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Excerpt: Yukio Mishima’s ‘The Temple of the Golden Pavilion’
An excerpt from Yukio Mishima’s book.
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Excerpt: Pico Iyer’s ‘The Lady and the Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto’
An excerpt from Pico Iyer’s book.
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Murakami quote
Haruki Murakami, when asked recently about what advice he would give to an aspiring writer had an interesting take on the matter. “The act of writing is the same as sweet-talking a woman, in that…
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Introducing John Dougill, non-fiction writer
Q&A with John Dougill
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Amy Chavez, freelance writer and columnist
Q&A with Amy Chavez
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Walking and Writing
Notre Dame University Event report from John Dougill
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Inspirational Kyoto
An Introduction to Australian writer Stephanie Dowrick
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Joseph Campbell on creative space
Writing on Joseph Campbell
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WiK launched!
Opening event with Amy Chavez with about 30 people
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David Duff, on women and cats
Q&A with David Duff
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The Flowers of Spring (Kawabata)
Chieko discovered the violets flowering on the trunk of the old maple tree. ‘Ah. They’ve bloomed again this year,’ she said as she encountered the gentleness of spring. The maple was rather large for such…
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Kathmandu earthquake
The thoughts of Kyoto go out to the people of Kathmandu at this time of tragedy in a poem connecting the two cities by A.J. Dickinson… here then gone here gliding low over wild duck…
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Eric Johnston, on being a news reporter in today’s world
Eric Johnston is a well-known figure from his writings in The Japan Times and his involvement in a wide range of Kansai activities. He’s used to interviewing people of course, but here WiK reverses the…
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A.J. Dickinson: Wisdom Crazed Poet
Cinnamon Man: Portrait of a Reprobate Mutt A Rogue an Outlaw a Rake A Poetry Man a Story Listener A Tuneful TalkStory Sensualist
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Gary Snyder Kyoto Journals
The following extracts are taken from Kyoto Journal No. 24, ‘Of All the Wild Sakura’. They comprise notes from Gary Snyder’s Kyoto journals between March and June 1959. (With thanks to Ken Rodgers.) Click here…
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Gary Snyder on May
The Back Country (1968) by Gary Snyder is an autobiographical collection of poems, covering his youth when he worked as a logger and forest ranger, followed by poems written between 1956 and 1964 in Japan…
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Marc Keane on Kyoto
Garden designer Marc Keane is known for his lucid writing about Japanese nature and culture. He lived for 18 years in Kyoto, working first as a research fellow at Kyoto University and later as a…
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Steiner on woodblocks and writer’s block
For the inauguration meeting of Writers in Kyoto, held in late March, we invited Any Chavez to enlighten us on her experience as a journalist in Japan. She is well-known amongst foreign writers here, though…
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Allen S. Weiss: Manifesto for the Future of Landscape
Manifesto for the Future of Landscape (photos by Allen S. Weiss) The dry garden of Ryōan-ji is one of the most analysed and photographed works of art in the world. Thus, well before my first…
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Kamata on ‘Ichigensan’
Suzanne Kamata has written a paper ‘Sister Cities: Border Crossings and Barriers’, comparing David Zoppetti’s Kyoto-based Ichigensan with John Warley’s A Southern Girl set in Charleston, South Carolina. In the extracts below, which appear with…
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Edith Shiffert, Kyoto poet
Edith Shiffert has lived in Kyoto since 1963 and published some twenty books of poetry. She is currently 99 years old and resident in a rest home. Below is Dennis Maloney’s introduction in John Einarsen’s…
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Quotations about writing
Timeless advice on writing from famous authors Created by Maria Popova (www.brainpickings.org) on Jun 18 2012. Marilynne Robinson: “Beauty,” Writing, What Storytelling Can Learn from Science, and the Splendors of Uncertainty “We are part of a…
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Two Poets Event
WiK’s summer solstice poetry reading, in keeping with the year’s longest day, was an engaging event which brought high quality English-language poetry to one of Kyoto’s most traditional areas, the Gion geisha district. The occasion…
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Kyoto Journal food issue launch July 25
Potluck party to be held at Impact Hub (details later)
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Harold Stewart’s beloved old walls
The Australian Hal Stewart (1916-1995) left an indelible mark on Kyoto literature with his By the Old Walls of Kyoto (1981), a year’s cycle of landscape poems with prose commentaries. The poems were inspired by…
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Introducing Karen Lee Tawarayama
Greetings to the WiK community! Please allow me to introduce myself as yet another member of the group who has fallen head over heels in love with the beautiful city of Kyoto. I joined the…
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Işıl Bayraktar reporting…
Işıl Bayraktar is currently MEXT (Japanese education ministry) research student engaged in doctoral research at the Graduate School of Sociology at Kyoto University on family change and aging in Turkey and Japan. She keeps a blog and…
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Kyoto Journal food issue
Here is an update on Kyoto Journal’s next offering, from Writers in Kyoto member Ken Rodgers, one of the founders of KJ and managing editor since 1993. FOOD! Food pervades every area of our…
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Featuring Ted Taylor
Ted Taylor quizzed by Michael Lambe Edward J. Taylor (Ted to his friends) is probably best known for his blog, Notes from the ‘Nog’, and as a contributing editor for Kyoto Journal. However his work…
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Introducing Bernie MacMugen
WiK has a diverse membership, with writers working in genres that range from modern poetry to novels, non-fiction and educational material. Tea master Bernie MacMugen comes to books from a different angle. A true bibliophile,…
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