Book Birthday – The Language Inside by Holly Thompson

Today is the official publication date of the long-awaited (by me) verse novel The Language Inside by Holly Thompson.

Here is a description of the book:

Emma Karas was raised in Japan; it’s the country she calls home. But when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Emma’s family moves to a town outside Lowell, Massachusetts to stay with her grandmother while her mom undergoes treatment.

Emma feels out of place in the United States, begins to have migraines, and longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother’s urging, she volunteers in a long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena’s poems, dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return early to Japan.

Some review excerpts if you want to use any of them (more on the website):

*STARRED REVIEW* “Thompson captures perfectly the feeling of belonging elsewhere. A sensitive and compelling read that will inspire teens to contemplate how they can make a difference.” –School Library Journal“Thompson nimbly braids political tragedy, natural disaster, PTSD, connections among families, and a cautious, quiet romance into an elegant whole. This is an artistic picture of devastation, fragility, bonds and choices.” –Kirkus Reviews

“There’s a lot going on here, but Thompson keeps the many plot elements cohesive, and the vivid imagery in the lyrical free verse lends immediacy to Emma’s turbulent feelings. Readers will finish the book knowing that, like Zena, the Cambodian refugees, and the tsunami victims, Emma has the strength to “a hundred times fall down / a hundred and one times get up.” Lists of poems referenced in the narrative and recommended resources are appended.” –The Horn Book Magazine

Bonjour Paris!

During spring vacation, my daughter and I went to Paris! It was my fifth trip to France, counting my semester abroad when I was nineteen, but it was the first visit for my daughter. It was fun to see everything through new eyes. It was also our first major mother-daughter trip apart from visiting grandparents in the States.

Lilia wanted to stay near the Eiffel Tower, so I booked us a room in an apartment hotel within walking distance.

She’s holding a copy of Eye-Ai Magazine, which includes an essay by me about another trip we took together. The June 2013 issue has a story about yet another trip – this one to see a musical based on the famous, best-selling girls’ manga The Rose of Versailles.

Later we took a taxi to the Louvre. The entrance is through the Pyramid designed by I.M. Pei, so you get to experience the very old and the extremely modern at the same time. Apparently the Pyramid is now lit up with LED lights from Japan. We were there during the day, however (along with many, many Japanese tourists). There were lots of signs around warning against pickpockets. I felt pretty safe among the Japanese tourists, but the week after we left, the Louvre was closed down because the guards went on strike to protest the pickpocket problem. Supposedly there are bands of Gypsy children running around filching tourists’ wallets.

Lilia took photos of just about everything she saw, including many beautiful ceilings.

 

I enjoyed the ripped torsos of ancient Greece.

We couldn’t immediately find a taxi after our visit to the Louvre and the nearby Orangerie, so we wound up taking a spin in a tuktuk. The driver had no problem loading the wheelchair into the back and driving us to our hotel in the crazy Parisian traffic. He was super-friendly, and posed for Lilia at the end of our ride.

 

The First Review of Gadget Girl

The first review is always the scariest, but this one at the blog Finding Wonderland, was a relief.

 

The NEXT Next Big Thing

I was tagged for this meme by Caroline Grant, co-editor of the shiny new book, The Cassoulet Saved Our Marriage, which is a collection of essays about food and family. I’m waiting for the delivery guy to bring it even as I type! Anyway, this post is lon-n-n-g overdue, but here it is, finally. (And I realize I did this meme before, but I have many projects in the works!)

What is the title of your book?

The working title is Lilia’s World: Travels by Train, Plane, Bus and Wheelchair.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Lilia’s World will be a mother/daughter-with-disabilities travel memoir.

What genre does your book fall under?

Travel memoir.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From my daughter’s desire to travel. I figured if I could get a huge advance to write a book about traveling with my daughter a la Elizabeth Gilbert with Eat, Love, Pray, we’d be able to fulfill her dream of going to Paris. I haven’t gotten a huge advance yet, but I was awarded a grant for this project.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I’m still working on it! I hope to have a polished draft finished by October. Right now, I’m at about the halfway point, but I cheated a little, because I have incorporated essays that I’ve written over the years.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

My daughter, and our mutual wanderlust.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

Hopefully represented by an agency!

What other works would you compare this book to within your genre?

French Milk by Lucy Knisley which is about a  mother/daughter trip to Paris from the daughter’s point of view. It’s illustrated, as I hope my book will be. (Illustrated by my daughter, I mean.) Also, Father’s Day by Buzz Bissinger, about a road trip the author took with his son who has special needs, but my book will have manga and macarons and more exotic destinations.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

Again, this is difficult to answer because of the shortage of biracial actresses. Maybe my daughter could play herself and Naomi Watts could play me?

