Mike Freiling Mike was born in San Francisco and attended USF as an undergraduate, where he first became interested in poetry at readings by Allen Ginsburg, Gary Snyder and others of that generation. At USF he also became interested in Japanese literature, as he and his friends read anything by Yukio Mishima that they could …Read More
Category: Featured Writers (Page 16 of 26)
Writers in focus
Sanshi suimei – purple mountains and crystal streams So runs the epithet about Kyoto which the nineteenth-century historian Rai Sanyo used as the name for his study by the banks of the Kamogawa (the thatched cottage still stands next to Marutamachi; see photo below). From there he must have had a clear sight right along the Eastern …Read More
The following extract is taken from a longer biographical piece of Harold Stewart (1916-95) for the revolvy website. Click here to see the full piece. *********** [Hal Stewart] visited Japan in 1961 and then again in 1963 to be ordained as a Jōdo Shinshū priest only to withdraw at the last minute. It was rumoured …Read More
The following excerpt is taken from: “Sword Dancer”, a novella by Simon Rowe (see www.mightytales.net). *********** ONE From somewhere along the hallway of the Ternate Port Authority came the clack-clack sound of an old-fashioned ribbon typewriter being punched one finger at a time. A toilet flushed and a phone rang constantly in a far-off office. It …Read More
A lively and informative dinner talk for WiK members was held on March 11 featuring Dutch academic, Mark Teeuwen, who is on leave from the University of Oslo as a research fellow at Kyoto University for six months. His topic was the Gion Matsuri and the politics of heritage. The talk covered the postwar emphasis …Read More
As is well-known, Lafcadio Hearn was preoccupied with ghosts, and his taste for the macabre found its supreme expression in the collection of stories in Kwaidan (1903). His belief in ghosts started out as a childhood obsession, when he would be plagued at night by visions and nightmares. Such was his screaming that his great …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
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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