Exploring the World of Japanese Craft Sake: Rice Water Earth is part sake primer and part travelogue, an absorbing journey through 2,500 years of sake history that is designed for readers ranging from sake novice to industry expert. The authors tell the story of this ancient beverage through the voices of the master brewers, generational brewery owners, rice farmers, yeast researchers, koji mold merchants, bartenders and cooks who live and breathe sake. The book is illuminated throughout by their intense dedication to craft and their love of Japan’s national beverage.

This book was prompted in part by the 2016 election of Donald Trump, and the disturbing echoes of past injustices that began to reverberate after he took office. . The Trump administration’s assault on immigrant rights brought back painful reminders of the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World war II despite a complete lack of evidence of wrongdoing. Publisher Tom Adler and editor/designer Evan Backes assembled a powerful set of photographs of the Manzanar, California prison camp. I contributed an introductory essay and section introductions and a writer I admire, Pico Iyer, wrote the foreword.

This collection of essays and photographs examines a new generation of craftspeople, artisans who are seeking a more meaningful and sustainable life by reconnecting with their heritage and bygone traditions. It’s a theme that aligns perfectly with what’s happening in the world of Japanese craft sake. My contribution is a chapter on three brewers, all of whom have innovated by returning to traditional methods: One embraced the idea of creating a high quality, yet affordable sake; another returned to sourcing locally grown rice, and a third turned back the clock to a pre-industrialized form of traditional sake making.

This photo-art novel was the result of a collaboration with artist and University of New Mexico emeritus professor Patrick Nagatani. The Race marked Patrick's evolution from visual to prose storyteller, and a continuation of his interest in environmental, spiritual, feminist, and pacifist issues. It tells the story of fifteen women pilots engaged in a trans-Pacific race from Tokyo to San Francisco. Patrick created stunning photographs incorporating plane models he constructed for each character.. I was one of nine writers who contributed chapters to the novel.

This book, which I wrote in collaboration with Dr. Marcia Herrin, the founder and head of the Dartmouth College eating disorders program, grew out of a cover story that I reported for People magazine. People of all ages who struggle with this insidious mental disease are too often unjustly stigmatized for a condition that is as genetically and biologically based as diabetes or schizophrenia. They can, however, take hope in advances in the field that herald more effective treatments.

Forthcoming from UCLA’s Asian American Studies Press. What started as a passion project to translate a book of tanka poetry that my grandparents, Tomiko and Ryokuyō Matsumoto, published in 1960 grew into a decade-long project that eventually brought together a remarkable team of tanka scholars and translators. It has been a long, arduous and often exhilarating journey. There is no better method of learning the nuances of a language—or of understanding the innermost feelings of one’s long-gone family members—than translating their poetry.

COMING SOON!