The Society of Writers, Editors and Translators presents

Writing Multicultural Families:
A Reading and Panel Discussion of Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering

Time: Saturday, May 16, 2009, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Place: Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (go .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for a map)
Fee: Panel Discussion and Dinner: 5,000 yen (includes makunouchi bento meal)
Reservations for meal required by May 12; email .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), or fax 03-3430-1740
Panel discussion only, 6:00-7:00 p.m. (no reservations required): 2,000 yen per person

Suzanne Kamata, editor of the literary anthology Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, May 2009), will be accompanied by Leza Lowitz, Holly Thompson and Angela Turzynski-Azimi in reading from and discussing contributions to the book. Call Me Okaasan comprises twenty essays by women writers around the world on the joys and challenges of raising children across two or more cultures. A panel Q&A with all four writers will wrap up the event. Copies of the book will be on sale at the event.

Suzanne Kamata is the author of the novel Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008), and editor of two previous anthologies, Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs (Beacon Press, 2008) and The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan (Stone Bridge Press, 1997). She has lived in Shikoku since 1988.

Leza Lowitz is an award-winning writer, editor, screenwriter and co-translator. Her work has appeared in hundreds of literary journals and anthologies, and she has published over 15 books, including Yoga Poems: Lines to Unfold By and Green Tea to Go: Short Stories from Tokyo. Her awards include the PEN Josephine Miles Award, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Award, grants from the NEA and NEH, and the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Award for the translation of Japanese literature from Columbia University. She lives in Tokyo, where she owns the popular Sun and Moon Yoga studio.

Holly Thompson was raised in New England but has brought up her two children in New York and Japan. She is the author of the novel Ash (Stone Bridge Press), set in Kyoto and Kagoshima, and the picture book The Wakame Gatherers (Shen’s Books). She is Regional Advisor of SCBWI Tokyo and teaches poetry and fiction writing at Yokohama City University.

Angela Turzynski-Azmi was born and bred in the north of England. She has lived and worked in various parts of England, as well as Wales, Switzerland, Japan and Australia. A graduate of the University of London (S.O.A.S.), she currently lives in Yokohama, Japan, with her husband and son, where she works as a freelance translator. Her published translations include Kendo: The Definitive Guide, published by Kodansha International. She has also taught at universities in Japan and Australia.