Authors

A retired diplomat and accomplished, award-winning haiku poet, began composing haiku in a haiku group that met at the foot of Mt. Fuji, led by Japanese haiku master Momoko Kuroda.

Having struggled to learn Chinese outside of a classroom setting, understands how difficult and daunting learning a new language can be. He explores practical tips and tricks for becoming fluent in his book Chinese 24/7.

Lived in Japan for 25 years and writes about cultural differences between Japan and the West for the Japan Times, Huffpo, and RocketNews24.

A freelance journalist who has written about anime for fifteen years. His articles and reviews have appeared in Animerica, Total Anime, Neo, Manga Max, SFX, Sight and Sound, Empire, and other outlets.

Azby Brown is a leading authority on Japanese architecture, design, and environmentalism and the author of several groundbreaking books.

Program Manager at CUNY-TV in New York, was a regular contributor to Animerica: Anime & Manga Monthly, and has taught a course on anime at New York's School of Visual Arts.

Cassandra Rockwood Ghanem is a San Francisco Bay Area-based poet and illustrator. 

Born in Tokyo, a translator of scientific documents and author of Katakana Tangology.

David Watts Barton is a Berlin-based, award-winning freelance journalist who has covered popular music, culture, religion, travel and other topics for 40 years, in newspapers and magazines, on radio and online.

Has published over a hundred literary and erotic stories and essays in Prairie Schooner, Gettysburg Review, Fourth Genre, Wine Spectator, Best American Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, and Best Women’s Erotica. 

A writer in Berkeley, California. In addition to placing 315 articles in 35 markets, she has published two books. Both are in their second printings.

A retired psychologist, has been a student of Eastern philosophies for decades and has previously published translations of several sacred works. He lives in eastern Virginia.

Author of numerous articles and book chapters on the literature and culture of the Qing dynasty and the Republican Period, Sino-Japanese cultural relations, post-socialist Chinese cinema, and contemporary Chinese art.

Freeman Ng is a former Google software engineer turned haiku poet and writer.

A writer on anime, manga and Japanese culture. He has taken his popular anime website and created a print version in the form of The Anime Companion.

Studied Zen Buddhism since the early 1970s and is currently Associate Professor of music at Kauai Community College.

Developed a love of art early on, and her first illustration project, Wendy Tokuda's Humphrey, the Lost Whale: A True Story, was published shortly after she completed college.

The former editor of Anime UK and Manga Mania magazines and the author of several books. A winner of the Japan Festival Award for outstanding contributions to the understanding of Japanese culture, McCarthy regularly curates films at the Barbican in London.

A prolific, award-winning translator of classical and modern Japanese poetry into English. American poet Gary Snyder has called Sato "perhaps the finest translator of contemporary Japanese poetry into American English."

Hiromi Kawakami is one of Japan’s most popular novelists.

A comic artist from Japan whose comics have been published by several companies in Japan as well as worldwide.

A lecturer in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, UK where he teaches contemporary Japanese cinema, has had a number of articles published on world cinema, with a particular emphasis on Japanese film.

Visiting professor at Tokyo Keizai University and lecturer at Showa Women's University, teaches courses on cross-cultural communication, language policy, and Northeast Asian regional issues.

Arturo Silva spent 18 years in Tokyo and now lives in Vienna, Austria, where he teaches and writes about film.

A professor of Japanese at Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British. Japanologistsactive in Japan during the late 19th century.

President of Szepko International Inc., a consulting firm whose mission is developing individual and organizational effectiveness.

Has written numerous articles on Japanese gardens and won awards, including the Ikea Award 1996 for landscape design and the Monbusho Grant 2000 from the Japanese Ministry of Education.

David Joiner's writing has appeared in literary journals and elsewhere, including Echoes: Writers in Kyoto 2017, The Brooklyn Rail, Phoebe Journal, The Ontario Review, and The Madison Review. His first novel, Lotusland, set in contemporary Vietnam, was published in 2015 by Guernica Editions.

Well known for his instrumental role in introducing Japanese film to the West and for his travel memoir The Inland Sea, which was adapted into a popular PBS documentary. 

An educator who helped introduce Westerners to traditional Japanese art forms. An important educator during the modernization of Japan during the Meiji Era, Fenollosa was an enthusiastic Orientalist who did much to preserve traditional Japanese art.

Was the most prolific author on origami in the English language and a pioneer in spreading the art in the United States. She was the creator of more than 250 original origami designs and traveled in 31 countries where she met with many local artists and artisans.

Discovered manga and anime in the 1970s and was a co-founder of the first American anime fan club in 1977. He has been writing about anime since the early 1980s for popular culture magazines like Starlog and for specialty magazines like Manga Max. 

Fluent in spoken and written Japanese, is an author and translator of impressive breadth. He has written extensively on Japanese manga, as well as on pop culture, technology, and history. 

The author of Being Japanese American (Stone Bridge Press, 2004) and co-author of The Toy Book (Knopf, 1991).

Gregg Krech is the author of five books on Japanese Psychology, including The Art of Taking Action (2015), which has been an Amazon bestseller for five years. His books have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Romanian. 

Director of the Sennin Foundation Center for Japanese Cultural Arts. He has decades of training in Japanese yoga, healing arts, martial arts, and fine arts.

Began a taiko career in the 1980s, performing in feature film soundtracks, recordings and live events worldwide with San Francisco Taiko Dojo.

Immigrated to the United States in 1904 where he wrote The Four Immigrants Manga,  an early example of autobiographical comics.

Hiromi Ito came to national attention in Japan in the 1980s for her groundbreaking poetry about pregnancy, childbirth, and female sexuality. 

Recipient of the 43rd Bukkyo Dendo Distinguished Service Award. The honour is presented to personalities who have made important contributions to the promotion of Buddhism.