Ramón C. Sunico

Ramón C. Sunico is a teacher, editor, book designer and bilingual writer with two books of poetry and three books for children, the first of which Two Friends, One World, won the first ever Palanca Award first prize for Story for Children. Its Tagalog version also won. Before he returned to teaching, he managed Cacho Publishing House for over 2 decades. He pioneered in the production of bilingual, parallel-text picture books, now a standard in the industry. He wrote, designed, printed and bound his first book of poetry: The Secret of Graphite: Poems in 2 Tongues while doing his Praktikum in publishing in Augsburg. His works (poems, stories, essays, translations) have been published in anthologies, textbooks, periodicals, and websites here and abroad. He has won prizes for his poetry and stories for children from the Philippines Free Press and the Palancas, where he frequently serves as judge. The books he has designed and managed have been recognized with various awards. He has taught and is teaching for multiple departments at Ateneo de Manila University (Literature, Philosophy, Journalism and the Humanities). He is an Alagad ni Balagtas and served as a UP national fellow for Poetry. He was among the first to design books using the computer and moderated the first listserv, rp-books, on Philippine books and culture. After the fall of Marcos in 1986, as designer and editor, he helped Karina Bolasco conceptualize the Contemporary Philippine Poetry and Contemporary Philippine Prose series. More recently, he conceptualized and helped found the National Children’s Book Awards.