In 2005 Memphis, I wrote an adventure set in 2024 Memphis. That’s SCRAMBLE. Back then, I figured 19 years into the future wouldn’t be too different… Boy did I not predict 2020. But in 2020 Africa, I started formulating the Samson’s Girl comics, about Elizabeth and Juliet Samson, set in 2040 Philippines, after LT Beth… View Article

Whether Memphis, Manila, or Mindanao, setting has its special place in my stories. I try to feature landmarks and places of meaning to me. The backdrop to the action gives me opportunity for poetic descriptions, whether remembering the soft music and brown tones of the now-closed Figaro’s Cafe in Riverbanks Mall, Marikina, or the haunted… View Article

So this year, I’ve decided to travel more of the Philippines, starting with the far-flung locales of my future graphic novel. I’m still not done with world-building, of the future in 17 years time. But its an exciting new endeavor – travel again as the pandemic subsides, and see what is out there… Elizabeth and… View Article

I have a few stories, still unfinished, that have to do with a sense of destiny – not for a specific character, but for humanity as a whole or for some large chunk of human kind…  Like what happens to the fate of all Filipinos in the Middle East when one young man goes there… View Article

Four weeks ago, I had a surgery. When I came home from the hospital, I started this website and I’ve made it a goal to blog every day I’m on vacation since. It helped me a lot. Four weeks later, I’m only starting to feel a little bit of cabin fever. Four weeks later, I’m… View Article

So in 2020 I was stuck in North Africa during the pandemic, locked down in some shnazzy city with a laptop and some hard copies of my old  manuscripts to my first novel. I retyped the whole damn thing. All 60,000 plus words. And then my elbows  and hands started to go numb, all pins-and-needles… View Article

Back  in 2013, I was in my final year at UP. I started the second semester  with 100 pages of novel – carefully workshopped pieces over the course  of six years of creative writing classes. But I also had a day job.  Thanks to exciting work, I sort of forgot that I had a thesis… View Article

Hello  world! I’m Isabel Risone, a Filipina-American science fiction novelist  working on my first book. Here’s a little bit about me.  I was born and raised in the  United States to Filipino parents. After high school, I moved to the  Philippines and studied B.A. Creative Writing at the University of the  Philippines Diliman, in Quezon… View Article