As the creativity evolves around him, there is always an honor, with his "Ang Suhito" which won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature last 2002, and his collections of works such as "Ang Aktibistang Gi-syphilis"was published in National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) under New Authors Series 2005, one of the projects of National Committee on Literary Arts sa mga tuig 2001-2004. i have prepared a lot of questions for him and he answered it amazingly.
what/who are your inspirations in writing?hehe plenty of them. the writers I have read, the experiences i had in life. the people around me. situations of inequality, social problems, etc.
As a writer have you experienced mind block? yes, that happens sometimes.you're probably talking about "writer's block." what i do is let the idea rest for a while. or maybe pursue the writing until i finally figure out clearly what i really want to write. Sometimes, it's better to write despite the lack of direction, because it challenges the subconscious, and you often end up surprising yourself.
why did you choose CNU as your school profession?
it started out as an accident. a friend of mine who was teaching in cnu resigned, and the department was in urgent need of a substitute. so i sort of applied, and i got accepted. at some point, it became interesting. i was anyway free during the day since my sunstar work takes place at night. i had options before since i also taught at the saint theresa's college. but i noticed that, with the kind of students in CNU, i thought i could not see these kind of students anywhere else--motivated, driven, etc.--and it is understandable because students here are mostly not so well off, and i thought it is where i feel most needed.
i think this is where "people empowerment" really takes place.
who are your favorite authors and what are your favorite books?i love salman rushdie, orhan pamuk, milan kundera, yasunari kawabata, italo calvino, gabriel garcia marquez, jorge luis borges, stephen dobyns, charles simic, JM coetzee, albert camus, umberto eco. my favorite novel is alan lightman's "Einstein's Dreams", i love Borges's "Ficciones", Italo Calvino's "Cosmicomics"there's still a whole lot more, basin mangluod to sila
i have heard that you were the one who invented the BISROCK title of Missing filemon, so how did it happen?
yeah, when i wrote about the band "missing filemon," i used the word first. i combined bisaya and rock, and i didn't know i was the first one who used it. it was the band's vocalist, Insoy, who said I invented the word. so i said, uh ok, if that's the case, then i coined the word.
can you give us a piece or a line that was created by you?PLACE
(A Short Story Januar Yap)
“I can’t make love to you now. Why do you insist?
I want to make love to you when you’re menstruating. It’s as though a part of me were caught in you and your blood were mine, pulsing out from a vein that belongs to us both. What do you feel then?
I feel the blood staining our bodies as if your hardness made me bleed, as if you had flayed my skin, and had eaten me, and I was drained.“
what can you advice to the students/youths who want to follow your steps? =))
for anyone who wants to grow as an artist or as a writer for that matter is just to open your eyes a bit wider to everything around you, don't be afraid to let your imagination fly. then read as many books as you can, don't discriminate music, listen to everything because each of them approximates a whole range of human emotions. don't be afraid to get hurt, or become lonely because those things sharpen the mind, and earns you wisdom sometimes, when life get a bit unbearable or when you doubt yourself, a few drinks will do then write, write, write...as john lennon said, "whatever gets you through the night, it's alright" hehe
sometimes, when life get a bit unbearable or when you doubt yourself, a few drinks will do 
Thanks for posting this about Mr. Januar Yap. He was my professor during the nursing student days and was surprised that he won awards for being a writer when he was such a mild-mannered man during class.
TumugonBurahin