The JETwit Library (always looking for JET alum authors!)
Alumni Author, Books, JETwit Library, Writers 
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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.
The Same Moon by Sarah Coomber (Yamaguchi-ken, 1994-1996)
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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.
The Hardest Market in the World by Yan Sen Lu (Musashimurayama-shi, Tokyo-to, 2006-2008)
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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.
Rural Reflections: JET alum Marshall Hughes shares an unseen side of Japan in his memoir of teaching in the inaka
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Posted by: Margie Banin (Kochi-ken, 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 number of books over the years have been written about the JET (and non-JET) teaching experience in Japan. JET alum Marshall Hughes (Tochigi-ken, 1990–1991; Ibaraki-ken, 1992–1995) has recently added to this genre with Rural Reflections: What 11 Years in Provincial Japan Taught Me. After his four-year JET experience, Hughes taught from 1996 to 2001 in Mitsukaido-shi, Ibaraki-ken, and for 25 years in Japan overall before retiring to Chiba in 2024.
Hughes’ book differs from others in that his book spans eleven years in four cities. He writes familiar stories of the typical ups and downs that all JETs had, but also gets personal with stories of student tragedies and other less-than-glamorous aspects of the JET, and Japan, life. Overall, the book takes a real look at sometimes hard-to-believe experiences with humor and interesting cultural/historical points tossed in.
Hughes says that when he became a JET in the early 1990s, foreigners in his area were “something to gawk at, follow around town on bicycles, and at times to consider less than human.” Still, his love for Japan never faded. In 2013, he returned for a visit to his first city, Yaita-shi in Tochigi-ken, and as he was walking back to his car from the main school where he had taught, he started crying. “A flood of memories came back to me of just how pure-hearted the people were there. Before I went to Yaita, I didn’t know any place on earth where people had such pure hearts.”
For former JETS, especially those from the early years of the program or who lived in rural areas, the book is a nostalgic trip down memory lane.
Of Hughes’ book, author Evan Powell wrote, “In Rural Reflections, Hughes takes us with him on a journey into a rural Japanese culture with which most Americans are unfamiliar. Through his experiences as an English teacher in Japanese schools he encounters cultural differences that are at times charming, puzzling, and occasionally disturbing to typical American sensibilities. He provides us a unique window into a fascinating Japanese culture that we might not otherwise come to appreciate and experience. An utterly charming and engaging read!”
JET Alum Writers: Joe Palermo publishes a new book
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JET alum Joe Palermo (actually a trailblazing MEF) has released a new book of 38 stories, segmented into Childhood, Adulthood, and A Slice of Japan. The work is entitled “Who Killed My Sea Monkeys? And Other Tales of Life.”
The book is described as follows:
The world, through Joe Palermo’s eyes, is always an exciting place. His conversational writing style makes you feel as if he is regaling you with his adventures over a beer or cup of coffee. Whether writing about Smokey the Bear as his childhood therapist, the demise of his Sea Monkeys, living in Japan, or more recent events like losing his wife to a Korean boy band, you’ll feel as if you’ve experienced it yourself.
The back cover endorsement is by New York Times bestselling author Bob Greene, author of Late Edition: A Love Story.
From Bob:
Joe Palermo is a fellow with a delightful ability to bring warmth and good feelings straight from his childhood recollections, and from his current-day observations, onto the printed page. He’ll make you smile and remember.
Who Killed My Sea Monkeys? And Other Tales of Life is currently available in Kindle, paperback and hardcover formats on Amazon.
JET alum Lars Martinson publishes “Kameoka Diaries Volume 2” e-comic
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Lars Martinson (Fukuoka-ken 2003-2006), author of the graphic novels Tonoharu: Part Two andTonoharu: Part 1, has just published the Kameoka Diaries Volume 2. This is a follow-up to Kameoka Diaries Volume 1, Lars’ insightful and entertaining (especially to any JETs) e-comic about his return to teaching English, this time in Kameoka, Kyoto.
Notably, you can purchase a copy for $0.99 for iPhone/iPad/iPodTouch or pay $1 for a PDF version for Mac/PC/Android/whatever.
More info here and below: http://larsmartinson.com/kameokadiaries2-now-available/
In Lars’ words:
When I submitted my first e-comics to Apple, ( The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One and Young Men of a Certain Mind ) it took one month for them to get approved, so I’m surprised & delighted it only took two days this time. But hey, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth!
I’ll write more about the new volume of The Kameoka Diaries soon; I just wanted to get this announcement blog entry out right-away.
So please check it out. And if you enjoy it, please consider writing a review on iBooks, and/or telling your friends, and/or tweeting about it, and/or “liking” it on Facebook. Thanks a bunch!
JETwit Note: I just downloaded a copy onto my iPhone as soon as I saw the announcement. Volume 1 was great, even on an iPhone screen.
NY Times reviews “Triburbia” by JET alum Karl Taro Greenfeld
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JET alum Karl Taro Greenfeld (Kanagawa-ken, 1988-89), author of Speed Tribes: Days and Nights With Japan’s Next Generation), has a new book out titled Triburbia: A Novel which was recently reviewed by the New York Times (“Bobos in Paradise“). Here’s the link to the review: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/books/review/triburbia-by-karl-taro-greenfeld.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
- For more information about Karl Taro Greenfeld, go to his website or read the Wikipedia entry about him.
- To purchase the book on Amazon, go here: http://www.amazon.com/Triburbia-Novel-Karl-Taro-Greenfeld/dp/0062132393
