by Marianne Kimura Looking lost, my husband wanders outside with a wet rag he’d just used to clean the bathroom sink. I pop my head out of the window. “Otoosan”, I say, “hang it over there near the washing machine, near the other rags. When there’s more, I’ll wash them all together”. As I close …Read More
Tag: Marianne Kimura
by Marianne Kimura Around seven years ago, at a shaonkai (a party held for teachers by students the evening before graduation), Professor Eriko Furukawa, a specialist in Gothic literature, and I were balancing tiny plates of fried shrimp and canapes in a corner of a posh party venue filled with fairy lights, near the Okura …Read More
by Marianne Kimura Kyoto has several colorful and bustling craft markets. held monthly at shrines and temples, where people peddle unique wares: hand-made clothes, plant-dyed yarn, wooden cutting boards, knitted hats, honey, dried flowers, and tons more besides. As she lives in Kyoto, Mona has bought several skirts made of antique indigo-dyed fabric over the …Read More
“Peace, the Charm’s Wound Up“by Marianne Kimura Sophia is a witch so she ought to be able to think of a spell to make all the plastic sheets vanish. To that end, two small and stylish frosted glass goblets, filled with apple juice and ice, are on the kitchen table. One goblet has a golden …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
THE HORNED GODby Marianne Kimura No one knew how the statue of the horned god had gotten to the end of the broken desolate peninsula encased in the shambles of soggy, broken concrete. This spot, among rubble and weeds, with stark frames of defunct gigantic towers and their staring, blank and open windows, wasn’t a …Read More
Leading a Strange Shakespearean Double Life I suppose that the most unusual feature of my life as a writer is that it is divided into two, complete with two different names, identities and writing styles. As Marianne Kimura, a professor (准教授) at Kyoto Women’s University, I study and write about the cultural implications of fossil …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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