An Edited Funeral Service Talk in Osaka, Japan, 2022-04-29by Reggie Pawle (For reasons of confidentiality, the name of the deceased has been changed.) Master of Ceremony: As other people have said, exactly one year before Richard received his diagnosis, he lost his beloved wife (through a very unexpected tragedy). They were married for over twenty …Read More
Category: Featured Writers (Page 5 of 26)
Writers in focus
“Spirit of Shizen – Japan’s nature through its 72 seasons” is an exhibition to be held this summer at Luxembourg’s Natural History Museum (www.mnhn.lu). The accompanying catalogue constitutes an anthology featuring essays and contributions by several WiK members (Amy Chavez, Karen Lee Tawarayama, Mayumi Kawaharada, Ted Taylor, Ed Levinson, Rebecca Otowa, Amanda Huggins, Jann Williams, …Read More
A new publication features WiK members, Rebecca Otowa and Ted Taylor…. Blurb – A Passion for Japan brings together the stories of thirty long-term residents of Japan who have, among other things, gained behind-the-scenes access to one of Japan’s most famous festivals; worked as an interpreter and commentator in professional and amateur sumo; been ordained …Read More
by Karen Lee Tawarayama In September 1995, I traveled to India to commence my sophomore year in an alternative Quaker program with eight international centers and experiential learning at its core. After two months of Area Studies at our center in the southern technological hub of Bangalore*, I headed for Kathmandu to participate in a …Read More
Excerpts from Grace Notes, by Ken Rodgers WORDS For Yuri, 1983 The universal love-poem has no words By the window a deep and full cup drinks: technicolor red and yellow tulip turning to the light Living clay on the sun’s wheel SHAKKEI, AT ENTSU-JI The garden is empty; an airy room without walls. The view across …Read More
by Stephen Benfey, May 2022 Down the hill from where she lived and up a side street was a little shop that Ann had grown to love. The woman there spared Ann the “Help! It’s a gaijin!” act. Nor did she mouth misremembered middle-school English while deaf to Ann’s Japanese. No, Tanaka-san was helpful and …Read More
Europe’s largest Japanese gardenby Robert Weis Kaiserslautern is not the kind of place where you look for a piece of Japan. Nestled in the forests of the Palatinate, this town of 100,000 inhabitants is relatively isolated from Germany’s cultural hot spots. But there is one attraction that is the local pride: the Japanese garden, at …Read More
Pomez by one-time WiK member, AJ Dickinson The collection comprises three books of poetry, originally published in 2012 in Kyoto, Japan, with the assistance of John Wells, who did the book design and cover photos. The printed books, which came out with Blurb, have now been made available to be read online, thanks to John …Read More
This interview celebrates David Joiner’s new novel Kanazawa, published by Stone Bridge Press. 1) Why Kanazawa? Kanazawa has a rich literary history, and as a resident there I encountered it often while exploring the city. It boasts museums not only to several of its most famous writers, but also to the city’s literary history; a …Read More
By Edward Levinson (aka Edo 恵道) hot water bottlememories of motherwarm me 湯たんぽや母の思い出暖めるyutanpo ya, haha no omoide, atatameru My earliest months living in Japan were in Kyoto. It was late fall and getting colder every day. Slowly I got used to the chilly (soon to be frigid) old wooden Japanese houses. One winter morning I …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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