SWET Talk Shop Online, June 14 (Sun.), via Zoom

Three Wordsmiths of Northern Nagano
Brenda Kaneta, Hart Larrabee, and Susan Murata
Moderator: Winifred Bird

Our June SWET Talk Shop Online will be held on a Sunday morning Japan time to accommodate participants from other parts of the world as much as possible. We are pleased to welcome three wordsmiths who reside in northern Nagano prefecture. After a 15–20-minute interview with each guest speaker, we will open up the meeting for Q&A and discussion.

Brenda Kaneta moved to Osaka on the JET program in 1997 and, including a stint at Universal Studios Japan, worked there for 11 years. She moved to the city of Nagano in 2008 and began freelancing as a translator and interpreter while raising a family. In 2019 she moved to Suzaka. Her website, Wordbridge, tells her story and advertises her services.

Hart Larrabee is a Japanese-to-English translator and has been based in Nagano in the town of Obuse since 2002. Originally from New York state, he first came to Japan in 1987 as a college student and has also lived in both Kyoto and Tokyo. After obtaining graduate degrees in communication and business administration, he worked primarily in Olympic and international games administration between 1995 and 2009. Translation has been his full-time occupation since 2009.

Susan Murata has been a freelance Japanese-to-English translator and editor for more than 40 years. She has put her bilingual skills to work at a large printing company, a small translation office, an intercultural communications workshop, an international educational exchange program, and for 15 years, at the large science institute, RIKEN. In 2018, she moved her residence to Suzaka.