The best writers have a unique voice. And Jessica Zafra, as one of the Philippines’ finest, certainly has a voice that's all her own.

Part hilarious, part ironic, but always, always completely brilliant, Zafra’s voice is timeless. She is as popular as the time her first book was published in 1992.

Fast forward 27 years to 2019, a few more columns, several books, a blog, podcasts, and some TV shows later, Zafra remains one of the most formidable and recognizable Filipino writers.

We are lucky that she continues to write, and it looks like she won’t be stopping anytime soon.

I interviewed Zafra on a Monday afternoon amid Christmas decorations and jingles, and over a tall glass of lemonade. I’ve always looked up to her, read most of her books, and tried but failed to imitate how she writes. That’s why on the Angkas ride from Quezon City to Makati, my fangirl heart was anxiety-ridden (made worse by the blaring of car and bus horns along EDSA). To say that I was nervous is a criminal understatement.

But contrary to my worst fears, talking to the award-winning and bestselling writer is not unlike talking to an old friend whom you haven’t seen in a while. As expected, Zafra was very articulate and candid. But she surprised me with her warmth and friendliness, her laugh as infectious as the Christmas cheer surrounding us.

In our close to an hour interview, Zafra talked about writing fiction, reading one book a week, the power of a 9-hour sleep, and her latest book, "The Collected Stories of Jessica Zafra," a compendium of 27 stories from the last 27 years. It contains award-winning fiction from "Manananggal Terrorizes Manila" (1992) and "The Stories So Far" (2014), plus new stories and an introduction by Don Jaucian.

Q: When did you realize that you wanted to be a writer?

"When I was eight. I started reading early. My parents were not great readers. We did not have many books in the house. Eventually, I read the ones which were interesting. One day, I was like, 'Oh no, I have nothing to read. I forgot to get something from the school library. I think I’ll write something.' Di ba? The kayabangan of childhood? Ah I’ll write something and I can manage. So I wrote something and I liked it. I said I want to do this. That's it."

Q: Do you still remember what you first wrote?

"It was a four-line poem which I shall not burden you with. Although I did not write more poetry, but I enjoyed the process."

Q: As a young reader, what were your favorite books?

"I read a lot of books. I liked all of them. I liked fairy tales. I read a lot of science fiction as a child because there were endless reruns of 'Star Trek' on TV. This was the Martial Law era. It was classic 'Star Trek' with Shatner and Nimoy. They used to show it a lot. In bookstores, they had collections of story versions of each 'Star Trek' episode. And so that was one of my early favorites. You had episodes written by Theodore Sturgeon, the science fiction greats."

Q: Who are the writers you look up to?

"They change eh. One thing that I really like about my life is that I manage to read one book a week. So that’s 54 books a year. That is because I don’t have a job. I freelance, so my time is my own. I sleep nine hours a night, which is the secret to anything. You have to sleep nine hours a night.

"Every year on my blog, I publish a list of my 100 favorite books, and every year I tweak it a little. A few years ago, around the time that #MeToo began, I was like, you know most of the people on my list are men, so I made it a point to read more women authors without thinking that I have to make space because, you know, they deserve to be there. So I have been changing the list, now I have achieved 50-50, 50 men and 50 women.

"Some of the women writers that I really admire are Ali Smith, Kate Atkinson. Kate Atkinson besides being so prolific, she farts out a book every year, she also has this excellent detective series with Jackson Brodie. We tend to discount genre fiction but if this isn’t literature, I don’t know what literature is."

Q: What do you think of Filipinos as readers because there is this common perception that we do not like to read?

"I was corrected recently. Like many literary writers -- sorry ha, we are categorized as literary writers -- I did not put myself in the literature box. We like to complain that Filipinos don’t read. I was corrected by one of the local representatives of Penguin Random House, Honey de Peralta. She said, 'No, are you kidding!' If I went to the book fair, the Wattpad writers -- you don’t even know their real names -- but when they know that a Wattpad writer is in the house it registers on the Richter scale. Those things sell so much. They may not be what you think of as literature, but people read."

Q: How do you think could Filipinos be inspired to read more?

"In order to read, you have to grow up in a house with books. My house did not have a lot of books, but we had books. Your parents have to impress upon you that reading is an important thing. I think also because people don’t normally associate books with pleasure. They associate it with homework. You have to start them young."

Q: Admittedly, I am much more familiar with your nonfiction than your short stories. Which do you enjoy writing more?

"Fiction, of course. The reason why I’ve written a lot of nonfiction is because I have to make a living. You can’t make a living off short stories and it’s the form I think I write naturally. I’ve written a novel, but it took a while and also it still reads like a collection of interwoven short stories (laughs). It’s harder to make a living from fiction so I wrote a column three times a week for 20 years.

"I still do write every day. That one is a force of habit because if I don’t write every day, I just feel bad."

Q: I’ve read from way back that you think taking up Creative Writing as a major is not a very good decision, why is that?

"Two reasons. More important than knowing how to write is having something to write. Because you could have the world’s greatest technique but if you have nothing to say, what’s the point? You pick a major that will help you to read. Like you can major in Comparative Literature, Sociology, Political Science, and then you teach yourself how to write by reading great writers.

