The author is not god

By Noel Galon de Leon

The meeting had just ended, yet the words spoken during that consultation with Room to Read continued to reverberate in my mind long after we logged off. We had been reviewing children’s books written by authors from Iloilo, Antique, Roxas, and Cebu — crafted in Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, and Cebuano with care and cultural intimacy. I was there not as a primary author but as a mentor-facilitator, alongside Al Santos, Liza Flores, MJ Tumamac, and Rommel Joson. Then came the reminder that the stories being shaped in that room were not entirely owned even by the writers who penned them, and certainly not by any single name that would appear on a cover.

That statement landed with unexpected force. It was not addressed to me as the writer of those manuscripts, because I was not. Yet as someone guiding the process, I felt implicated in the illusion it dismantled. The idea unsettled the hierarchy I sometimes unconsciously occupy as a mentor.

The books we examined came from lived realities in Iloilo, Antique, Roxas, and Cebu. They carried the textures of fishing villages, rice fields, urban classrooms, and provincial humor. The writers drew from landscapes and languages deeply rooted in their communities. Still, we were reminded that even those intimate sources do not translate into absolute ownership.

The provocation echoes the argument of Roland Barthes in The Death of the Author. Barthes dismantles the myth of the author as the sovereign origin of meaning. In that consultation, his theory ceased to be abstract literary criticism and became a practical lens for community publishing. The writers were not solitary geniuses but participants in an ongoing cultural conversation.

As I listened to the manuscripts being discussed, I recognized how each text was shaped by layers of influence. Folk sayings, classroom experiences, religious rituals, popular media, and inherited metaphors were all present between the lines. The manuscripts were vibrant precisely because they were collective in spirit. The so-called originality was a convergence, not an invention from nothing.

Language itself exposed the fragility of ownership. Hiligaynon, Kinaray-a, and Cebuano are communal inheritances shaped by centuries of use. No single writer can claim their rhythms, idioms, or emotional registers as personal property. The authors were composing within living linguistic ecosystems that predate them and will outlast them.

Yet beyond language, the consultation made visible another layer of shared creation. These children’s books would not exist as texts alone but as picture books shaped equally by illustrators. The visual world would interpret, expand, and sometimes complicate what the writers placed on the page. Authorship would immediately fracture into collaboration.

I found myself thinking of Michel Foucault and his question about what an author really is. Foucault’s notion of the author function clarifies that authorship operates within systems of power, classification, and discourse. In our consultation, the writers’ names would eventually appear on covers, yet the illustrations would silently reshape the narrative’s emotional center. The author becomes a node among other creative forces.

Illustrators do not merely decorate text; they interpret character expressions, settings, gestures, and silences that the words only suggest. A single choice of color palette can alter the mood of an entire story. In children’s literature, images often speak louder and linger longer than sentences.

As a mentor-facilitator, I felt a dual responsibility to both text and image. When we gave feedback on scenes, we had to imagine how illustrators might render them visually. A vague description could become either an opportunity or a constraint, depending on how it was framed. The creative process extended beyond the page and into the illustrator’s imagination.

The children who will read these books in the Visayas will encounter them as integrated visual and verbal experiences. They will read faces drawn in ink and watercolor alongside lines written in their mother tongue. Meaning will arise from the interplay between image and text. No single creator can claim full authority over that interplay.

This realization intensifies rather than reduces the ethical stakes. If the stories are woven from communal memory and visually embodied by illustrators, then responsibility multiplies. Representation must be negotiated across words and images. Cultural accuracy becomes a shared vigilance.

Working with writers from different provinces revealed subtle variations in culture and tone, and these variations demand visual sensitivity as well. A house in Antique may not look like a house in Cebu, and clothing in Roxas carries distinct markers. Illustrators must research and interpret these nuances with care. Their artistry becomes an act of cultural translation.

There is a quiet arrogance that can creep into mentorship, especially when one focuses primarily on text. Being labeled a facilitator can tempt one to privilege the written word above all else. Yet in children’s publishing, that hierarchy collapses quickly. Without illustrators, the manuscript remains incomplete.

The idea that stories are not entirely owned democratizes the creative process across disciplines. It redistributes authority not only across time and community but also across artistic forms. Every manuscript we reviewed was already anticipating collaboration with visual storytellers. Creation was layered from the outset.

Julia Kristeva describes texts as mosaics of quotations, and I now see children’s books as mosaics of images as well. Each spread becomes a conversation between verbal fragments and visual fragments. The illustrator adds new quotations in the form of posture, landscape, and color. The mosaic expands beyond language.

There is discomfort in telling writers that their stories are not entirely theirs, especially when they have labored over every sentence. Yet the involvement of illustrators makes this truth undeniable. Once the manuscript leaves the writer’s hands, it becomes raw material for another imagination. The story transforms without being betrayed.

The presence of Al Santos, Liza Flores, MJ Tumamac, and Rommel Joson beside me underscored that authorship here was already collaborative even before illustration began. We questioned themes, refined language, and examined cultural nuances together. Soon, illustrators would join that circle and reinterpret everything once more. Ownership dissolved into process.

I will carry this lesson into my Creative Writing class next week. When I face my students again, I will speak not only about intertextuality but also about interdisciplinary humility. I will remind them that their future stories may live in partnership with artists who see differently. I will challenge them to write with openness rather than control.

Listening will be the first discipline I emphasize. In that consultation with Room to Read, transformation came from attentive silence and genuine exchange. Writers listened to mentors, mentors listened to writers, and all of us anticipated the voices of illustrators. Creativity unfolded as dialogue rather than declaration.

There is courage required in dismantling the myth of the omnipotent author. It means admitting that once a book leaves the writer’s desk, it escapes singular authorship. Illustrators will visualize scenes in ways the writer never imagined. Readers will interpret those visuals through their own lives.

For children’s literature, this multiplicity is especially potent. Young readers often engage with images before they decode sentences. They may remember a character’s illustrated expression more vividly than a paragraph of narration. In that moment, the illustrator’s hand shapes memory as powerfully as the writer’s voice.

Symbolically allowing the author to die does not erase the writer’s accountability. Craft still matters, and ethical representation remains crucial across both text and image. What dies is the illusion of total control. What survives is shared stewardship.

As a mentor-facilitator, I now see my role differently. I am not guarding the purity of manuscripts but nurturing collaborations that will extend into visual form. The writers from Iloilo, Antique, Roxas, and Cebu are stewards of language, and illustrators will become stewards of vision. Together they contribute to a living cultural archive.

There is something profoundly human in relinquishing total claim. It situates creativity within interdependence among writers, illustrators, mentors, and readers. Stories circulate through many hands before they reach a child’s imagination. No single signature can contain that journey.

Preparing for my next class, I feel sharpened by this realization. I want my students to understand that writing is not domination but participation. I want them to imagine their words in conversation with images they did not draw. I want them to embrace collaboration as strength rather than threat.

The consultation was not merely about polishing manuscripts for publication. It was about interrogating the mythology of authorship in a field that is inherently collaborative. It forced us to acknowledge illustrators as co-creators rather than afterthoughts. It demanded that we see children’s books as collective acts of cultural labor.

The assertion that stories are not totally owned does not weaken writers, illustrators, or mentors. It binds us to one another in responsibility and shared imagination. As I step back into my classroom, I will carry this conviction fiercely. If the author is not god, then perhaps the book becomes a republic of voices and visions — where creation is always, and necessarily, shared.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a Filipino and Creative Writing professor at the University of the Philippines Visayas. He is the founder of Kasingkasing Press, and his poetry has received recognition from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. He currently serves as Secretary of the National Committee on Literary Arts under the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).