FiliFutures

April 3, 2026 Note from the Editor

Through DILIM Press, I’m very interested in futurism from the Filipino lens. As an immigrant to the United States, I consider myself Filipina American. While media depictions of people in the Philippines are changing, they are, to me, still derogatory and regressive: think ripped clothing, mountains of garbage, women overpowered by colonizers, mail-order brides, skin-lightening creams, and emasculated men, with little sense of a future state, only a focus on collapse in the present.

If books are weapons in the war of ideas, then I personally want to learn from, and initiate more conversations about, how to reclaim narratives and re-envision our shared future. I think of this as re-aligning my focus and no longer “feeding” the proposition that Filipinos are helpless, superstitious, and backwards.

If you are interested in connecting on this to initiate additional discussions with in the Filipino and Filipino diaspora author community, my idea is to collate stories into an anthology of experimental fiction, informed by ideas you’re already exploring in your own work. 

For example, this is “Filifutures” because to me, this covers more than “apocalyptic Southeast Asian fiction” or “tropical gothic grimdark” or any of the tropes that I'm seeing in the market. I’m aiming for exploration of hopeful, science-informed tech to make people’s lives better.

Themes to explore:
Ancestor worship reframed as genetic memory

How we learn and collaborate from each others’ traditions
Superstition informing the present

Reclaiming heritage through storytelling.

If you're interested in exploring work in this genre, please reach out with ideas, including submissions, for our first collection.

https://futures.dilimpress.com/