Is it true that only a suicide stops a Japanese train from running on time? Why did her father always ask questions about death? In his last letter he’d asked if she knew anyone who had visited Aokigahara, the so-called Suicide Forest. He said he’d read about it in National Geographic, that you could sense …Read More
Tag: fiction
By Lisa Twaronite Sone I had expected her. I knew exactly who she was, when she came wandering into the old school one day. She saw my janitor’s uniform and realized I belonged there, but she wasn’t quite sure what to say to me. They never are. “Can I help you?” I asked as kindly …Read More
by Stephen Benfey “Last night,” he said, “was fun.” “It was spooky,” she said. “How do you know such spooky places?” “Serendipity. Just walking around and there it was.” “What does ‘serendipity’ mean?” He cocked his head. “Like how we met. Serendipity is when something good happens by chance.” She frowned. “We call that en.” …Read More
An original story by Marianne Kimura Mr. Nomura had a habit of taking his bicycle and visiting Buddhist temples around Kyoto on fine Sunday afternoons. He had been to Shodenji before, a perfect little jewel of a Buddhist temple, famous for its simple charcoal brush painting of ten monks walking up and down an invisible …Read More
Greenhouse Bluesby Simon Rowe Last month a fortuitous thing happened. I discovered a large greenhouse beside the university where I work. It is used by the Faculty of Pharmacological Science to grow medicinal plants for research and is tended by a retinue of elderly men in powder-blue overalls who water and weed and keep the …Read More
Here Comes Kenji by Kevin Ramsden It was late on a weekday afternoon, and James was nearly two-thirds into his second beer of the day. Raising his head from the reading of his newspaper, he gazed absently around the barely populated bar he was sat in, properly taking in his surroundings for the first time. …Read More
Extract from a new novel by Ian Richards, published by Atuanui Press and entitled, Drongo: A Kiwi Road Novel. In which the hero, Andy, has hitched a ride with Mrs Macalister and her cat Silky. Though he has no license, Andy has convinced her to let him drive her car. Andy is 18 years old, …Read More
‘Fragrant Harbor’ they called it. But Hong Kong was anything but fragrant the night Poh Seng Pang flew in. The air outside the terminal was dank, vegetative—like the smell of the Singapore River in wet season, or the streets of the Jurong Wholesale Market after a deluge. Poh found it strangely comforting. He checked his …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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