Mr Lawrence Lacambra Ypil received an MFA in Nonfiction Writing from the University of Iowa and an MFA IN Creative Writing (Poetry) from the Washington University in St. Louis on a Fulbright Scholarship. He grew up in Cebu, Philippines and has been involved in writing communities in Asia and in the diaspora.

Mr Ypil is a poet and essayist. His work explores the intersection of text and image and the role of material culture in the construction of cultural identity. In 2020, he was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards and on the longlist for The Believer Book Awards for The Experiment of the Tropics. His first book, The Highest Hiding Place, received the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award.

• Poetry
• Creative Nonfiction (Lyric Essay)
• Hybrid Writing
• Documentary Poetics
• Postcolonial Photography
• Diasporic Writing
• Philippine Literature

Books

The Experiment of the Tropics. 2019. Gaudy Boy Press

The Highest Hiding Place. 2009. Ateneo de Manila University Press

We Might as Well Call it the Lyric Essay, co-editor with John D’Agata and the graduate students of the Nonfiction Writing Program (Hobart and William Smith College Press, 2014)

The Highest Hiding Place: Poems (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009)

Since February 20015, I have kept a bimonthly culture column, “Dog-ears in the Wrong Notebook” published in Sun Star Weekend Cebu.

My poems, essays, and articles have appeared in the following magazines, journals and anthologies;

We Might as Well Call it the Lyric Essay: “Watching Wayne”, a critical essay on and interview with Wayne Koestenbaum and
“Eliot Weinberger and the Music of Fact” (2014)

Soft Blow: “At the Beach (2014)

Best of Ladlad: “Epilogue” (2014)

Essay Daily: “Jose Rizal and the Essay as Letter to Home” (November 19, 2013)

Circuit [The Blurb Project]: “—Lawrence Ypil” (2012)
Rogue Magazine: “Breaking Bread by Cooking Rice,” (December 2012)

MFA 11 Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts : “Prairie,” (2011)

Prowess and Grace: A Festschrift for Edna Zapanta Manlapaz (Vilches, Bolipata Santos Fernandez, eds.): “Ordinary Days” (2010)

The Cebu We Know : “Taga-asa ka?” (“Where are you from?) (2009)

Kapulongan: Conversations with Cebuano Writers (Hope S. Yu, ed.) : “We Can Only Write From Whereof We Speak” (2008)

Writing to the Future: Poetika and POlitika ng Malikhaing Pagsulat (Poetics and Politics of Creative Writing) (Rolando Tolentino ed.): “Look at My Life! And Other Outrageous Claims of Creative Nonfiction” (2008)

Ladlad 3: “Epilogue,” “Because I was Looking” (2007)

Philippines Free Press: “Impermanent Residencies” (January 2007)

The Loyola Schools Review, Vol V : “Unframing the House of History: The Metafiction of Rosario Cruz-Lucero’s ‘Doreen’s Story’” (2006)

Philippine Studies: “Being a Son” (2006)

Honoring Fathers: An International Poetry Anthology (Alfred Yuson, Gemino Abad, eds.): “Lemon Tree” (2005)

Magis: Writings on Faith, Joy and Love (Queena Lee-Chua, ed.): “Balancing on the Pleasure Wheel of Verse” (2004)
Father Poems (Alfred Yuson, Gemino Abad eds.): Dad Tests for Grade One” and “After the Stroke,” (2004)

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture, vol vii, nos. 1 and 2: “And Love Passed Between Them”, “The Discovery of
Landscape”, “The Foundering”, “Visiting Danao” , “When I think of what could have been”, “Window”, “Garden” , and “House,” (2003)

Cogito Ergo Sum and other Musings on Science (Queena Lee Chua, ed): “Touch” (2002)

The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction 2000 (Neil Garcia, ed): “The Old Mime” (2000)

The Literary Review (Bino Realuyo, ed.): “My Mother’s Dolls”, “At the Village Chapel”, “Touch”, “Woman Mending Shoes” (1999)

The Likhaan Book of Poetry and Fiction (Ricardo de Ungria, ed.): “At the Village Chapel” (1999)

• Introduction to Poetry Writing
• Advanced Poetry Writing
• Writing Hybrid
• Philippine Literature: American Period (1900-1946)