvette about working on the go as a writer and her craft as a horror fiction aficionado.

Hannes Grossmann is revered as one of the world's best technical death metal drummer. He has played with cult-favorite tech death bands: Obscura, Necrophagist among others. Now, he has matured into a solo extreme metal musician with session guitar friends pitching in for his own production. To date, he has 2 solo albums that showcase his craft as an extreme metal drummer, letting it all hang out in one of the world's most underrated metal genres.

Many think that indie authors only work in genres like pulp romance or erotica: think 40 Shades of Grey. But many authors have their own measure of success writing men's action adventure novels like Ian Kharitonov who writes about a Russian, Indiana Jones-styled hero, Eugene Sokolov. Ian won the Clive Cussler Grandmaster Award for Adventure Writers in 2010 for his Sokolov novel The Russian Renaissance--which has become a bestselling action-adventure book series.

Most sports fan think that chess is a boring game becuase it takes hours for competitive sanctioned games to resolve. But a format change similar to volleyball may be the best thing to happen to the sport. What is Blitz Chess and who are the top players in the world? If you have a board already, you just need a clock timer or you can configure your smartphone to have a chess clock timer for easier use.

Reach got to interview Soman Chainani about his writing porcess and what works for him as a novelist. Soman is the renowned author of The School of Good and Evil YA novel series. The book is going to be made into a movie next year and works on the age-old switcheroo plot. Writer fans who want to know more about his work process should check this out.

If there is any need of proof that Open Source distribution of fiction WORKS, it is Peter Watts from Canada, one of the hottest hard-science fiction writers today. His Hugo nominated Blindsight novel tripled its sales after being listed online as open source and brought the spotlight on his incredibly insightful writing. His work is now part of several college courses on Philosophy, neurosychology and even a literature class in Berkeley.

Survival tech expert and overland adventure enthusiast, Jim DeLozier is the owner of Survival Truck, a custom builder of tough outdoors bug-out vehicles that are designed to withstand even the zombie apocalypse. Jim talks about how his company can build custom armored vehicle solutions for any overland adventure vehicle as well as offer security training for safekeeping one's family or friends in any emergency situation.

Jayron Zapanta is a Pinoy mangaka artist who has found success as a freelance comic book artist and graphic designer. We look at his journey and ask him if he would still encourage kids to go for the moon if they want to commit a career to making comics and manga. Don't quit your day job but do put in the work so that you can build an art portfolio that can be your ticket to a career doing digital art for game characters or comics and more!

Kids are into comics forever even when they grow up. This generation sees more young artist doing manga over any other comic book format. Local manga fans or comic book collectors might know Columbia Kho more as Kurohiko, Pinay artist for indie comic books: Crystal Shadows and My Facebook Boyfriend for Real. We interview Columbia about self-publishing comics as a lifetime work-hobby and a way of life.

Hail to the Pinoy Blitz Chess wunderkind, Haridas Pascua! In a recent sanctioned torunament, the pretigious Asian Continental, Haridas bested a field of mostly higher-ranked Chess Grand Masters from all over the world and finished 2nd overall in a series of Standard chess matches and Blitz chess matches. Haridas started playing Blitz Chess (10-minutes to win) as a plucky 4-year-old and his dad would bring him to local tournaments to help him get better at the second favorite sport of Pinoys next to basketball. Know more about our Blitz Chess champ and Pinoy International Master, Haridas Pascua.

With Amazon and New York Times bestselling titles like The Demon Duke and I, How to Kiss a Greek Billionaire and paranormal romance Wolf Fight, Marian Tee may be the most underrated and successful Pinay novelist romance fans all over the world know yet she still is under the radar in our own Wattpad crazy country. We interview Marian Tee about her approach to writing and self-publishing, and how to get successful in underserved romance novel niche genres.

We take a quick look at Jao Mapa's devoted passion for illustration: Drawing and Painting. Starting as a celebrity teen star, Jao (showbiz brother of indie rockstar Diego), has since moved on into a more private life as a father of three, yet he still does occasional stints as an actor. Today, he is a full time, painting hobbyist and even accepts commissioned work. His forte is 'slice-of-life' social realism where traditional Filipino scenes convey a story. Read the interview by Anna Theresa Llamson.

REACH talks to fan-favorite gamemaster, Tobie Abad about role playing games. Tobie's insights about Manila-based player communities and the local gaming dev scene reveal that a lot has been going on and it might be time that you should try visiting a local board game restaurant in your neighborhood or haul your friends for a gaming session yourself with resources that are available on the web. Some of them for FREE!.. Story-driven games rock.

REACH was blessed enough to interview Jane Yolen about the resurgence of prose stylist writing, myth writing and how to get into children's illustrated books and make good. Filipino fans might remember her as one of the introduction writers for the first chapter collection of The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman, and as a fairy tale writer who scribes her own anthologies of magic retellings. Some of her award winning work include Dragonfield and Other Stories--a fairy tale collection, and Briar Rose--a retelling of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale set in Nazi Germany.

