Founded in 2021 by Elmer Bautista Gomez, Bookish Bay began as a small personal project centered on books already in the founder’s collection. Early posts were brief and provisional, written to record observations drawn directly from reading. These entries often returned to the same works, accumulating notes on passages, structure, and narrative decisions across multiple posts.
As the archive grew, the writing expanded. Short entries developed into longer essays that followed a single book across its full length, while other pieces brought several works together when shared narrative problems or formal patterns appeared. Over time, the site shifted toward long-form writing that applied critical frameworks and narrative theory to sustained analysis across an entire text. This shift emerged gradually through repeated writing and continued practice.
Work beyond writing entered the project later, through continuous experimentation with image-based design. Research and iteration across visual and technical systems developed alongside the essays, eventually producing a body of images grounded in the books discussed on the site. These artworks, presented in the Shop, reflect the same attention to form, construction, and process that guides the writing.
The site is maintained through continued additions to an established body of writing. Later essays build on earlier work in varied ways, extending lines of inquiry, adjusting emphasis, or incorporating parallel strands that have developed alongside the writing. The archive remains open and cumulative, with past entries continuing to inform what is written next.