JETAA Chicago to host JETAA US national conference August 21-23
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This just in from JETAA USA Country Reps Ryan Hart, Randall Crowder and Shreek Kurlekar:
Hello JETAAers, On behalf of US-7 JETAA Chicago and JETAA USA, we are pleased to officially announce that the 2009 US National Conference will be held in Chicago over August 21-23. Emi Fukuda, President of US-7, and the rest of the Chicago chapter are working very hard to make the preparations for a wonderful conference. We all owe Chicago our gratitude and a big collective otsukare sama de gozaimasu on behalf of JETAA USA!
- Here’s the link for conference info on the JETAA Wiki site (Betcha didn’t know there was a JETAA Wiki site, deshou.): http://jetaa.wikidot.com/2009-national-conference
- To read the latest version of the JETAA Chicago Newsletter put out by Editor Elizabeth Friedman (Shimane-ken, 2003-04), go here: http://www.chicago.jetalumni.org/files/8fc7cc5351c8126b6bc4dd416e79939d-12.html
- Notably, Chicago is the home chapter of some great JET alum writers, including James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, and poet James Shea, author of Star in the Eye.
This is actually the old, PDF version of The Wide Island View. Click this image to go to the new website and prepare to be suitably impressed.
Hiroshima-ken’s Gail Cetnar Meadows and Joshua Zimmerman have announced the launch of Wide Island View, their super-sweet online prefectural newsletter (though “newsletter” doesn’t really do justice to what they’ve put together).
Featured articles include:
- Diving with Sharks in Palau
- JetWit.com: Bringing the JET alumni community together
- Fukuyama Let’s Film Festival 2009
- Homemade Sanuki Udon Recipe
- A Night of Pachinko
- And much much more.
To put it in perspective, when A.J. the JetWit mascot goes to bed at night, this is what he dreams about. :-)
Keep up the good work, Hiroshimites (or whatever the proper term is)!
Perhaps not directly JET-relevant, but this NYTimes article about Zach Brooks and his blog Midtown Lunch (http://midtownlunch.com/) is a great model for how to use a blog to create your own job.
He used to write reviews of restaurants in NY. Then he realized there was a different kind of need–shared by people in a concentrated area who tend to have disposable income–and he filled it, using just a camera and a blog.
JQ Magazine’s Spring 2009 “Utada Issue” Now Available Online!
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The Spring 2009 Issue of JQ (JETAA NY Quarterly) Magazine is now available online at http://jetaany.org/magazine/.
O-tsuakare sama deshita to Editor Justin Tedaldi (CIR Kobe-shi, 2001-02) for all his hard work in putting out another outstanding issue, this one featuring a one-on-one interview he did with Hikaru Utada in New York.
Tanjo!! JQ‘s Spring 2009 Utada Issue is Here!
- What do an Oscar-winner, a celebrated ambassador-turned-president, an international author summit and one of the best-selling singer-songwriters the Eastern Hemisphere’s ever seen have in common? That’s right! They all (I heard) turned down Conan O’Brien to appear in the new issue of JETAANY’s quarterly magazine JQ!
- Months in the making but well worth the wait, our new issue also features our newly elected officers, Sakura Matsuri at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a you-are-there piece on the Tokyo Marathon that you’re guaranteed to learn a thing or to from, and interviews with an Off-Broadway star, community honchos, noted authors and local JETs-made-good in both Japan and beyond.
- And how’s this for a main course: for the first time ever our feature interview was too long for the print issue, so we’ve posted the complete 13-page interview with Hikaru Utada at the handy link below. Whether you’re a Hikki-mania or just want to read what might be the most in-depth interview she’s ever done in English, we’ve got you covered. It all happens in the new issue of JQ. Dozo and enjoy!
SPRING 2009 ISSUE – click to download PDF
(Click Here to Read the Complete Hikaru Utada Interview)
Editor: Justin Tedaldi – magazine@jetaany.org
SPRING 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Page 3…..Letter From the Editor / Letter From the Country Rep
- Page 4…..Nippon News Blotter / JQ National Photo Contest Winners
- Page 5…..Comings & Goings – New Officers and JLGC Changes
- Page 6…..JETAANY Author Showcase by Gina Anderson and Justin Tedaldi
- Page 6…..TAIKOPROJECT in Philly by Renay Loper
- Page 7…..Japan Society’s New President Motoatsu Sakurai by Justin Tedaldi
- Page 8…..JETlog featuring Ed Thompson (Chiba-shi CIR, 1994-97)
- Page 9…..STOMP New York’s Yako Miyamoto by Liz Wanic
- Page 10…Running the Tokyo Marathon by Stacy Smith
- Page 11…Nihonjin in NY – Featuring Noriko Furuhata of the CGJ by Rick Ambrosio
- Page 11…Sakura Matsuri at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
- Page 13…Hikaru Utada: The JQ Interview by Justin Tedaldi
- Page 14…Adren Hart’s ConnectForce Productions Jazzes Up NY by Matt Matysik
- Page 15…JETAActivity Photos
- Page 16…An Animated Talk with Japanamerica Author Roland Kelts By Larry Heiman
- Page 17…Destination Nippon: JNTO and Kintetsu International by Sylvia Pertzborn
- Page 18…New York-Tokyo Founder Taeko Baba by Marea Pariser
- Page 19…Film Review: Departures by Lyle Sylvander
- Page 19…Book Corner: Shutting Out the Sun by David Kowalsky
- Page 20…Shutting Out the Sun Author Michael Zielenziger Q&A by Kelly Nixon
- Page 21…Awaji Puppet Theater at Japan Society by Beata Wilk
- Page 23…Top 14 List / Life After the B.O.E. / Let’s Make Chirashi!
