A Meditation by Robert Weis The first time that I experienced the beauty of Sakura trees was in April 2017, at the Yanaka Cemetery in Tokyo. A delicate breeze dispersed thousands of pink petals over the graves, in a poetic momentum that touched me deeply. For sure, I had seen Sakura before, in my home …Read More
Category: Featured Writings (Page 2 of 14)
Featured writing
Birth of a Book Coverby Simon Rowe While working on a screenplay project in 2019, I discovered the artwork of Tokyo-based Canadian illustrator, Jeremy Hannigan. He had been commissioned to create the visual references for yokai (spirits, monsters and goblins) which appear in the script. At the time, I was looking for a unique hand-drawn …Read More
Ken Rodgers, KJ managing editor I greatly enjoyed talking with author Alex Kerr about his new book, Finding the Heart Sutra, on our WIK Zoom session on Sunday Nov. 29th. (A recording is available here—thanks to Lisa Wilcut and Rick Elizaga for their technical support!) As an additional reference I had intended to mention that …Read More
The Witches Play Macbethby Marianne Kimura In Birnam Wood, we’d all meet, all the witches, to dance. We’d twirl and skip under the stars with the god Pan. No dull churches for him: he could be found only in groves and grottoes, riverbanks and the little sandy edges of the Forfar Loch, where grasses grew. …Read More
This is the second part of an extract by David Joiner from his work in progress. For Part One with an introduction by the author, click here. (NB Because of WordPress rules, the formatting has been changed.) *************** The Shirasagi Express felt longer going back to Kanazawa. Sedge and his friends had turned a row …Read More
Hitoshi knelt on a blue cushion in the doorway leading out to the garden. Every evening he opened the outer doors and the sliding screens regardless of the season, and waited for Michiko until long after the sun had disappeared behind the trees. His heart knew that she would never return, but his head was stubborn.
A traditional Japanese neighbourhood is a lot like a small fiefdom; it rolls with its own rules and rosters, elects its own committees, demands that its denizens perform seasonal duties such as river cleaning and shouldering a portable Shinto shrine at festival time, and is usually presided over by a big kahuna and his/her sidekick, a treasurer.
by Preston Houser There once was a monk from Great Plains Who was stunned by Love’s cryptic claims. Love liberates from bondage Lonely hearts taken hostage And sets the free in chains. There once was a monk from St. Klaus Perplexed by love because Unlike the shadow it casts It’s fun while it …Read More
This is the second part of a short story by Tina deBellegarde. For Part One, please see here. ************ It is a quiet Saturday and Aki finds herself alone. Natsumi was out late drinking the night before and won’t be coming into the store. She doesn’t mind. Aki enjoys the walk to work. She carries …Read More
LOVELY!A short story by Tina deBellegarde A buffeting wind shakes the display window and Aki looks up from the register. Outside is a tall young man, certainly a foreigner, his back to the window, reading off of a scrap of paper in one hand, holding the handlebar of his bicycle with the other. The wind …Read More
Kyoto 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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