Literary families

(L-R: Kuya Zivan, Ate Nessa, Papa, Mama, me, and Ate Nessa's boyfriend Roli)

Here we are at my sister's flat after a sumptuous All Souls' Day dinner that included:

green salad with grapes, feta cheese and Sicilian sauce
spaghetti with pesto sauce
porkchops from Italianni's
grilled chicken
baked tahong with garlic
white wine
Pepsi Twist

No wonder we're all (with the exception of my mother with the blessed genes and tiny appetite) getting, uhm, more substantial.

* * * * *

If you could choose certain writers to be members of your own family (regardless of their age, era, or influence on you), who would these be? Off the top of my head, my list would include:

mother: I was choosing between Adrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood, and decided to go for the darker, wittier, less militant Atwood

father: Ray Bradbury (tingin ko magiging under si tatay kay nanay)

siblings: Lorrie Moore, Angela Carter, Italo Calvino, Stephen Dunn, Kurt Vonnegut
grandparents: Wislawa Szymborska, J.R.R. Tolkien, Doris Lessing

aunts and uncles: Paul Auster, Haruki Murakami, Marguerite Duras, Adrienne Rich

favorite cousin: Anais Nin

Wala lang.