James Woodham spent his first few years in Japan in a six-mat room in the grounds of a Shinto shrine in Kyoto, studying Japanese and writing poetry while working as little as possible. After a further ten years in the hills to the north, he moved to the wide open spaces of Shiga to bring …Read More
Category: Featured Writers (Page 22 of 26)
Writers in focus
The first WiK anthology has now been successfully launched. Every WiK member will receive a free washi-covered copy, and other copies are being sent out to publishers, media outlets and people of significance in the literary world. For those in Kyoto there are free copies in Maruzen, so if you would like to obtain …Read More
Writing in Kyoto Jann Williams, May 24th, 2016 As I sit writing I can see the south-western turret and grounds of Nijo Castle through my apartment balcony door. The research for my book ‘Elemental Japan’ has been rich and rewarding in the two weeks I have been based in Kyoto. For half of that time …Read More
Living in Kyoto vs. Returning Home: Four Basho Linked Verses of Humanity Translations and commentary by Jeff Robbins Assisted by Sakata Shoko Basho’s well-known haiku offer us transcendental visions of nature usually with no human being in the scene — however beyond these nature poems is another, far most vast world: that of his renku …Read More
Lawrence Barrow is a potter and ordained Zen monk who also writes poems and keeps a blog. As a WiK member, he has allowed us to reproduce some of his poems from his Hikidashi website. He has also offered a brand-new poem, called The Zero (in reference to the Japanese fighter plane of WW2). Click …Read More
WiK’s first anniversary event could hardly have had a more prestigious speaker than Robert Whiting, famous not only for his bestselling book on baseball, You’ve Gotta have Wa, but for the even better selling Tokyo Underworld, an exposé of Japan’s influential gangster mobs. Robert has personally known several of Japan’s leading personalities in sports and …Read More
BASHO IN SAGA Eight Basho haiku, one renku, seven passages of prose and two of his letters, Translations and Commentary by Jeff Robbins Assisted by Sakata Shoko N.B. Basho’s own words appear in bold ****************** Basho’s follower Kyorai, the second son of a doctor of Chinese medicine in Kyoto, had a cottage …Read More
Based in Kyoto, Edward’s work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications. Co-editor of the Deep Kyoto Walks anthology, he is currently at work on a series of books about walking Japan’s ancient highways. (For an interview with him conducted by Michael Lambe, see here. For his blog, click here.) ****************** Around …Read More
The judges of the first WiK Writing Competition are delighted to announce the winners, as listed below. Each of the three prize winners will receive a small gift from the Kyoto Convention and Visitors Bureau, in addition to which the First Prize will feature in the forthcoming WiK Anthology. The Local Prize Winner will receive …Read More
Gabi Greve lives in the Okayama countryside and is known to many web users because she has compiled multiple websites of information about Japan. Born in Germany in 1948, Gabi is a medical doctor with a degree from Heidelberg University. She has been living in Japan since 1977 as a freelance translator and writer about …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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