Speaker: Andy Couturier
Date: June 6, 2010 (Sunday)
Time: 2:00-5:00 p.m. (followed by an informal dinner nearby for those interested)
Fee: 1,000 yen SWET and JAT members; 1,500 yen non-members
Place: Kobe Centre Plaza Nishi-kan, 6F Room 16 Map
Reservations: SWET Kansai

Author of “A Different Kind of Luxury,” (Stone Bridge Press, 2009), Couturier will introduce his book about Japanese people living simple, sustainable, fulfilling lives, and speak about the back story of its publication. He will touch on his approaches to creative nonfiction writing and strategies for translating the material in his interviews, as well as ideas for structuring his writing.

Couturier lived in rural Shikoku for 4 years, wrote a popular series for the Japan Times in 1999-2000, and has contributed four long essays to Kyoto Journal. He has also written for Creative NonFiction, Adbusters, The Oakland Tribune, the North American Review and many others. Also author of Writing Open the Mind: Tapping the Subconscious to Free the Writing and the Writer he runs a creative writing center, The Opening, in Oakland, California (see theopening.org).