JetWit link on official JET Programme site
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A.J., the official mascot of JetWit (designed by Zi Mei (Saitama-ken, 2002-05))
Big news: Just learned that JetWit.com has been added to the JET Programme website’s Links page in the “After JET” section. http://jetprogramme.org/e/links/index.html#after
Needless to say, A.J. is beside himself with shiawase.
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
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.
NYT: Tweeting your way to a job
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Not saying this is for everyone, but never hurts to get new perspectives on ways to think about your job search.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/fashion/21whiz.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2&emc=eta1
You can apply the same logic to writing posts on JetWit. So get in touch if you’d like to write and also help yourself with your job search at the same time.
JapanDay in Central Park (NY) – May 31
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From the Consulate General of Japan in NY:
Japan Day @ Central Park is an event designed by the Japanese community of New York to promote a deeper understanding of the Japanese culture and to say “Thank you, New York!” Now marking its third year as a New York City tradition, Japan Day @ Central Park returns to fill the green oasis of East Meadow with tents offering a wide range of Japanese traditional and familyfriendly activities, free samplings of popular Japanese cuisine and powerful stage performances throughout the day, with top entertainers from New York and Tokyo. Last year, an estimated 40,000 New Yorkers participated in Japan Day in the East Meadow.
Japan Day @ Central Park 2009 begins at 8AM with the Japan Run, a 4-mile race, organized by New York Road Runners. The Japan Day Festival begins at 10AM with the opening of all the activity tents; the stage show begins at 10:15AM, and free samplings of Japanese cuisine begin at 11am. We hope that Japan Day will continue to be a highly anticipated event year after year! (Click here for more info.)
Event: JQ (JETAA NY Quarterly) Magazine Stuff ‘n Mail – May 28
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If you thought a JQ interview with Jero was cool last issue, wait until you see who JQ got this time.
JQ’S STUFF N’ MAIL FOR THE SPRING ISSUE
Thursday, May 28th
As the JQ home office edges closer to the the layout finishing line for our next issue, we’ve set a date for our quarterly stuffin’ and mailin’. RSVP to magazine[at]jetaany[dot]org to ensure how much pizza/drinks to order. Besides getting your own advance copy of the new “Utada Issue” before they’re mailed out to our members, we’ll also be having an informal nomikai afterwards (location TBD).
It all happens Thursday, May 28 from 6:00 p.m. at the Japan Local Government Center (JLGC), 3 Park Ave. (at 34th St.), 20th floor. Chotto latecomers and friends of JET are also welcome.
Not on our mailing list for your own print copy? E-mail your name, address and JET info to database[at]jetaany[dot]org by the end of Monday, May 25th to receive your copy of the new JQ.
See you there!
Writing Opportunities: CLAIR-NY and JETAA NY Tweeter
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WRITER NEEDED FOR JLGC NEWSLETTER The Japanese Local Goverment Center (JLGC, aka CLAIR-NY) is looking for someone to write a one page, 600 word article with pictures about JETAANY events. If you are knowledgable about JETAANY events and have a penchant for writing, this is the opportunity for you! Contact secretary [at] jetaany [dot] org for more details.
JETAANY Tweeter JETAANY is looking for an official “Tweeter” on Twitter. It’s a great way to get your name out there, especially on this newest marketing medium. If you are interested, contact Megan Miller at president[at]jetaany[dot]org.
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
**********************
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.
Books: “Sake’s Hidden Stories” by JET alum John Gauntner
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JET alum John Gauntner (a/k/a “The Sake Guy”) has just announced the publication of his new e-book, Sake’s Hidden Stories: The Personalities, Philosophies & Tricks of the Trade Behind the Brew.
From John’s Sake World Newsletter:
Sake’s Hidden Stories will give you a view to what goes on in the sake industry behind the brew we all love so much. The book goes into stories much deeper than the information we most commonly encounter; way beyond simply what ginjo-shu is, what junmai-shu is, or what the role of koji is. You will learn about the personalities behind the sake. You will see in just how much detail some brewers make sake, and how each is different in where importance is placed. And most significantly, something that has not been written about in any book on sake in English, you will meet more than a dozen brewers, and encounter their personalities. You’ll see what makes them tick, what drives them in their work, and how their histories and idiosyncrasies affect the sake they brew.
John, by the way, was the featured speaker in last night’s Annual Sake Tasting and Lecture at Japan Society in New York.