- Major domo to (from left) Anson Mau, Kayoko & Rob Werner, Marea Pariser, Louie Reyes, Joe Marucheck, Justin Tedaldi, Steven Horowitz, Laura Pollak, Stacy Smith, and (off camera) Nancy Ikehara and Peter Mallik for pitching in to mail out the Utada Issue.
By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
Don’t be such an Aso.
I should really fucking stop reading the articles on Japan Today. Simply because the comments crack me up. A majority of them are incredibly hateful, but the vapid self-righteous immaturity just makes me lose my shit.
So Aso, with superhuman speed, rescinded his statement about having kids as an “obligation” he has fulfilled. Smooth, Aso. Could you imagine Obama stumbling over that pitfall? There’d be rioting in the streets and then the Dixie Chicks would get involved…
Admittedly, using such terms to describe reproduction is a bit harsh, especially for a politician. No woman wants to hear about her uterus placed under any guideline, especially by their supreme leader. This is not the Third Reich, after all. Politicians are icons and the populace look to icons as shining paragons who watch their mouths– or at least have their mouths watched for them. Bless Koizumi for being a politician divorced with scattered spawn– a hipster, long-haired, Elvis-loving fuck. I miss him and have a crush on him in the same way any normal person might yearn for Jean-Luc (Picard, that is.)
Sorry, I digress… Read More
Event: Tokyo Authors and Illustrators Networking Night
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Author Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-90) who also serves as the Publicity Assistant for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, shared the following:
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators presents
SCBWI Tokyo Authors & Illustrators Networking Night
Time: Thursday, June 11, 2009, 7:00 pm onward
Place: The Pink Cow, Villa Moderuna B1, 1-3-18 Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0002 (Tel. 03-3406-5597 www.thepinkcow.com)
Fee: Entry is free to SCBWI members and non-members. Drinks and food are charged individually.
RSVP: RSVP to info@scbwi.jp by June 9.
This event will be in English and Japanese.
Come and join fellow writers, illustrators and publishing professionals at the fourth annual SCBWI Authors & Illustrators Networking Night at The Pink Cow in Shibuya. SCBWI members and non-members are welcome. Mix and mingle, talk shop or just get to know each other. Feel free to bring along copies of your books, portfolios and other materials to share. Great Pink Cow food and drinks available to order at the bar! Please see www.thepinkcow.com for a map.
For more info: info@scbwi.jp / www.scbwi.jp
Kirsten’s World: 柏崎：A Culinary Tribute
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By Kirsten Phillips (Niigata-ken, 2005-08)
As I have mentioned before, I am not well traveled in Japan. Hence, I have very little basis for comparison as far as varieties go. Whether or not a specific food was particular to my region or even just my town remains a mystery to me. A prime example of this is 新潟お米。 Known by the fancy name of Koshi Hikari. Is it the most delicious rice in all of Japan? I could not tell you with any certainty. I do not know what rice tastes like in other parts of Japan. The rice was certainly of a noticeable quality and texture and I was always happy to eat it but filled with rapture? Not so much.
I’ll tell you what did fill me with rapture, though. マーポーめん
Has no one else heard of this? Really? No one thought to do this?
Just across the bridge and right next to National Highway Route 8 was a tiny pink ramen-ya called Kuishinbo. Read More
Geneva Marie (Niigata-ken, 2008-09) grew up all over the U.S. but if asked will tell you she’s from Minneapolis, MN . JET Lag will recount Geneva’s experiences and thoughts as she prepares to leave the comfortable womb of her JET life and figure out her next move.
So you’re going to die.
I mean, HOME…So you’re going home!
I decided. I did it. I made that final, definitive decision to resign from the JET program as of this coming July. Yikes!
After a winter of deliberating whether or not another year in my isolated country town would be a good move for me, I chose carefully between a sure and steady means of employment with little hassle as far as re-contracting goes and the “mystery box” of future uncertainty: returning to the shaky job market in the US.
I can’t help but wish that after I had signed my final re-contracting papers with a “nay” back in February that I would have been given a pamphlet that said “So you’re going home…” -something like that scene in The Simpsons episode, One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish, in which Homer is handed a pamphlet stating “So you’re going to to die…”after eating some poisonous fugu. I mean, at least he had some instructions…
(What the heck am I going to do NOW?) Read More
New JET Alum Co-Working Group in NYC
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Are you a freelance translator or writer? Do you while away the days in solitary confinement while thinking it might be interesting to meet like minds, have someone to turn around and confirm a sentence with, or just add some more beating hearts to the room?
