Mary Grace Bertulfo
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merrygeese.bsky.social
Mary Grace Bertulfo
@merrygeese.bsky.social
100 followers 160 following 73 posts
🌞 Earth love. Family maven. 🇵🇭 Poet, writer, manunulat. Kidlit. Intergenerational stories. 🌏 Banyan: Asian American Writers Collective founder & organizer. 🌊 Big laughs and fiesty puppies. 💛 http://www.mgbertulfo.com/
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merrygeese.bsky.social
~ Gentle Reminder: Please REGISTER for FRIDAY ~

Luisa A. Igloria’s Chicago Book Launch Weekend is around the corner! Things to do: ✅Decide if you’re attending Fri or Sat (or both!) ✅ Register for Friday at Women & Children First Books. ✅ Pre-order CAULBEARER. See you soon!
April 10, 2025 at 4:43 AM
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Countdown: Two weeks until Luisa A. Igloria Weekend! And, lucky me, I get to interview her twice. @thepoetslizard.bsky.social
March 30, 2025 at 2:06 AM
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Four weeks til I’m in conversation with Luisa A. Igloria @thepoetslizard.bsky.social at Chicago’s legendary Women and Children First Books. Celebrate the launch of CAULBEARER, Luisa’s new poetry collection. April 11, 7 pm. Register for our free event. www.eventbrite.com/e/poetry-rea... #booksky
A book launch announcement for Luisa A. Igloria’s new book of poetry CAULBEARER. She’ll be in conversation with me, M.G. Bertulfo. A collage of the book cover, Luisa, and myself. The cover: a ponderous person behind an iron gate. Luisa: sideview of a Filipina with a bob. Me: smiling, wearing glasses, next to a tree. The vibe: nostalgic, earthy, with nods to Philippine history.
March 14, 2025 at 9:33 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
Return of the Sandhill #Cranes. #nature #birding #intersectionalenvironmentalism
March 10, 2025 at 9:57 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
Yesterday’s #JOY: I baked chocolate chip cookies with my 3YO nephew, HappyFeet. Three is my fav preschool age. “Oooh! The sugar’s melting!” Can you taste the sea salt? A lil something for everyone.
Picture of a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies on white parchment paper. The cookies are different sizes. The scent of toasted oatmeal, vanilla, cinnamon, and butter. The vibe: Cozy cheery baking with my fav preschooler!
February 25, 2025 at 6:22 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
Making my way through my mini #TBR pile from Dandelion Bookshop. I love #Reading and #writing across generations. #booksky
Photo of me, a Filipina woman wearing a grape-colored fleece hoodie, holding a book called CONNIE, A Memoir which is about the first Asian American news anchor Connie Chung. She has the iconic Asian bob hair-cut that went with her legendary reporting. The vibe: Me, happy and ready to get cozy with a good read, thrilled to learn more about a personal hero. A photo of four books arranged in a sort of diamond pattern, cover-sides up. The books are: Connie, A Memoir, Over and Under Wetland (a picture book) by Kate Messner with art by Christopher Silas Neal, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai (translated by Jesse Kirkwood), and SNOW a middle grade novel by Meeta Trehan. Vibe: a boodle of new books from an indie bookshop ready to be loved. A bookmark sticks out of one book and says, Dandelion Bookshop.
February 25, 2025 at 6:13 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
20/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #writing #Philippines
Photo of a book cover. The novel STATE OF WAR by Ninotchka Rosca. Soft pastel drawing of a Filipina doña sitting on a highback chair, a masked guerilla fighter who has bullets strapped across his chest, and a young woman in jeans and a white tee-shirt looks out the window of a bahay kubo/nipa cottage. In the distance, a volcano. The moon leaves a firey trail across the sky. Orchids, mangoes, a tropical vine, a pineapple and fruits surround the 3 characters. The vibe: dreamy, the portent of violence amid a lush existence.
February 14, 2025 at 6:54 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
While Human People are burning things down, the Dog People explode with JOY chomping on whatever sticks they happen to find on their morning walks. Here’s our #puppy, Shenanigans. My fav kind of shenanigans.
A shaggy brown and white roan labradoodle rolls on her back chomping a stick. Golden yellow maple leaves are scattered on the gravelly ground. The vibe: Joy!
February 14, 2025 at 5:53 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
19/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing
February 13, 2025 at 7:27 PM
merrygeese.bsky.social
While things fall apart, while forces of destruction are acting like boogeymen, what are we building? How are we taking care of one another? The next revolution is unparalleled, collective, self-less love. Rest. And rise.
February 12, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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18/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing #BlackSky
February 12, 2025 at 4:23 PM
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17/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing
February 11, 2025 at 6:31 PM
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16/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge
#Writing
Photo of a book cover. Background: Sepia drawing of Filipinas wearing ternos, perhaps 3 generations of Filipino women, men, and children arranged in 3 rows. The women’s hair is worn in tight buns. Perhaps a family photo. The men are dressed in white suits and bow ties. The feel is 19th century. The family is posed in front of a nipa house, a bahay kubo and framed by palm trees. In the foreground: A Filipina American teen wearing denim overalls and a white tee shirt inside a rectangle. Her baretted hair is a short bob. The title reads: Her Wild American Self. It is a seminal and contemporary classic collection of M. Evelina Galang’s short stories which have been taught at universities across America. The vibe: Tradition and break from tradition. Continuity and evolution of family in the Filipino diaspora.
