Isa Garcia’s “Like Lines on a Map” was launched during the Launch Nite of the Qitrove: Curated Life Trunk Show at the Grove, Pasig City on Friday (October 12) night. Handout

Isa Garcia’s “Like Lines on a Map” was launched during the Launch Nite of the Qitrove: Curated Life Trunk Show at the Grove, Pasig City on Friday (October 12) night. Handout

“Sometimes, the magic of the moment is enough.”

Isa Garcia writes that in the very first chapter of her new and intensely personal self-published book, “Like Lines on a Map.

“Like Lines on a Map” was launched during the Launch Nite of the Qitrove: Curated Life Trunk Show at the Grove, Pasig City on Friday (October 12) night. The event featured the works and collections of different people that all tell a story. And Garcia’s stories – in her words, “it is about the connections we make in passing of whether they are transient or permanent – was one of the highlights of the event.”

“I do think it is terrifying,” admitted Garcia of writing about these experiences that reveal much of her thoughts and feelings. “But I am slightly lucky because I already had a book previously published (‘Found: Letters on Love, Life, and God’). To an extent, it exposes certain vulnerabilities that make us human. It is scary though to write about things that are close to your heart.”

If Garcia’s first book, “Found,” catered to young women, “Like Lines on a Map” is more universal because it is about encounters with different people.

The book took three years to write after a dare by a friend who also works as her art director. “It was just a challenge and it took a while to finish because of the intensely personal nature of the topics,” Garcia admitted. “Some of these ‘meetings’ happened some time ago and I had to reflect and bring myself back to that time to recreate as accurately as possible my feelings and thoughts at that particular moment in time about people stopped by for a moment but made a lasting impression.”

The result is a 164-page prose version of Humans of New York, an honest trove of essays from the heart.

“I am exciting and happy to be here and to have a space here in Qitrove to launch my self-published book,” underscored the author who in her day job is an English teacher at the Meridian International College at McKinley Hill, Taguig, where she also doubles as a senior high advisor.

Garcia also talked about the fulfillment of self-publishing one’s book. “The book is like your son or daughter. A lot of great care is heaped on this because it is your own with no one else adding to it (save for the cover art).”

“What is weird is when I was younger, I wanted to write a book but it never seemed like something I wanted to really do. But over time, it did become a part of my bucket list and now, I am living the dream.”

“Like Lines on a Map” can be purchased via communicating with the author at isagarciawrites@gmail.com.