While the majority of Cebuano writers are from the Visayas and Mindanao region, the best-known literary outlets for them, including the Bisaya Magasin, are based in Makati in Metro Manila.
Although existence of a pre-Hispanic writing system in Luzon is attested, there is proof that baybayin was widespread in the Visayas.
Vicente Sotto attacked the decadent forms of linambay[clarification needed] in his newspaper Ang Suga.
Sotto wrote the Cebuano Ang Paghigugma sa Yutang Nataohan (Love of the Native Land) as a response.
Realism in Cebuano theater was stretched too much however; even Sotto himself was a victim of the movement he started, when prior to his running for mayor in 1907, a play by Teodulfo Ylaya entitled Ang Taban was released in 1906.
A community of writers slowly grow, to include the names of Florentino Rallos, Filomeno Veloso, Marcial Velez, Timoteo Castro, Segundo Cinco, Vicente Ranudo, Dionisio Jakosalem, Selestino Rodríguez, Filomeno Roble, Juan Villagonzalo, Leoncio Avila and Filemon Sotto.
Such novels were seen as fictionalized renditions of their writers' stand or traditions and practices which were subjected to debate in the school stage and within the pages of periodicals.
In 1936 Cebuano writers started publishing anthologies; readers engaged in amateur literary criticism; and complaints of plagiarism livened up the weekly news.
These giants of Cebuano literature are now regularly contributing to Bisaya Magasin; their shift to Cebuano writing has influenced young Cebu and Mindanao-based writers in English to follow suit (among them are Michael Obenieta, Gerard Pareja, Adonis Durado, Januar Yap, Jeneen Garcia, Marvi Gil, Delora Sales, Cora Almerino and Raul Moldez).
They have introduced modern writing styles, experimented with the Cebuano language and explored themes which have never been elaborated before by their predecessors.
Other influential Cebuano writers are Anito Beronilla, Vicente Vivencio Bandillo and Richel Dorotan, who is also known as Omar Khalid, his pen name.