About

Vida Cruz-Borja is a Filipina fantasy and science fiction writer, editor, teacher, artist, tarot reader, and conrunner. Her short fiction and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, Expanded Horizons, and various anthologies. She won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Creative Nonfiction for “We are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist,” which was reprinted in Letters to a Writer of Color (2023). She is the author of the fantasy horror novella Mirror Marked (2025), and two short story collections: Beyond the Line of Trees (2019) and Song of the Mango and Other New Myths (2022), the latter of which won the Cirilo F. Bautista Prize for Best Fiction in English at the 41st Philippine National Book Awards. Her work in her different fields has been nominated, longlisted, and recommended for the Hugo Award, the British Science Fiction Award, and the James Tiptree Jr. (now Otherwise) Award. She was co-director of FiyahCon Fringe BonFiyah under the larger umbrella of FIYAHCON, a BIPOC-centered convention for science fiction and fantasy readers and writers, as well as a 2018 Tiptree Fellow. Currently, she’s a freelance book editor with Tessera Editorial and The Darling Axe and is the founder and owner of Arcane Oblong Editorial and Design. 

Vida also won First Place for the second quarter of the 2017 Writers of the Future contest for her novelette “Odd and Ugly.” She attended the 2023 UP National Writers Workshop; the 2016 Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio Writers Workshop; the 2014 Clarion Writers Workshop in San Diego, California;  the 20th Iligan National Writers Workshop (Fellow for Novel-in-Progress); and the 51st Silliman University National Writers Workshop (Fellow for Fiction). 

She has also written a variety of articles for the SFWA Bulletin, the National Book Development Board, the UK’s Postcolonial Studies Association, Spot.ph, GMA News Online, and The Philippine Online Chronicles.

She lives in Manila with her husband, daughter, and their dogs.

Drop her a line at hello@vidacruz.org if you’d like advice on your own writing, a commission, or a tarot reading.

100-word bio

Vida Cruz-Borja is a fantasy and science fiction writer and editor. Her short stories and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, and various anthologies. She won the 2022 IGNYTE Award for Best Creative Nonfiction for “We are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist” and the Philippine National Book Award for Best Fiction in English for her illustrated short story collection Song of the Mango and Other New Myths (2022). Her latest book is the fantasy and horror novella Mirror Marked (2025). She lives in Manila with her husband, daughter, and their dogs.

50-word bio

Vida Cruz-Borja writes and edits fantasy and science fiction. Her short stories and essays have been published in F&SF, Fantasy, Strange Horizons, PodCastle, and various anthologies. She is the author of the award-winning collection, Song of the Mango and Other New Myths (2022) and the novella Mirror Marked (2025).

25-word bio

Vida Cruz-Borja is the award-winning author of the collection Song of the Mango and Other New Myths (2022) and the novella Mirror Marked (2025).