If so, then get in touch if you’re interested in being a part of the first ever JET alum co-working group in NYC. The goal behind this is to create a community of people who can share space, support, information, and experience. Timing could be every day, once a week or even once a month. It will depend on the level of response and interest.
There’s a nice mention of JetWit in a recent post on The Wide Island View–The JET Programme Newsletter of Hiroshima Prefecture. (www.wideislandview.com) Glad to see that word awareness of JetWit is on the rise among current JETs. Especially since it’s intended to be a helpful resource with the transition, and due to Japanese privacy laws it’s relatively difficult to get contact information to reach out to current JETs.
JetWit is also thrilled to find out that such a beautiful website of a prefectural newsletter even exists. It’s definitely worth a visit for the articles as well as for the easy-on-the-eyes layout. And they even pay tribute to the past, posting links to the PDF versions of newsletters past, before everything moved to the web.
By the way, if there are any other prefectural newsletter websites out there, please contact JetWit and let us know so we can post links to you guys.
“Can’t find a full-time writing job? Join the swelling ranks of freelancers” – http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=130597
A good article from Medill Reports (a publication by students at the Medill School for Journalism at Northwestern University) that cites the somewhat involuntary trend of more and more writers going freelance (and also includes a quote from my brother Greg in his capacity as the Director of Membership Services at mediabistro).
The article’s perspective merges nicely with the JetWit theme of helping freelancers in the JET alum community and also conveying to everyone in the JET alum community that the era of full-time jobs (say nothing of lifetime employment) is changing–particularly in the writing field, but also increasingly in other fields–as more and more people essentially deconstruct their jobs and create new ones for themselves, whether out of necessity or foresight.
There ‘n Back Again: **** Toner
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There ‘n Back Again shares the cultural re-adjustment reflections of Brendan Share (Niigata-shi 2006-07), the program director for Japan America Learning Centerhttp://www.japanamericacenter.com. in Scarsdale, NY. In addition to writing, Brendan also enjoys depicting idioms in cartoon format which can be seen at
So I’m at work this morning flipping through heaps of student lesson plans when a shrieking cat masquerading as my colleague’s voice leaps at me from the front office. After pulling out my trusty Japanese to English dictionary I was able to paste together an interesting semblance of terms, the majority of which were not that flowery in retrospect. It panned out as follows:
“Who forgot to order **** toner for the **** copy machine??!!”
しまった。。
Seriously, she’s sweet, but the cursing…
Anyway, toner tends to fall by the wayside when the task of getting 45 kids to pass the STEP Eiken test in June looms overhead. Even still I blinked and found myself cast back into the shadowy halls of Maki Nishi Junior High School. I started to get the feeling that I had not learned some valuable lesson…
Suzanne Kamata
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Cristy Burne (Hyogo-ken, Kawanishi-shi, 1998-2000), author of the soon-to-be-released children’s book Takeshita Demons, has a really nice interview on her blog with Suzanne Kamata (Tokushima-ken, 1988-90), who lives in Japan and is the editor of LiteraryMama as well as the author of books such as Losing Kei and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (which recently won several prizes in the 2009 Indie Book Awards including the Grand Prize for non-fiction overall).
(For all you translators out there lookng for an interesting project, you may notice Suzanne’s comment that none of her books have been translated into Japanese yet. Perhaps a future JET alum collaboration to come?)
Go here for the full interview: http://cristyburne.wordpress.com/2009/05/21/american-writer-in-japan-suzanne-kamata-
Cristy Burne
on-diversity-writing-and-winning-the-indie-book-awards/
- Also, another JET alum writer, Liz Sheffield (Hokkaio-ken, Sapporo-shi, 1993-95), has an interview with Suzanne about the book on her blog motherlogue.wordpress.com.
- To learn more about Suzanne you can visit her website at http://www.suzannekamata.com or her blog at http://gaijinmama.wordpress.com (RSS feed here).
- Read an interview with Suzanne Kamata on children’s books and diversity by the blog Kabiliana.
- Go to the Authors/Books section of the JetWit Library to see a complete list of JET alum authors (at least to JetWit’s knowledge).
James Kennedy interviewed by School Library Journal
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Great interview with James Kennedy (Nara-ken, 2004-06), author of The Order of Odd-Fish, by Elizabeth Bird of the School Library Journal. JET-riffic bonus: They use Zorgamazoo author Rob Weston’s (Nara-ken, 2002-04) blurb in the opening paragraph of the interview, and they’ve included the video clip of James from the JET Alumni Author Showcase.)
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1790000379/post/1160044516.html
Roland Kelts to host talk with Hayao Miyazaki in July
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According to a news item on the Anime News Network (which was first reported by Publishers Weekly journalist Kai-Ming Cha in her personal blog), Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), author of Japanamerica, will host a talk with Hayao Miyazaki (director of Spirited Away among other animated films) on July 25 in Berekely, CA. Miyazaki will be making a rare U.S. appearance to receive the second annual Berkeley Japan Prize for lifetime achievement, presented by the Center for Japanese Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
This is familiar territory for Roland, who hosted a talk with novelist Haruki Murakami last October when Murakami was presented with the first Berekely Japan award.