February 10, 2025 at 4:11 PM
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15/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #ClimateChange
February 9, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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14/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing

Catching up on my BookChallenge list.
Photo of the reference book History of the Bisayan People in the Philippine Islands. Written by Ignacio Francisco Alcina, S.J. 1668. Translated & edited by Cantius J. Kobak and Lucio Gutiérrez. A parchment-colored cover. In layers: Shadowed images of precolonial Philippine boats, bahay kubo, sanctuary houses in trees, & a chieftain longhouse. In the foreground, indigenous ancestors: A man and woman dressed in maharlika class clothes, a warrior decorated face to ankles with battle and community tattoos holds a paddle, a woman with a neck tattoo wears a loose jacket and malong skirt and holds the hand of a naked child. The vibe: This book is a tome of natural & cultural history in a series. It has gravitas, but also Spanish missionary biases. Cultural richness, historical significance for the 17th century Visayas. This tome shows the fertility of the islands, the ingenuity & beliefs of the people & their/our connection to the lands, seas, animals, plants, and ancestral spirits.
February 7, 2025 at 4:21 PM
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13/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing
Photo of the book Tatterhood, Feminist Folktales from Around the World. Edited by Ethel Johnston Phelps. Illustrations by Suki Boynton. A young blue-eyed woman in a tattered blue hooded cloak holds up a wooden spoon in the foreground. In the near distance, a road winds over hills towards a pyramid-shaped castle. The Sun rises through fluffy clouds. The vibe: A sense of adventure, mischief, determination, and fun!
February 7, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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12/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge
Photo of Carlos Bulosan’s 1946 book The Laughter of My Father. On the cover, a drawing of a mustached Filipino father walking barefoot between his young son and a white rooster. The vibe: sly looking father, adoring son, and their proud rooster. Has the feel of tall tales meets town legend. Bulosan is an icon in Filipino American literature for his incisive book America is in the Heart.
February 6, 2025 at 4:25 AM
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Time to savor some #winter textures from last week. #trees #nature
Photo of a frozen pond and bare limbed trees. The vibe: solitary, serene, sunny and cold. Photo of the crosscut of a large forked tree trunk. The center is a smooth woody circle, the edges are thick jagged bark radiating like sunrays. Organic cracks throughout. The vibe: when nature feels like art, sculptural. Photo: Close-up of the edge of a pond frozen over and melting in the sun. Pockets of pond-ice are melting. Wood and mud peek through. The melting edge is translucent, sparkling, and crumbly. Where the pond meets the bank, dry oak leaves are decomposing. The vibe: fall and winter blending together, a hint of spring thaw, winter warmth, and the true joyful messiness of seasons. Photo: At the edge of a frozen pond, two fallen branches. The branches are weathered smooth. In the foreground, roots protrude from the first branch like fingers waving in your face. In the background, jagged lines in the cracking pond. The vibe: nature’s beauty in form and texture.
February 5, 2025 at 2:39 PM
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11/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge
Photo of a slender book called THE SERVICEBERRY, Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer. She’s the Potawatomi botanist who won a MacArthur genuis award. The book cover shows the clusters of rounded, saw-toothed serviceberry leaves which are laiden with bursts of small berries. In the foreground a bird (maybe an oriole?) has a juicy berry in his beak. Male orioles are brighter colored. The female oriole flies away in the background. The vibe: a sense of natures abundance, a sense of giving and taking, a sense of freedom.
February 4, 2025 at 11:05 PM
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10/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge #Writing
February 4, 2025 at 5:23 AM
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9/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge
A Field Guide to Tallgrass Prairie Wildflowers. A white cover of drawn wildflowers that boarder a photo of tall, slender grasses studded with coneflowers. Coneflower seeds are a pointy center and around them the petals hang, like a fringed shuttlecock. The vibe: Peaceful and lush.
February 3, 2025 at 1:33 AM
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8/20 #BookSky #BookChallenge
A coffee table book called SEEING SEEDS, A Journey into the World of Seedheads, Pods, and Fruit. Photography is by Robert Llewellyn. Written by Teri Dunn Chace. On the cover: a close-up of maple leaves which feel flat, papery and rounded, in a kind of tear-drop shape. The top of each seed is the “wing”. The seed itself protrudes from the bottom. Light reveals beautiful veins. The vibe of these seeds: Life’s abundance, the generosity of Trees, and a kind of sunrise warmth.
February 1, 2025 at 11:33 PM
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7/20 #BookChallenge #BookSky
January 31, 2025 at 11:18 PM
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6/20 #BookChallenge #BookSky #Midwest
January 30, 2025 at 5:11 PM
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5/20 #BookChallenge #BookSky #Writers #Climate
January 29, 2025 at 4:05 PM