November 21, 2009

SWET Newsletter, No. 123

Features

From Behind Cloistered Walls: A Tale of Two Translations, by Lynne E. Riggs

In February, In Iris Fields: Remembrances and Poetry by Abbess Kasanoin Jikun, edited by Barbara Ruch and Katsura Michiyo, was published by Tankōsha (Kyoto). The book’s prose was translated by Beth Cary and its numerous poems by Janine Beichman. In early April, Amamonzeki—A Hidden Heritage: Treasures of the Japanese Imperial Convents, edited by Patricia Fister and Monica Bethe, was published as the catalog for an exhibit co-organized by the Medieval Japanese Studies Institute (Kyoto), the Tokyo University of the Arts, and Sankei Shimbun Sha, which was held April 14–June 14 at the Tokyo University of the Arts. Both books may be obtained at [url=http://www.chusei-nihon.net/index.htm]http://www.chusei-nihon.net/index.htm[/url]. On May 23, taking advantage of the presence in Tokyo of several of the principal people involved in both projects, SWET held a special tour of the exhibit followed by a talk featuring Cary and Beichman and dinner at a restaurant in Ueno Park.

Remembering Jiho Sargent: Technical Writer and Buddhist Priest, by Naomi Otani

Jiho Sargent, long-time member of SWET and friend, advisor, and teacher to many SWET members, passed away in Oregon in June 2009 at the age of 77. On August 23, friends and SWET members gathered at Taisōji, the temple where Jiho had served as assistant priest, for a brief service and gathering to share the ways they remembered her. Jiho tells part of her own story in “Swimming with the Flow,” an article published in SWET Newsletter No. 90. Sargent’s Asking About Zen: 108 Answers (Weatherhill, 2001) is out of print.

SWET Events

A Poet’s Prose: The Economy and Voice of Moving, by Bonny Cassidy

Bonny Cassidy is an Australian poet and the president of Sydney PEN. She holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Sydney, and her first two collections of poems will be released through Puncher & Wattmann and Vagabond in 2010. In 2008, she received an Asialink fellowship to write a series of narrative essays on travel, art, and literature in Japan. In Kyoto on November 16, 2008, she spoke to Kansai SWET members about the process of departing from poetry to compose the collection of essays titled “Fields.”

SWET Open Forum 2009: Wordsmithing in Japan, by Katherine Heins

Where to go for translators’ resources, how to control your computer’s Japanese inputting settings, what an editor needs to know about word processing and other software, how to market your professional skills and carve your niche, how to get your work published, what to tell a Japanese author who wants his/her work published—these were some of the questions that were asked and answered on April 21, 2009, at the SWET Open Forum on wordsmithing in Japan.

SWET Member News

Talking Poetry with Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, by Leza Lowitz

SWET member Jane Joritz-Nakagawa recently completed her fourth book of poems, The Meditations, published by Otoliths. Her previous collections are Skin Museum (Avant Books, 2006), Aquiline (Printed Matter, 2007), and Exhibit C (Ahadada, 2008); the latter two are currently available at through both Small Press Distribution ([url=http://www.spdbooks.org]http://www.spdbooks.org[/url]) and Amazon. She is an associate professor at Aichi University of Education in the city of Kariya, and founder of the annual Japan Writers Conference ([url=http://japanwritersconference.org/]http://japanwritersconference.org/[/url]) and the Peace as a Global Language Conference ([url=http://www.pglijapan.org]http://www.pglijapan.org[/url]). SWET member Leza Lowitz, a writer, translator, and yoga teacher, interviewed Joritz-Nakagawa by email for this article.

SWET Cyber Matters

Lacunae of English, Manners, and Elucidations, by Torkil Christensen

Wherein the urbane denizens of SWET-L and the SWET Weblog solve wordsmith conundrums, proffer personal experience for the benefit of all, and fill in fine points of manners, grammar, and usage for questing SWETers. The Newsletter prints the high points of this rarefied and wittily provided expertise for your slow-time reflection.

Book Review

Self-Help for Editors, by Ginny Tapley Takemori

The Subversive Copy Editor: Advice from Chicago (or, How to Negotiate Good Relationships with Your Writers, Your Colleagues, and Yourself). By Carol Fisher Saller. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009. ISBN-13:978-0-226-73425-5, ISBN-10:226-73425-0, $13.00.