I’m so proud to announce the publication of A Girls’ Guide to the Islands, a nonfiction acccount of traveling around the Inland Sea of Japan with my daughter, who is deaf and uses a wheelchair. This book is the latest addition to the Gemma Open Door series for literacy learners.
“Heart-lifting and inspiring, A Girls’ Guide to the Islands explores the restorative and often unexpected way that travel breeds connection.” — Nicole Trilivas, author of Girls Who Travel
As far as I know, my seventeen-year-old daughter had never met a Muslim before. At her Special Support School for the Deaf and Blind in Western Japan, she is the Other. She uses a wheelchair, whereas everyone else can walk, and she is the only kid in a student body of forty or so with a non-Japanese parent – I’m an American; her father is Japanese. Although there is a tiny mosque nearby, and a handful of Malaysian students at the local public university where I teach, the city where we live is largely homogenous.
My daughter knew about the Islamic religion from TV, mostly, where she sees reports of bombings in cities around the world – cities that she has visited and loved, such as Paris and Boston – and Japanese reporters abducted and slaughtered in the desert by ISIS.
When I brought her to New York City during this past summer vacation, she saw lots of people of different races and colors.
“Muslim?” she finger-spelled, when she saw a woman wearing a hijab.
“Yes,” I replied. “Probably.”
My daughter looked a little worried.
“It’s okay,” I assured her. “She’s not a terrorist.”
We walked down Fifth Avenue, looking into store windows. We saw “The Lion King” on Broadway, ate cheesecake at Junior’s, and toured the Statue of Liberty. At the end of our trip, we had dinner in an Italian restaurant across from our hotel with Bill. an old friend and former expat in Japan. He and I drank wine, and caught up with news of our acquaintances. Unable to keep up with our conversation, my daughter ate her pasta, and scribbled the occasional note to Bill in Japanese.
Suddenly, a young woman draped in a pink hijab approached our table.
“Can I tell your daughter that I love her?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” I said, without too much thought. Maybe she was inspired by the sight of a cheerful girl in a wheelchair. Who knows? Who cares? I was comfortably woozy from the wine. Love is good.
“She doesn’t speak English,” said Bill, a simultaneous interpreter by trade.
“But she knows ‘I love you,’” I interjected. I had taught her to say it in English and American Sign Language. “You could write it down for her.”
The young woman pointed at her chest, made the sign of a heart with her hands, and then pointed to my daughter. Then they hugged, and she went away.
My daughter shrugged. What was that all about? She was smiling.
A little more than a week after we left New York City, a man set fire to a tourist’s hijab while she was window-shopping on Fifth Avenue. Another hate crime, the news organizations reported.
“What did you think about Muslims before that woman came to our table?” I asked my daughter later, when we were back in Japan.
“Scary,” she replied.
“And now?”
“That woman was beautiful and kind,” she signed. “I changed my mind. And I told my friends about her.”
I wrote a blog post for Beacon Broadside on last week’s slaughter of 19 people, and the attack on 26 others in a home for individuals with disabilities in Japan. You can read it here.
I’m so excited to report that my mother/daughter travel memoir was named Best Novel/Biography in the inaugural Half the World Global Literati Awards! (See details below!)
Global, July 15, 2016 – Half the World Holdings, a women-focused investment platform, Friday announced Laurie Petrou as the winner of the inaugural Half the World Global Literati Award 2016. The prestigious international award recognizes unpublished work that reflects the complexity of women’s lives, and has at their heart a central female protagonist.
The winning submission, ‘Sister of Mine’, is a psychological thriller that explores themes of loyalty, betrayal and debt through the lives of two sisters bound by a knot of secrecy. Author Laurie Petrou is an associate professor of The RTA School of Media, Ryerson University, Toronto.
“The judges rewarded the taut writing of a compulsive page-turner which explores the complex relationship between two sisters with a damaging secret. Our shortlist plays with the themes of adventure and courage, dignity and struggle, with characters motivated by an overarching sense of love” explained Caroline Bowler, representative for Half the World Holdings. “We are moved to see this award embraced by all walks of life, from all over the world. This represents a very real desire to recognize women at the center of our cultural lives.”
Along with the top prize, there were also category and People’s Choice award winners, each collecting US$1,000. Suzanne Kamata, based in Japan, collected top prize in the novel category. Her teenage daughter, Lilia, was born deaf and affected by cerebral palsy but this hasn’t dinted her sense of adventure and thirst for exploration. Suzanne’s honest and raw biography ‘Squeaky Wheels’ describes a mother’s love to open up the world to her child.
Danna Petersen-Deeprose, a student at McGill University Montreal, collected the short story prize for her work ‘Looking for Lost Girl’, which describes the journey of a woman in her mid-twenties looking for the courage to start her own life. Top screenwriter Lisa Hagen has two old ladies plot their escape from a retirement home in ‘Dancing on the Elephant.’ The two friends explore the big questions in life; what is my legacy and why am I even here? Friendship was also the key theme for the People’s Choice award, decided by thousands of votes from the general public. Eventual winner was LA-based Jude Roth whose screenplay ‘Plan B’ tells of 3 women and the bonds that carry them when the chips are really down.
The Half the World Global Literati Award was set up in response to 2015 research from author Nicola Griffith, which identified that the majority of the significant literary prizes are awarded to works written from a male perspective. The award is set to return in spring 2017.
Statistics about the Half the World Global Literati Award 2016.
• 59 countries including Eritrea, Iran, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago
• 45.5 percent submissions are novels, 36.5 percent short stories, 18 percent screenplays
• Drama the most popular genre, topping novels & screenplays and a close second for short stories. Literary Fiction was the second most popular with Romance in third. Erotica comprised of less than 5 percent of all entrants.
