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Posted by: Margie Banin (Kochi, 2005-2007), a former CIR with a love of the written word. Currently she connects others to Japan through translating, writing, and editing texts on Japan. Margie also manages the JETwit Bluesky account, serves as the JETwit Volunteer Coordinator and a JETwit jobs-list welcomer, and engages in various other JETwit outreach activities.
A surprising (or maybe not?) number of JET participants and alumni become authors, chronicling their time in Japan in memoirs or fictionalized accounts of their experiences living and working in Japan. Others share insights into the country and culture through nonfiction works. All these books open a window into the reality of life in Japan.
JETwit maintains an online library of JET alum writers. It’s a work in progress, and we’d like to expand it to include as many JET authors as possible. If you’ve published a book rooted in or connected to your JET experience, please let us know so we can add you to the list! Likewise, if you know of a JET author who isn’t in our library yet, please tell us about them.
Email submissions to us at jetwit@jetwit.com and use “JETwit Library” as the subject line.
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Posted by: Margie Banin (Kochi, 2005-2007), a former CIR with a love of the written word. Currently she connects others to Japan through translating, writing, and editing texts on Japan. Margie also manages the JETwit Bluesky account, serves as the JETwit Volunteer Coordinator and a JETwit jobs-list welcomer, and engages in various other JETwit outreach activities.
The third edition of Sarah Coomber’s memoir, The Same Moon, has just been released as of April 2026. Based on Sarah’s experience teaching in rural Japan in the mid-1990’s, The Same Moon is described as a story of encouragement and hope. Here’s a little background from Sarah about her book.
“Many of us experience a time in life where we’d like a do-over, and I sure felt that way about my early twenties.
After being briefly wed and quickly divorced by age twenty-four, all I wanted was a fresh start. I abandoned my Minnesota life for a job teaching English in Japan, planning to take a year to reflect, heal and figure out what to do next.
I ended up the lone English speaker in an isolated rural area, where I was drawn into serving tea to my male co-workers, performing with a koto (zither) group, advocating for female students and colleagues, and embarking on a controversial romance.
Of course I signed on for a second year—not because this was the Japan I was seeking, but because it turned out to be the Japan I needed.”
Learn more at https://sarahcoomber.com/.
Discover more JET alum authors in the JETwit Library.
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Posted by: Margie Banin (Kochi, 2005-2007), a former CIR with a love of the written word. Currently she connects others to Japan through translating, writing, and editing texts on Japan. Margie also manages the JETwit Bluesky account, serves as the JETwit Volunteer Coordinator and a JETwit jobs-list welcomer, and engages in various other JETwit outreach activities.
Yan Sen Lu set off to Japan as a JET in 2006 and has been there ever since. After completing two years in Tokyo on the JET program, Yan Sen transitioned into the local workforce, finding employment in the executive search field.
Now, 18 years later, he has established his own search firm, Makana Partners, and has authored a work he describes as a guide for those looking to hire top talent in Japan.
As he puts it:
“If Japan is breaking your hiring process—this is your field manual.
‘We can open a new market in Southeast Asia faster than we can fill a single Director-level role in Tokyo.’ — Every HR Director in Japan, eventually.
Japan rewards preparation above all else. This book names the mechanisms — the cultural codes, the structural realities, and the exact frameworks that the best executive search firms use to close in this market.”
Yan Sen’s book sounds like a must-read for those supporting foreign companies in Japan by recruiting and building teams for them!
The Hardest Market in the World will be released this summer, in June 2026. Learn more at https://hardestmarket.com/.
Discover more JET alum authors in the JETwit Library.
