Born in Japan
Grew up in Brazil (1st - 12th grade)
Went to Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., BA in French and Linguistics
Studied in France (NYU in France) sophomore year
Came back to Japan after graduating from Georgetown
Worked in PR production company, coordinating translations/edited material
Lived in Italy for 2.5 years
Back in Japan, various jobs, translating & editing; went to school of social welfare
Present job: English IR material coordination & editing at The Nisshin OilliO Group (2006 to present)

I have been resident in Japan since March 1984. I came to Japan because I’d got a job. I was completing a doctorate on the 18th-century English poet, Alexander Pope, and particularly on his letters, and I was hired by a Professor Tanizaki, who had just spent a year’s sabbatical in Edinburgh, studying the works of Thomas Carlyle. I spent five years at Tokushima Bunri University as a ‘Guest Professor’, and then got a tenured post at Shikoku Gakuin University, where I’ve been teaching full-time ever since. I married a Japanese farmer and we have three sons. I’ve published quite a few academic articles, monographs and book reviews on English and Japanese literature. In recent years, I’ve been writing ‘creative non-fiction’ about my life here in Japan. I have also written a murder mystery set on a Japanese university campus. It is called ‘Imperfect Strangers’ and is to be published (under the pseudonym ‘Jeanne O’Harra’) in digital form in a few months by Endeavour Press (UK) and in print form by Fine Line Press (UK). I look forward to meeting other writers!

Since 1998, Jason Paul Revelle has forged a strong career covering many aspects of international corporate communications and public relations. After being nationally recognized in Canada in magazine journalism, Jason moved to Japan in 2002 to help build the bridges of communication between Japan and the West. In the mid-2000s, a stint at Toyota Motor Corporation’s overseas public relations division in Tokyo added to his growing experience. Now, Jason works as a corporate communications / language services consultant (translation/editing, etc.) under the umbrella of his own enterprise.

He is married with two children, has Permanent Residency status in Japan, and lives south of Tokyo.

Born in Pennsylvania, I went to college in Ohio and spent my third year in Japan (1970). Residing in Tokyo since 1976, I have been deepening my knowledge of Japan and learning how to write, edit, and translate ever since. My world of translation was once predominantly academic texts (humanities and social sciences), pushing me far beyond the pale content of 1970s Japanese studies; the 1980s and 1990s were full of challenging projects on culture and the arts.
  The type of translation that is in demand has changed over the decades, but chances to translate about philosophy, religion, business history, art, and architecture have kept my calendar full. Book translation has fallen off since around 2016, but demand remains for art catalogues, tourism-related texts, and general culture-related projects. Since around 2018, tourism- and sightseeing-related editing and translation occupies a large portion of my work.
  I am a dedicated member of the community of SWET; with its comings and goings over 45 years, it has been for me a bastion of professional support, community, and friendship. Twelve years as managing editor at the journal Monumenta Nipponica was rigorous training in scholarship, managing a (then-quarterly) publication, editing, proofreading, and clerical work. Fifteen years of teaching J-to-E translation at International Christian University kept me going back to the basics, striving to explain what I do, and encouraging young people interested in translation. I raised two children while carrying on with my career. I helped Takechi Manabu (http://cichonyaku.com/the-japan-interpreter/takechi-manabu-en/) keep our small company going for 33 years until he passed away suddenly in January 2023. I took his place as head of the Center for Intercultural Communication and am pleased to work with many talented colleagues in translation, editing, and proofreading.

Jim Rion is a writer and translator in Yamaguchi Prefecture. In addition to generalist translation work he focuses largely on the Japanese sake & shochu industries and has written and translated extensively in those fields. He is the author of Discovering Yamaguchi Sake, a look into the local sake breweries of Yamaguchi and the communities that surround them.

Simon Rowe is a New Zealand-born Australian writer based in Himeji, Hyogo, for 28 years. His cosy mystery, Mami Suzuki: Private Eye (Penguin Random House SEA, 2023), was nominated for Best First Novel in the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards. He is a 2021 International Rubery Book Award nominee, and winner of the 2021 Best Indie Book Award, the 2017 Hal Porter Short Story Prize, and the 2013 Asian Short Screenplay Contest (judged by Michelle Yeoh). His nonfiction has appeared in The Paris Review, the New York Times, TIME (Asia), the South China Morning Post, The Australian, and the Australian Financial Review.

Experienced translator; full-time since Heisei 1 (1989)!
Marketing and general business are particular strengths.

Tomoki Sakakibara (榊原知樹) joined SWET as a translator, and his continued involvement reflects his deep appreciation for language. He teaches at Tokyo Healthcare University, where he guides graduate students in academic writing and explores Renaissance literature with a focus on the works of Robert Burton and Michel de Montaigne. Also teaching at the University of Tokyo and serving as Director of the Japan Society of English for Research, he is a published researcher and experienced presenter who stays connected to language professionals. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo.

Bruce Smith is a writer who has focused on late-nineteenth-and-early-twentieth-century decorative arts and architectural, and sometimes food. He is a specialist on the life and work of Charles and Henry Greene. His book on their architecture, Greene & Greene Masterworks (Chronicle Books, 1998) was one of the New York Times Editor’s Choice architectural books of the year. He has also written, Greene & Greene: Developing a California Style (Gibbs Smith, Publisher, 2011), and the award-winning Six California Kitchens (Chronicle Books, 2022) that he co-authored with the founder of the French Laundry, Sally Schmitt. With his wife, Yoshiko Yamamoto, he has also written The Japanese Bath (Gibbs Smith, Publisher 2001), Arts and Crafts Ideals (Gibbs Smith, Publisher 1999), and The Beautiful Necessity: Decorating with Arts and Crafts (Gibbs Smith, Publisher 1996) as well as numerous magazine articles for both Japanese and American publications. He also founded with Yoshiko a small press, The Arts & Crafts Press, (http://www.artsandcraftspress.com) that from 1996 to 2006 issued books and a magazine, all letterpress printed and bound by hand. The press currently issues Yoshiko’s handprinted block prints.

Currently seeking opportunities to provide arrangement, guiding,  interpretation, and translation services to journalists who will visit Ise-shima Island for the G7 Summit Meeting.
Also, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Arita ware in Saga prefecture in Kyushu, I’m seeking an opportunity in contributing articles about the Arita ware to some media. If you know editors who would be interested, please let me know.

Interests include literature and such genres as prose poem, essay, zuihitsu, and YA fiction; art; craft; wisdom traditions; folklore, fables and folktales; myths and their texts,; storytelling; sacred, folk, native, delta and Chicago blues, jazz, and nearly all other forms of music; rituals; contemporary poetry and ecopoetics; wayang kulit and any puppet theatre; Javanese batik, dance, and gamelan; and all other kinds of dance. Published word-work in print and online at present ranges from magazine editing and writing, book editing, copywriting, and corporate texts to criticism, lyric essay, co-translating European poetry with author, and a few poems.