• Majority of the short list are female (82.5 percent) vs male (17.5 percent)
About Half the World Holdings
Half the World Holdings, which was launched by Blackrun Ventures in March 2016, is a global investment platform in companies for whom women are the end-consumer. The
Half the World platform provides the capital, advisory and international networks needed to develop and scale these ventures globally. Blackrun and Half the World Holdings partners come from the worlds of private equity, investment banking, multinational businesses and entrepreneurship, with offices in Berlin, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, Sydney and Singapore.
For more information, please visit http://halftheworld.media.
I have some exciting news! My mother-daughter travel memoir Squeaky Wheels, a celebration of accessibility, art, girl power, and Paris (among other things) has been named a finalist for the Half the World Global Literati Award. I’m thrilled to find my book in the company of so many great projects from all over the world! While the judges deliberate, popular voting will decide the People’s Choice Award. So click here and please vote!
“Suzanne Kamata has become a respected author for teens and adults, probing issues of physical ableness and cultural identity. An experienced anthologist, she has also edited short fiction about Japan, as well as nonfiction about multicultural motherhood and raising children with special needs. She lives in a farming community in Shikoku. In this interview for SWET, Kamata describes her published writing and some of her experiences promoting her works. She also previews her current projects.” Read more.
In honor of National Poetry Month, I’d like to introduce some of my favorite novels in verse for young adults, in no particular order.
Lowitz imagines the earthquake and tsunami which devastated Northeastern Japan five years ago through the eyes of Kai, a biracial Japanese boy. At turns harrowing and heartbreaking, this book is ultimately hopeful.
Set in 1965, this book follows the lives of a group of high school friends whose lives are impacted by the war in Vietnam, riots, and assassinations. But they also go to drive-in movies, fall in love, and go to parties.
Third Culture Kid Emma Karas finds herself in Massachusetts after living in Japan for many years. She begins to volunteer at a long-term care center, helping a poet with locked-in syndrome get her poems down on paper. Meanwhile, Emma stats spending time with a Cambodian dancer who is a fellow volunteer.
After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mina Tagawa and her Japanese-American family are rounded up and sent to an internment camp in the middle of the desert. Nagai presents a shameful slice of American history with beauty and grace.
Talk about gritty, realistic fiction! Tony, Vanessa, and Connor battle self-destructive impulses ranging — pill-popping, cutting, and suicidal urges. Hopkins is the queen of intensity.
One day Jane has just about everything a fifteen-year-old girl could want, the next, a shark bites off her arm while she’s swimming. Bingham explores disability and self-acceptance in this stand-out novel.
Cultures clash in this story of Viola, a young woman refugee from South Sudan who tries to adjust to her new life in Portland, Oregon.
This book is epic adventure set in India, just after the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Fifteen-year-old Canadian Maya is visiting India with her father after her mother’s suicide, when she gets swept up in the mayhem.
Philips captures all of the angst of high school in this story of four teens in a Canadian classroom. Through distinct poetic voices, Natalie, Kyle, Trish, and Miguel share stories of domestic violence, sexual abuse, step-families, and rebellion.
Lezotte, who is deaf herself, wrote this story of Paula Becker, a deaf teen in Nazi Germany, where people with disabilities were systematically eliminated, along with Jews and others. Sometimes the most difficult subjects are best expressed in the simplest words.
I was recently interviewed on the blog Accessible Japan. You can read it here!
Some happy news! Gadget Girl was named the APALA Honor Book in the young adult category at last weekend’s ALA Midwinter Conference in Philadelphia. I am extremely grateful to the Asian Pacific Librarians Association, as well as my publisher, GemmaMedia, my fellow SCBWI-Japan members, and everyone else who has given this book a chance. I am thrilled to find myself in the company of honorees Linda Sue Park, Gene Luen Yang, Ruth Ozeki, Leza Lowitz, Shogo Oketani, Cynthia Kadohata, and Jennifer Cody Epstein, among others. Here is the full list of this year’s winners and honor books.
Of course you can purchase copies at Amazon, Powells, The Book Depository, Barnes and Noble, or your local bookstore (though you may have to ask them to order it). You can also check it out of your local library (or ask the library to order a copy if it’ s not yet in the collection).
Two things that I love – travel in Europe, and YA novels. Here are ten books that include both:
1. Small Damages by Beth Kephart
A high-achieving teen, who winds up pregnant, is sent by her mother to Seville to secretly have her baby and give it up for adoption, but she starts to have other ideas.
2. Time Between Us by Tamara Ireland Stone
Thanks to her time-traveler boyfriend Bennet, Anna gets to go to Italy, Thailand and other fun places without even trying.
3. The White Bicycle by Beverley Brenna
Taylor Jane Simon, a teen with Asperger’s Syndrome goes to the South of France with her Mom.
5. Instructions for a Broken Heart by Kim Culbertson
A high school drama club goes to Italy! Gelato! A hot guy named Giacomo! Romance! Plus, great writing!
6. Just One Day by Gayle Forman
Sort of like that movie Before Sunset, but in Paris, with an American high school student and a Dutch guy.
7. Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
A fun romance set in an international school in Paris. But you probably already know about this one…
8. Flirting in Italian by Lauren Henderson
Art! Italy! Hot Italian guys!
9. Westminster Abby by Micol Ostow
From the Students Across the Seven Seas series, feauturing teens on foreign study. American Abby goes to London!
10. Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible by Suzanne Kamata
Paris! Art! Manga! My YA debut!
Anything you’d like to add to this list?
Gaijin Mama 