Voices on the Waters continues the project of mapping the contemporary literary terrain in southern Philippines. The first was Habagatanon (2015), which won the National Book Award in 2016 and featured six writers from Davao City. In this volume, Ricardo M. de Ungria turns to the other book authors in Mindanao and interviews an initial five of them regarding their lives and literary practices: Anthony L. Tan, Mehol K. Sadain, Said K. Sadain Jr., Lina Sagaral Reyes, and Kristine Ong Muslim. The book also samples the writers' works referred to in their talks. Another volume of interviews is currently being completed. Altogether, the books are intended mainly to reintroduce Mindanawons to their book authors and to provide a framework with which to read and appreciate contemporary Mindanao literature.

These articles interrogate diverse issues in Philippine cultural history: the place of Nick Joaquin in the nation's historiography; the debate on the class position of Andres Bonifacio and the revolutionary outbreak of 1896; the state of regional literary studies and the case of Filipino crime fiction; and Philippine electoral politics as seen in the cracked mirror of Pascual Racuyal's career. The book ends with the author's reflections on the past four decades of Philippine cultural studies.