Andy Couturier, MA, is an essayist, a poet and a professionally-trained writing teacher. He has written for Adbusters, the MIT press, The Oakland Tribune, Kyoto Journal, Creative Non-Fiction, The Japan Times, and The North American Review. One of his essays, "Selling Indulgence in Corporate Japan," received an editor's nomination for a Pushcart Prize. He has taught writing at California State University, Hayward, and at JFK University.

An excerpt from A Different Kind of Luxury, appeared in an anthology of ecological writings put out by MIT Press, Writing the Future. Couturier runs The Opening, a center for courses on writing, and his acclaimed book about writing from the subconscious, Writing Open the Mind was published by Ulysses Press. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Andy Couturier has written some very articulate pieces on the counterculture in Japan.” —Gary Snyder

“Andy Couturier catches everything that is essential and beautiful in Japan with a clarity, sincerity and openness that move me to the core. It’s been years since such a fresh and liberating voice has emerged to remind us of the true heart of a country that so many of us fail to see―or, indeed, to listen to.” —Pico Iyer