A faculty member of the English and Literature Department of Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, won second prize in the English category of the 62nd Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, a press release from the school said.

Ian Casocot won the award for his story, “It Always Breaks My Heart a Little to See You Go”, a dramatic chronicle of a mother dealing with an autistic child.

The award that he will receive on September 1 in Manila, is Casocot’s fifth. He ranked first place in the same category in 2008, and won the NVM Gonzalez Prize, a PBBY Salanga Writers Prize honorable mention, and the FullyBooked/Neil Gaiman Philippine Graphic/Fiction Prize for his fiction, the press release also said.

Casocot is the coordinator of the school’s Edilberto and Edith Tiempo Creative Writing Center, and was the writer in residence for the International Writers Program of the University of Iowa, USA, in 2010.

His books include “FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures”, “Old Movies and Other Stories”, “Beautiful Accidents: Stories”, and “Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror”.*

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