Villanueva, Marianne: - Marianne Villanueva was born and raised in the Philippines, received a creative writing fellowship from Stanford University, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her first story collection, Ginseng and Other Tales from Manila, was a finalist for the Philippines' National Book Award. Her second, Mayor of the Roses, was the inaugural publication of the Miami University Press Fiction Series. Problems with Sleep, her fifth collection, is forthcoming from Betty Books in 2026. She is writing a novel, White Sails, Green Oceans, about a 16th-century Spanish priest who is sent to the Philippines to fight demons.