A little about me…

I am a writer, educator, and Director of Education at The Porch based in Nashville, Tennessee.

I grew up moving back and forth between Tokyo and California, and I spent most of my life feeling like a Japanese person living abroad or a foreigner living in Japan. I have a B.A. in philosophy from Barnard College and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Columbia University, where I taught undergraduate writing. I also worked in the book publishing industry in both editorial and publicity departments. In the summer of 2017, I made the big move to Nashville, Tennessee with my husband, where I started working as a creative writing instructor at The Porch.

My writing has appeared in The Atlantic, NPR, Lit Hub, The Japan Times, The New Inquiry, and elsewhere. I was a 2019-2020 OZ Art Wire Fellow, the winner of the 2020 Tennessee True Stories Contest, and a recipient of the Tennessee Arts Commission literary fellowship. In 2023 I was accepted to the Hewnoaks Residency and the Baldwin For The Arts Fellowship. In 2024 I was selected by South Arts as the Tennessee Fellow for Literary Arts, and won the inaugural Southern Prize for Literary Arts.

As an emerging novelist, I am represented by Martha Wydysh at Trident Media Group. 

I play the viola with the Nashville Philharmonic Orchestra and serve on their board as Vice President. I wrote the copy for the social justice campaign, More Than A Menu. In 2022, I founded the Nashville AAPI Writers group. Throughout 2022-23, I worked as a Production Coordinator on a documentary film by Joe Gomez and Vanita Joines at Cerulean, titled Room To Play. I also facilitate the virtual book club for the Japan-America Society of Tennessee, where we discuss various Japanese literature translated into English.