July 15 - Tokyo: SWET Kanto Summer Party and Book Fair
SWET Kanto Summer Party and SWET Book Fair
Date: July 15, 2011 (Friday)
Book Fair Open: 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Party (Meal) Time: 7:00-8:30 p.m. (Catering by To the Moon and Back)
Place: Room 205, Wesley Center, Minami Aoyama, Tokyo (東京都港区南青山6－10 for mobile GPS users)
Party Fee: 4,000 yen per person (covers food and room fees only; please bring a bottle of your preferred beverage to drink and share)
RSVP required by July 12 by writing to SWET Events or sending a fax to 03-3430-1740.
Those attending only to shop at the Book Fair may come and go freely. You may mingle at the party, but please bring your own food if you do not make a reservation.
Download PDF map at: http://www.telljp.com/images/uploads/new.TELL.map.4.pdf
Party
Take a break from your cyber-centered life to connect and reconnect with friends and fellow professionals at our Summer Party for those in the Kanto area. Wordsmiths new to Japan are especially welcome and encouraged to come and talk to veterans and potential collaborators. Contact friends and take advantage of this reasonably priced chance for good eating and conviviality with wordsmithing birds of your feather.
SWET Book Fair
The proceeds of this Book Fair will go to support SWET and its activities. The books for sale include a rich trove of trade fiction and both fiction and non-fiction published by Kodansha International, in addition to books on writing and style. The Book Fair welcomes contributions of books you think will have appeal particularly among SWET readers. Please write to SWET Events if you want to send books.
July 9 - Kyoto: Japanese Children’s Literature and the Discovery of the Child, with Joan Ericson
Japanese Children's Literature and the Discovery of the Child, with Joan Ericson
Date: July 9, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 1:30-5:00 p.m.
Place: Doshisha Women's College (Imadegawa campus), James Hall, Kyoto
Access: Subway Imadegawa Station, walk east about 8 min. Campus map (James Hall is No. 2)
Attendance fee: free of charge; all are welcome
Sponsored by the Doshisha Women's College English Department and Graduate School and SWET
To receive preparatory reading materials, please write to: SWET Events
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Professor of Japanese literature at Colorado College Joan Ericson, currently in Japan on sabbatical, will give an overview of the history of Japanese children's literature with special emphasis on early 20th century topics such as the uses of fables and folktales, Taisho literary magazines for children, proletarian children's literature, and the contributions of women writers that form the context of the genre today. The talk will be aimed at giving translators of children's literature a historical context for appreciation of their work.
December 6 - J-Boys: From Inspiration to Translation
The Story of Middle Grade Novel J-Boys: Kazuo’s World, Tokyo, 1965
Date: December 6, 2011
Time: 6:00 p.m. bento supper, presentation 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Place: Rm. 204, Wesley Center, 6-10-7 Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo (map)
Admission fee: SWET and SCBWI members 1,000 yen; nonmembers 1,500 yen
J-Boys themed dinner bento: 1,500 yen with advance reservation
Reservations and information: SWET Events. (Bento reservations are required by November 30.)
In Japan, a new Olympic bid is underway and adults wax nostalgic about the 1964 Tokyo Games, as well as the economic boom years of the 1960s. What was it like to be a child at that time, and how can this be conveyed to upper elementary school children in North America? Shogo Oketani lives in the same Shinagawa Ward neighborhood where, as a youngster, he ate curry rice, watched Leave It to Beaver on TV, listened to the Beatles, and watched adults remember World War II. In this presentation, he will describe how he developed his experiences into fifteen linked short stories about nine-year-old Kazuo Nakamoto, his friends, and his working-class community. Oketani's wife Leza Lowitz will discuss the subsequent transformation of the Japanese stories into an English-language novel targeted to the U.S. middle grade (MG) market, called J-Boys: Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965. Oketani and Lowitz will read excerpts from the text and present historical photographs used in the book and ebook. Translator Avery Fischer Udagawa will comment via Skype about the novel’s niche among Asia-focused MG titles. Holly Thompson will moderate the exchange. Join us for an evening of Showa supper dishes, glimpses of Tokyo past, and reflections on contemporary children’s literature.
This event is co-sponsored by the Society of Writers, Editors, and Translators (SWET) and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Tokyo Chapter.
Shogo Oketani was born in 1958 and raised in Tokyo. Following studies in the humanities at Keio University, he became an active writer and translator. He is well known for his translations of modernist poet Ayukawa Nobuo, for which he and his wife, Leza Lowitz, received the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture at Columbia University, and a grant from the NEA.
Leza Lowitz is an award-winning writer and yoga instructor whose work has recently appeared in The Huffington Post, Shambhala Sun, and Best Buddhist Writing of 2011. She has authored more than a dozen books. Her latest title is Yoga Heart: Lines on the Six Perfections.
Avery Fischer Udagawa parents, writes, and translates in a bicultural (Japanese/American) family living north of Bangkok. She co-leads the SCBWI Tokyo Translation Group and contributes the column Four Worlds to Literary Mama.
Holly Thompson is the author of the novels Orchards and Ash and the picture book The Wakame Gatherers, and editor of the forthcoming young adult fiction anthology Tomo. She teaches creative and academic writing at Yokohama City University and is regional advisor of the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.
November 27 - SWET Bay Area Meeting
Date: Sunday, 27 November 2011
Time: 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Place: University of California, Berkeley, Room 0156 Dwinelle (near Sather Gate, enter campus from Bancroft and Telegraph)
Further information: Beth Cary, bdcary[at]attglobal.net
Featuring Yoko Hasegawa talking about her book, The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation. Finding no helpful textbook on translating Japanese when she began to teach a course in translation, Yoko Hasegawa has written this volume which combines the theory and practice of Japanese-English translation. The book offers information on the process and problems often encountered in the work of translation, particularly the structural and stylistic differences between Japanese and English. The book provides many practice texts and practical tools that are helpful for beginning and experienced translators.
Yoko Hasegawa received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from UC Berkeley where she teaches Japanese Linguistics and serves as Coordinator of the Japanese Language Program.
Her publications include:
The Routledge Course in Japanese Translation (Routledge, 2011),
Soliloquy in Japanese and English (John Benjamins, 2010),
Nihongo kara mita Nihonjin: Shutaisei no gengogaku (with Y. Hirose, Kaitakusha, 2010)
December 4 - SWET/JAT Kansai Bonenkai
Date & Time: December 4th, 5–8 p.m.
Location: Misono in Namba, Osaka (map)
Getting there: If you come out Namba Takashimaya's main entrance, you will see Starbucks across the road on the right. Go through the shotengai and
you will find Misono on your left after you leave the shotengai.
Cost: ¥5,000 yen for nabe and 3-hour nomihodai
(We have a private room, so it'll be non-smoking event.)
RSVP: By December 2nd to SWET Kansai