The amazing tradition of Czech Science Fiction has brought us the ROBOT (Karel Capek's R.U.R.), and the giant spaceship exploring deep space (Czech movie Ikarie XB-1)--which inspired Star Trek, Asimov and more inspiring sci-fi ideas than we can count. REACH interviews former sci-fi magazine and book editor, Jaroslav Olša, jr., now the Czech Ambassador to the Philippines and Micronesia, to get the lowdown on one of the best open secrets in goldmine genre publishing--Czech Science Fiction, then and NOW..

Janice Hung is an international champion Wushu athlete from the Philippine National Team. She has since moved on from Wushu competitions to put up a foundation for kids, The Janice Hung Arts and Sports Foundation, which trains prospective young atheltes in the competitive performance sport janice Hung also has a unique project that is part of the Foundation: Muzikademy---which trains local musicians and songwriters in honing their craft to become better performers and as well as find the best opportunities in the local and regional music scene.

Pinoy DJ's Duncan Ramos and Jimmy Bondoc are two popular, young, celebrity musicians on the RNB Show on 97.9 Home Radio. REACH interviews the two about keeping a healthy lifestyle, staying sharp with their music, and grabbing opportunities as they come. Learn from Duncan and Jimmy about life: going through the ups and downs and making it through wiser; making their dreams come true.

Grow up with Fantasy Comics from the 90s? Dark One is Greg Williams, the creator and artist of Animal Mystic, a Sirius Comic Book with environmentalist crusader, Nikki Roanoke as Jatarri. With Mad Max becoming popular again as our post apocalypse hero with high octane blood, why not get the best female character in comics for a post apocalyptic scenario too? Check out the comics of Animal Mystic and see how golden, comics were in the 90s.

Gorgeous mom, Valerie Concepcion reveals to readers, the inspiration behind her keeping her mission as SuperMom: her princess, Fiona! Survival tips for single mothers from a God-fearing and trusting brave woman in love..

M. R. Carey has a scary, new novel called THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS. He's also Mike Carey, your favorite comic book writer (Neverwhere, LUCIFER, Hellblazer, The UNWRITTEN, X-Men) and author of The Felix Castor noir-horror exorcist books. REACH Unlimited was fortunate to get an awesome interview with one of our favorite British writers. Enjoy!

Celebrity actress Kathryn Bernardo is inspiring many fans as she portrays many interesting characters in both TV and movies, yet she also serves as one of the best role models for young women, who despite given many blessings, still puts her trust in finishing school and completing her education even if she has to work it around her busy showbiz schedule.

Gunship Revolution is the church of the finest digital artists in Manila. GunREV has made projects for top gaming companies and other major product design and advertising the world over. They are the BEST Digital Art Production Studio in Manila bar none. Under their wing are some fo the finest comic book dudes, digital painters, graphic designers, 3D artists, you name it, they are IT . The studio is now offering alternative education opportuinites and school tie-ups for digital art and painting and design!

Kids entering college or technical school are going to choose their career for life, at least for the moment. What better than have 2 of the most seasoned web programmers and designers talk about their craft and the opportunities available for talented I.T. practitioners.

Finding organic produce AND meals to go is now not as difficult as say 4 or 5 years ago. But getting farm fresh produce delivered to you is different from just getting the good stuff at the supermarket. Kristine Garcia promotes a healthy lifestyle and makes it available for everyone via Emporium Antipolo.

Yes, WATTPAD has changed everyone's reading habits for good. But there still ARE awesome books all around that we don't know about. Charles Tan, who manages a blog called Bibliophile Stalker which covered the best in pulp and genre fiction like the nightly 6:30 news, and now has a more casual focus.

In the world of Rock Music, live concerts are the worship service and Mass for the devoted. Nina Sandejas has made an outstanding career out of covering live events of local and international rock bands as well as travel blog photo essays.

We are seeing Wattpad authors become overnight superstars for readers and writers alike. Joseph Nacino and Karl de Mesa are two veteran writer-editors who both come from the literary side of making stories. They make the best HORROR stories and anthologies out there. Are you a starting writer and want to get good? Or a reader looking for nightmare stories that don't quit? Read the REACH interview with two of the BEST in making scary stories and get the best advice about writing and reading.

Americans and other foreigners seem to find their success away from home in the Philippines. Dale Mathis has worked a miracle of craftsman's artifacts that has astonished the celebirty world and museums in the U.S. Check out our interview with Dale for our 5tth issue.

Health and Wellness is a big concern for everyone whether in their prime years or in their wiser age. Cory Quirino is one smart lady with the best advice for everyone about health and fitness as well as her personal advocacies for Filipino made everything and the Miss World pageant.

The legendary Sir Biboy or the Kelso Man of the Philippines himself. REACH interviews one of the pioneers and stalwarts who have developed the sport of gamefowl fighting in the country. Secret tips on choosing and breeding winners too. Only on REACH.

The country's most popular psychic offers her sharp insights on Values and Character. Insights that might help us understand how the spiritworld is in tune with our own plane and how we can better deal with distrubances.

The smartest man in the planet knows that storytelling is the most powerful of social media engines. Check out REACH's interview with the indomitable Allen Lau, the man behind the hottest mobile app in the world, WATTPAD.