The deadline for this year’s WiK Short Shorts Competition will be on March 1, and just a reminder that this year we are offering a top prize of ¥30,000 plus several other smaller prizes. The top three winners will be included in the next Writers in Kyoto Anthology, and details about how to purchase a …Read More
Author: John Dougill (Page 29 of 45)
Driven by social media and falling concentration spans, the trend of recent times is for shorter and shorter fiction. Twitter is a prime example, with writers challenged to fit something meaningful into 140 characters. This was highlighted in a recent article in The Author, house magazine of the UK’s Society of Authors, which cited a …Read More
Mark Richardson, one of the most prominent scholars on the poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), will be presenting material related to the poet on Jan 21 (for details, please see the right-hand column). In particular he will be discussing an interesting but never published––and never mailed––letter that affords a fascinating look into the poet’s life and …Read More
The following is taken from the website of Ad Blankestijn. Please see here for the original. It concerns a house Kyoto residents may be familiar with, namely the one in which Tanizaki lived next to Shimogamo Shrine on the eastern side. With its puzzling erotic relationships, the novella makes a companion to another of Tanizaki’s Kyoto tales, …Read More
Kyoto, April 16. The wooden shutters before my little room in the hotel are pushed away; and the morning sun immediately paints upon my shoji, across squares of gold light, the perfect sharp shadow of a little peach-tree. No mortal artist-not even a Japanese-could surpass that silhouette! Limned in dark blue against the yellow glow, …Read More
Peddling Papa: A Writer’s Tale of Selling His Book by Simon Rowe On a foggy November night, a ship named the MOL Grandeur hauls anchor and departs Hong Kong bound for the port of Kobe. Listed on its bill of lading are eighteen cartons of freshly-minted paperbacks, destined for the samurai castle city of Himeji …Read More
Writers without words. (Photos courtesy Karen Lee Tawarayama)
‘Common Sense’ By Lafcadio Hearn (a short story set in Kyoto and contained in Kotto, 1902) by Andrew Sokulski Zozaya (WiK intern) Kyoto is a city with abundant temples and rich in Buddhist history, so it is not surprising that a tale about a priest would be set there. ‘Common Sense’ by Lafcadio Hearn is …Read More
Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017 now on sale from Lulu for $14 (less during Lulu’s frequent discount offers). (See this Youtube video by Amy Chavez.) The anthology collects writings by established and new writers associated with Kyoto. The contents range widely from fiction to non-fiction: an extract from a novel, a short story, and a fantasy; …Read More
Persimmon Book review by Andrew Sokulski Zozaya (WiK intern) [Persimmon is a publication by the Hailstone Haiku Circle based in Kansai. The group was formed in 2000 and its webpage Icebox can be viewed here.] Persimmon emits an aura of originality. A particularly pleasing passage, for example, is a poetic sequence about Carmina Burana, the descriptive cantata. …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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