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

This is sort of the true life version of my forthcoming YA novel Gadget Girl (which I will be blogging about here heavily shortly, as the reviews, etc. come in). Sort of like life imitating fiction. My daughter and I are going to Paris in one week! We’ll be taking lots of notes, and my daughter will be sketching.

The idea of this meme is that I tag five more writers, and have them answer and ask the same questions. So I tag…YOU.

The Next Big Thing

I’ve been tagged in the Next Big Thing by fellow writer Soniah Kamal  (Website: www.soniahkamal.com).  Soniah is a short story writer, a novelist,  speaker and an editor. You can read Soniah’s Next Big Thing here.

I have been invited by Soniah to answer questions about my current  book (or WIP), and then to tag five other authors about their Next Big Thing. Here goes!

What is the title of your book?

Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible

Where did the idea come from for the book?

From my daughter. When she was small, I imagined taking her on a mother-daugther trip to Paris when she turned about 12-14, and then I recalled being very difficult myself at that age, and not getting along with my mother.

What genre does your book fall under?

Young adult contemporary.  I think slightly younger readers and adult readers would enjoy it as well. I read part of an earlier version of this story to an audience of adults at a bar as part of the Four Stories reading series in Osaka, and they seemed to enjoy it.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Aiko  – This is a little bit tough because my main character is biracial, and I can’t think of a lot of biracial actresses at work in Hollywood these days. But maybe Emily Kaiho, who is half Japanese, and half American.

Laina/Mom – Angelina Jolie, because I imagine it would be somewhat overwhelming to have a beautiful do-gooder mother like her, when you’re trying to stay under the radar.

Dad – Takuya Kimura. He’s probably too much of a pretty boy to play an indigo farmer in Shikoku, but in real life he’s the father of a child with special needs, so I think this role would resonate for him.

Herve – Maybe a young Alain Delon?

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Fourteen-year-old Aiko Cassidy, an aspiring manga writer/artist with special needs, goes on a trip to Paris with her sculptor mother and finds out the truth about her father.

Is your book self-published or represented by an agency?

This book will be published in May 2013 by GemmaMedia.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It started out as a novella, so I guess a couple of months. But I worked on it, expanding and revising again and again, for four years.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

We’re billing it as Anna and the French Kiss meets Stoner & Spaz. It also has some similarities to Justine Chen Headley’s North of Beautiful and Laura Resau’s notebook series.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

See above.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

As I mentioned, it started out as a novella, which was published in Cicada, and won the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award for Fiction.

Here are five authors I’ve tagged to tell you about their Next Big Thing:

Liz Sheffield, whose short stories, essays and articles have been published in many national publications.

Novelist and essayist Anjali Enjeti whose excellent essay “Fade to Brown” appears in Call Me Okaasan .

Literary Mama columnist Katherine J. Barrett.

Thersa Matsuura, fellow expat-in-Japan and author of Robe of Feathers.

Karen A. Chase, author of Bonjour 40: A Paris Travel Log (40 years, 40 days, 40 seconds).

Thank you to Soniah Kamal for tagging me!

The Paris Project

My thirteen-year-old daughter wants to go to France. She plucks at her shirt and signs that she wants to go shopping in Paris, fashion capital of the world. She gazes at me with her brown eyes, puts her hands together as if to pray, and says, “Iaaiii!” Ikittai! I want to go!

“How did you learn about shopping in Paris?” I ask he

“I saw it on TV,” she signs.

Okay, so maybe she watches too much TV and reads too many comic books, but she picks up a lot.  And I admit I may have helped to plant a seed in her head. When she was about three-years old, I began fantasizing about a mother-daughter trip to Paris, maybe when she turned fourteen. We’d pop into the Centre Pompidou and check out the funky shops in Le Marais. We’d sit in sidewalk cafes, drinking citron presse, and roam the galleries of the great museums. I even wrote a novel based upon this fantasy.

Of my two children, my daughter is the one who has inherited my wanderlust. When I suggest foreign travel to her twin brother, he moans about the long, boring plane ride, strange food, and having to miss baseball practice. But my daughter? She’s ready to go!

I didn’t fly on a plane myself until I was nineteen. I worked part-time and saved my money in order to go to France for a semester abroad, but I worry that my daughter won’t ever be able to go to Paris if she has to pay her own way. She has multiple disabilities and no one expects her to go to college. Although she is entitled to an allowance from the government, I fear it won’t be enough for all the trips that she wants to take.