"The other one is it’s really hard to make a living off writing. Even well-known writers in the States, they have to have day jobs. I’m not very practical and I’m obstinate, I’ve never had a day job other
than writing and it’s difficult. Wala eh, I can’t bear not writing."

Q: If you were to have a day job, what do you think would it be?

"Something that has absolutely nothing to do with writing, because the problem with being a columnist is that you spend the day writing and then you go home, you write stuff for yourself, and you find that your energy and your best ideas have been sapped by the deadline writing.

"So, I would pick something that has nothing to do with writing, like maybe the sciences. Not teaching. I give writing workshops. It’s very draining. The audience feeds off your energy and after three hours of talk, I’m gulay. Also, I have very little patience."

Q: A lot of people look up to you as a writer, and you mentioned earlier that for you to be able to write you should read works by great writers. Do you have any other pieces of advice to aspiring writers?

"Write every day. I always repeat this every time I give a talk. Graham Greene, the English writer who I hope people still read, he wrote 'The Power and the Glory,' he wrote 'The End of the Affair,' 'Monsignor Quixote.' He said that if you write 1,000 words a day, the books will take care of themselves. So you train yourself to write every single day. And then after a while, you’ll look at everything you’ve written and you’ll find that you can put them together. And with a little effort, you can get a book out of that.

"And then later, I found out that the exact quote was 500 words per day, so I thought, whoa! I’m ahead? I can take days off because I’ve written way into the future (chuckles)."

Q: Some Filipino authors have already made it to the roster of the likes of Penguin Classics, but a Filipina writer has yet to make it to that list and some others. If you were to handpick who should make it, who would you choose?

"People like Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Paz Marquez Benitez, there are lots. Although you know, it’s nice to be accepted into these lists, but also the important thing I think is to have them championed so that they continue to be read in much the same way as a great writer like Edith Wharton. She would have been forgotten if somebody didn’t champion her cause, so to this day we
would read the 'Age of Innocence.' Think of all the wonderful writers who have been forgotten. That is why I like NYRB classics, this imprint of the New York Review of Books, because they reissue works which are in danger of falling into obscurity by wonderful writers like Olivia Manning, Elizabeth Taylor who would have been more famous if she didn’t happen to have the same name as the movie star."

Q: How do you think can it be done here in the Philippines?

"There are efforts to do this. First, to support these efforts of the publishers you have to get the public to read more, and I think one common complaint is that the average Filipino finds books expensive. So you are going to have to bring down the cost of books. And well, of course, there are a lot of books that are past their copyright date, you can put them online except that our telcos, you can quote me on that, they’re so terrible and so expensive. The Internet should be a right and people don’t get to access it. All they see is Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, so they’re living in their own Facebook bubble and the algorithm will only give you what they think you want. And it doesn’t occur to them to suggest something new."

Q: So now, can you tell me something about your newest book?

"First, the cover is by Jason Moss. We did this in one day. I told him before I went to Spain, 'Jason, you make naman the cover of my book.' Jason is a visual artist. He's excellent. He said, 'Okay!' This September, Ateneo was like, 'Where's your cover?' I said, 'Oh no. He (Jason) forgot.' So I said, 'This is what we're going to do.' We had the text back and forth. I mentioned the elements that I like, my cat Drogon, and he wanted to put me there. This (cover) is based on another artwork by another friend of ours, Leo Abaya. We put it all together and it turned out well. This is my favorite book cover.

"The contents are, I’ve published two collections of short stories. The first one in 1992 which is actually my very first book which is called 'Manananggal Terrorizes Manila and Other Stories' and
then in 2014 I self-published 'The Stories so Far' which was picked up in 2016 and issued as a paperback. It's the stories in those two collections, and then the ones in 'Manananggal' that I want to disavow any knowledge of, I removed. so if you have 'Manananggal' you can just compare. Iyong para bang when I read it, I don’t want to be reminded of it so… rip!

"I also included a couple of stories which haven't been collected before for one reason or another. I figured, 'Oh well, it's a collection of stories so let's stuff them in there.' The last article, since you know there's a cat on the cover, the last story is about my cats who have passed on."

Q: What do you think is the role of stories especially in this age of "post-truth," fake news, and Internet trolling?

"I think that stories really drive human progress. What do they really do? They serve no evolutionary purpose as in they don't help the species mutate and evolve. They are really our way of understanding the world around us and expressing our beliefs and aspirations without making a checklist. We tell stories to each other and that drives human progress. If the stories you tell each other are all lies, then good luck to you. It comes out in the story, whether it's a lie or it's… as in no amount of skill will make it sound true if it's not."

Q: If Jessica Zafra had a reading list, what are the books which you think we really have to read? What are your recommendations?

"I already mentioned earlier that I have a list of 100. Instead of being prescriptive because I know a lot of people don't like to be told what to do, just read books that you really enjoy. Just read for pleasure. Don't read because you’ll get useful tips on how to live or that you’re going to learn something for your exam. Just get into the habit of reading and read whatever you want."

Jessica Zafra will have a book talk and signing on November 30, Saturday, from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Fully Booked Bonifacio High Street.

"The Collected Stories of Jessica Zafra" is available at Fully Booked, Mt. Cloud, Solidaridad, Loyola bookstore, and Shopee.