Many of us will be aware of the Okuni statue that stands near Shijo Bridge. The statute shows her cross-dressed as a samurai, in acknowledgement of the plays she put on at the riverbank that became the starting point for kabuki. It’s well-known that she was a miko (shrine maiden) from Izumo, though not everyone …Read More
Category: Featured Writers (Page 13 of 26)
Writers in focus
Island of the Wind Child There’s an island off the coast of western Honshu Where six men in kayaks camp beneath moons Sometimes a crescent, sometimes a half But beware a full moon The king tide might just steal your craft. When the weather is fair and the sea breeze is soft They paddle …Read More
Free ebook of the WiK 2017 Anthology now available from amazon. Contributions by Alex Kerr, Amy Chavez and Eric Johnston, amongst others. Poetry, fiction, non-fiction and stunning illustrations by John Einarsen of Kyoto Journal fame. This campaign, which closes Sunday, is to advertise the Writers in Kyoto Competition of 300 words about Kyoto, the deadline …Read More
At a dinner talk on March 3, Micah Auerback introduced us to research he is doing on the first outreach by Zen practitioners in Japan to Western foreigners. Currently on sabbatical from the University of Michigan, Micah is a specialist in Japanese religion and author of A Storied Sage, about the changes in depictions of …Read More
One of the pieces in the Second WiK Anthology (Echoes, 2017) was by Robert Yellin, international expert on Japanese pottery and owner of the Yakimono Gallery. The following piece is an extract only; the full article is in Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology, which can be obtained in print or Kindle ebook versions through amazon. …Read More
Risa Wataya From Wikipedia Risa Wataya (綿矢 りさ), born February 1, 1984, is a Japanese novelist from Kyoto. Her short novel Keritai senaka won the Akutagawa Prize and has sold more than a million copies. Her work has been translated into German, Italian, French, Thai, Korean, and English. Biography Wataya was born in Kyoto, Japan. Her mother was a university English …Read More
WiK member Sydney Solis has a longstanding interest in kamishibai, the Japanese art of picture story telling. She has created and published six titles of her own which can be found here. One of them was based n a Japanese folktale about the Grateful Crane. Last year, following her move to Japan, she did a …Read More
What was it like in Kyoto in the 1950s? You hardly ever saw foreigners, for one thing. If you did, you stopped to say hello. That was the Kyoto a banker from Holland called Hans Brinckmann got to know and love. Though he lived in Kobe, he visited whenver he could at weekends. As he …Read More
Some Words and Photographs By John Einarsen The words attached to a photograph can radically alter how we “read” or understand it. Words give context, intended or unintended. One’s experience of an image often depends on the words that caption it. My approach to photography is perceptual, which means that my focus is on the …Read More
Self-Introduction: Rick Mitcham My full name is Roderick Ellis Mitcham, but please call me Rick. At the start of the various English-language courses I teach here in Kyoto, I use my name to introduce myself. I tell my students that Mitcham is my surname; Ellis, my middle name, is my mother’s maiden name; and Roderick, …Read More
WiK Writing Competition
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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