(The following article first appeared in Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017) Three Old Men of Kyotoby Alex Kerr Harold StewartDavid KiddWilliam Gilkey I don’t know if young men are like this any more, but I was the sort of young man who sat at the feet of old men. I hung on their every …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 15 of 45)
Japanese Wood and Carpentry, Rustic and RefinedBy Mechtild Mertz(reviewed by Judith Clancy) Japan is a country whose primary building material is wood. Walking the old streets of Kyoto or entering a temple reveals the legacy of Japan’s forests: the soothing calm symmetry of wood lattice-fronted homes; and temples with lustrous pillars treated with …Read More
A SELECT LISTING OF BOOKS BY MEMBERS OF WRITERS IN KYOTO ******************* AMY CHAVEZ (non-fiction) Amy’s Guide to Best Behavior in Japan (Stone Bridge, 2018)Guide to Japanese customs & etiquette. Running the Shikoku Pilgrimage: 900 Miles to Enlightenment (Volcano Press, 2012)First-person account of circling Japan’s Buddhist 88-Temple Pilgrimage route. Japan, Funny Side Up (e-book, 2010)A …Read More
To celebrate WiK’s 5th Anniversary Celebration today, here is a list of all the activities and talks we have had over the past five years. There have been fun events like our bonenkai showcase of members’ talent, and there have been serious events such as the Heritage and Tourism symposium held together with the Agency …Read More
The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper And Other Short StoriesRebecca Otowa160pp A Personal Response by Ian ‘Josh’ Yates Though I have read a lot recently, I have written very little. I could blame any number of things, from the noise of my children to the gloom that doesn’t seem to disappear even when the clouds dissipate. …Read More
Truman Capote on Kyoto, The New Yorker, November 2, 1957. The extract is taken from a lengthy interview with Marlon Brando in The Miyako Hotel during the filming of Sayonara. https://www.newyorker.com/…/11/09/the-duke-in-his-domain *********************“Below the windows, the hotel garden, with its ultra-simple and soigné arrangements of rock and tree, floated in the mists that crawl off Kyoto’s waterways—for it is a watery …Read More
John Dougill writes… Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was a most remarkable writer, at home in a range of genres. While a journalist in the US, he wrote sensational crime stories and lurid accounts of the grotesque, ranging from macabre incidents to graphic descriptions of a slaughterhouse. Later in Japan he showed himself to be adept as …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
Below are two more villanelles from Preston Keido Houser. A villanelle is a fixed-form poem consisting of five tercets and a quatrain which follows a specific rhyme scheme using only two different sounds. It originated as a form of ballad and took its name from a 1606 poem by Jean Passarat, coming into fashion in …Read More
Catherine Pawasarat: Self-Introduction for Writers in Kyoto It’s a pleasure to join Writers in Kyoto. I appreciate the warm welcomes and it’s heartwarming to see some old familiar names and faces. I grew up in Kansas City, U.S., and always dreamed of traveling abroad. I started studying foreign languages as a way to help me …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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