He received his MA in English from Virginia Tech and is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in Creative Writing in UP Diliman. He was a writing fellow at the UP Writers’ Workshop in 1995 and has written essays, short stories, and poems for journals and anthologies such as Sleepless in Manila(Milflores), Dream Noises (Anvil), and With Flute, and Drum, and Pen (National Library of Poetry, USA). Emil has also produced papers that analyze Filipino popular culture, its prominent artifacts and other Pinoy pop phenomena. He has also adapted Philippine short stories into comics form for the UP Press.