Jessica Zafra was born and raised in Manila, Philippines. Six years after she was born, Ferdinand Marcos (our ex-prez) declared Martial Law, wherein she spent the next 14 years of her life in constant "Sssshhh" by her parents. Because of this, she automatically qualifies as a member of the Martial Law Babies. Unlike most writers, she doesn't smoke, she doesn't drink (at least not as often as the others), but she loves black coffee.






"I am most emphatically not stupid--I'm not humble either, but I'm not stupid. I am not ugly, despite the photographic evidence; I can only surmise that the day this photograph was taken, Nico's camera was possessed by an evil spirit. I am not boring, because if I were and you're reading this out of your own volition, then you're a dummy. You wouldn't want to be called a dummy, would you?"

"I believe that the devil is not a monster with horns, cloven hoofs, and a pointy tail, stoking the furnaces of hell. I believe that we encounter the devil in various forms every day of our lives. The devil is poverty, corruption, injustice, lies...The devil is anything that makes you feel hopeless."

"I believe in a God who equipped us to make our own decisions. I don't believe in a God who can be bribed with candles and promises into transforming our sick world into a glimmering theme park. That's too easy; God is not the Amazing Mumferd. I don't think God resides in gold-plated churches; I think God is inside us, and we're stronger than we suspect."

"I think the point of living is to make it mean something. You fill up the void. You create your own meaning. In this vast septic tank, you find your own jewels.

"I have this wierd fear: I'm afraid I'll witness a divine apparition. I'm afraid that Jesus or the Blessed Virgin Mary or St. Teresa of Avila will materialize in my kitchen and dictate messages of earth-shaking importance. Then I'll be carrying around some terrible knowledge, like the exact date of the end of the world, and all the horrors that will precede it--plagues, scorpions, politicians and such. I'll have to tell everyone to repent or to roast in eternal hellfire, not to mention that all sorts of strangers will want to gawk at my kitchen and they'll track dirt all over my apartment. The worst part is that I'll be written about by a bunch of scuzzballs much like myself, and they'll call me a fraud and a raving loon (they will not be far wrong) and dismiss me as an opportunist...What makes this fear truly irrational is that I am the last person whom a divine entity will appear. This is not humility--I mean it. I am nasty, I have a horrible temper, and I say awful things...The point of all of this is I'm a jerk. I'm not proud of it, and I do make an effort to be good, but that's that. As Wayne and Garth so succintly put it, I'm not worthy."

"My other great fear is that the world will end any day now. The world will screech to an abrupt stop, and all my work will come to nothing. Not only is this the bummer of all bummers, but afterwards, we won't even be around to talk about it, much less see the movie version starring Keanu Reeves. Now all the seers and visionaries have pinpointed this decade as the date of The End, and planetary conditions seem to confirm them. Wonderful: this has to happen in my lifetime. I haven't finished my novel, I haven't been to Europe, I haven't even learned to cook yet, for crying out loud, and yet I'm expected to swim in burning bitumen. I can't think of a bigger obstacle to an exciting social life, can you?"


She dropped out of Nursery, but eventually studied elementary in St. Theresa's College in Quezon City--a great school (one of her most used lines). She spent the next four years of her life in Philippine Science High School, and then went on to University of the Philippines to major in Comparative Literature.



She is a self-admitted geek. From her article "A History of Geek Civilization," she confesses everything:

She learned to read at an early age.
Much of her childhood was spent reading DC Comics, which served as substitute playmates.
She loathed physical exercise since she was--still is--a klutz.
In grade school, her lunch time was spent prowling the library.
She got sent to the Spelling Bee contests, and to all other categories of the Quiz Bee.
She read the Nancy Drew Mysteries by Carolyn Keene, Cyrano de Bergerac, John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the Star Trek books by James Blish.
Most geeks were of the scientific ones, while she was into literature.
At second year high, she was into Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon, Judith Krantz, and Robert Ludlum--books which kept her sane.
In junior high, she became the editor of their school paper.
She began to read truly good books from Kurt Vonnegut, John Steinbeck, Woody Allen in senior year.
And as the years went by, her list of books she had already read becomes longer and longer, but that didn't stop her.



She won first place in the 1991 Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for "Portents" Being a sore loser that she admits she is, she won two more times but didn't mention what articles it were because they were only third placers.

In 1985, she was a University of the Philippines Summer Writer's Workshop Fellow, and in 1996, she was University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center National Fellow.

She has six books published:

Manananggal Strikes Manila and Other Short Stories, 1992
Womenagerie and Other Tales from the Front, 1995
Twisted, 1995
Twisted II: Spawn of the Twisted, 1996
Fruitcake, ed. 1997
Planet of the Twisted, 1998
Chickenpox for the Soul, 199?

More of these books here

She currently released a "spoken book" called, yes, Twisted's Greatest Hits. The professional pessimist is optimistic that her fans will pay to hear her spout words of gloom on cassette. "We have a captive audience because of the traffic jams," she says. "People stuck in their cars need something to do." Due out in August, Greatest Hits will contain new material as well as the audio versions of previously published pieces. Recording it was weirder than she expected, though. "You're in a padded room with a microphone talking to no one in particular," she says. Of course, there's a twist in this tale. Zafra is also working on a movie, even that won't stop her will of dominating the world!.


She used to write a column in Woman Today Magazine, the collection of which were named after the column "Womenagerie."

Presently, she has a column in the Today newspaper, wittily called Twisted, wherein she has published three books from the collection of these articles. She also had a program called Twisted in NU 107FM, 103.5 K-Lite, Sky Channel 22's Friday Night Newscast Critic-at-large.



Loves to ride taxi cabs, black coffee, R. E. M., Pearl Jam, Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson, Sting, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julian Sands, and Harrison Ford.
She loathes the sun, mountain-climbing, Robin Padilla, Julie Andrews, smokers, choosy taxi drivers




Things she says too much
1. The Latin word "viz." Meaning "it is permitted to see," or more loosely, "for example."
2. "St. Theresa's--a great school."
3. "Perpetually"
4. "...wish the earth would open up and swallow you."
5. "Aaargh!"

Wanna read more about her? Click here