“I’ll take you to Paris,” I tell her, forming a plan. “Just you and me.” I’ll teach her about art and history and the beginnings of sign language. We’ll watch the movie Marie Antoinette and then we’ll tour Versailles. We’ll eat French food and take an elevator up the Eiffel Tower.

“Paris, later,” she signs. “First, I want to go to Disneyland.”

 

 

 

 

The Beautiful One Has Come in The Japan Times

My short story collection, The Beautiful One Has Come, was reviewed in The Japan Times. Hooray!

You can read the review here.

You can buy a copy from Powells here or from Amazon here or from Barnes and Noble here.

Naoshima, Island of Art and…007?

I recently visited Naoshima, an island in the Inland Sea, for the first time. Formerly an industrial waste dumpsite, the island has been converted into an art lover’s mecca. I had a chance to visit a couple of art museums, as well as the delightfully kitschy 007 Museum, near the harbor.

 

Here is the entrance. Although I had to change out of my shoes and into slippers to view the Monet at the Chichu Art Museum (which has only three exhibits total, two of them inaccessible by wheelchair), this place invited visitors to step inside  shoes and all. Paperbacks of James Bond novels, movie posters, and guns (movie props?) were encased in glass.

And there was this big heart thing, that must have something to do with the  James Bond novel, “The Man with the Red Tattoo,” by Raymond Benson, which takes place partly on Naoshima.

 

Supposedly, Benson visited the island and loved it so much, that he set his book there, hoping that movie makers would then use the island as a film location. Although signatures are still being collected, Hollywood has yet to call.

 

There’s a little cafe connected to the museum. While not a “must-see,” the 007 Museum is free, and the perfect low-brow antidote to the “slippers only” exhibits up in the hills.

About “Peace on Earth”

I contributed a story called “Peace on Earth,” about a biracial boy with divided loyalties who goes on a trip to Okinawa with his family, to the forthcoming anthology Tomo, edited by Holly Thompson. Proceeds from this book will benefit teen survivors of the tsunami that hit north-eastern Japan on March 3 of last year. You can read an interview with me about the story here.

First Fuji

Nothing quite says Japan like Mt. Fuji. In fact, one of my earliest and most enduring images of the country was a photo in the World Book encyclopedia of the Shinkansen  speeding past the iconic peak. Mt. Fuji, with its distinctive gentle, asymmetrical slopes and its cone-shaped top, has inspired poetry and prose, art, a religion, and at least one pop song (“Funk Fujiyama” as sung by the popular mid-1990s group Kome Kome Club). The renowned woodblock artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) created the series 36 Views of Mt. Fuji, which now show up on souvenir T-shirts and mugs. The mountain – or, more accurately, the volcano – appears on Japanese coins and bills, on the tiled walls of bathhouses nationwide, in movies and in manga.

My first real-life view of Fuji-san was from a Shinjuku hotel window on a clear day, just after I’d arrived in Japan. I’d seen it several times since then – from airplane windows, from a park in Yokoyama, and once, up close, during a visit with my parents. Perhaps my twelve-year-old children would see Mt. Fuji for the first time on a road trip en route to Tokyo Disneyland.

 

That morning we piled our car with blankets and food – tuna sandwiches, bento-boxed lunches, Soy Joy bars, tangerines, and homemade banana bread – and set off from our home in Tokushima Prefecture. The sun was just bursting through the clouds, painting the sky pink and orange. Since it was a Sunday, there were few cars on the road. We’d heard rumors of snow in Kyoto and its environs, but so far, the signs boded well. Although Mt. Fuji is often obscured by clouds, if the weather held, we just might be able to catch a glimpse.

My daughter, in the backseat, tracked our progress on a road map. Her finger fell on Naruto as we crossed the bridge connecting Shikoku to Awaji Island. Underneath, we could see the white froth of the whirlpools churning the waters. After we crossed the island with its many onion fields, and traversed another suspension bridge, we entered Kobe.

Beyond Hamamatsu, a city known for its large Brazilian immigrant population and its Honda plant, we began to spot the tea fields of Shizuoka, some of them studded with small wind turbines. Deep pink sazanka blossoms decorated the bushes along the meridian.

And then, finally – “Fuji-san!” my husband cried. “Shutter chance!”

Yes, there it was, looming unmistakably over the surrounding mountains, its peak dolloped with a fluffy white cloud. Surprisingly, there was no snow on the slopes.

“Waaaa!” my daughter exclaimed.

My son, in the front passenger seat, began snapping pictures like a  modern-day digital Hokusai. My daughter drew a picture of the mountain in her notebook.

In Japan, it’s said that if you dream of Mt. Fuji on the first day of the New Year, you’ll have good luck. Perhaps seeing the mountain live, in person at the end of the year will have the same effect.