The Witches Play Macbethby Marianne Kimura In Birnam Wood, we’d all meet, all the witches, to dance. We’d twirl and skip under the stars with the god Pan. No dull churches for him: he could be found only in groves and grottoes, riverbanks and the little sandy edges of the Forfar Loch, where grasses grew. …Read More
Category: Featured Writings (Page 2 of 14)
Featured writing
This is the second part of an extract by David Joiner from his work in progress. For Part One with an introduction by the author, click here. (NB Because of WordPress rules, the formatting has been changed.) *************** The Shirasagi Express felt longer going back to Kanazawa. Sedge and his friends had turned a row …Read More
Hitoshi knelt on a blue cushion in the doorway leading out to the garden. Every evening he opened the outer doors and the sliding screens regardless of the season, and waited for Michiko until long after the sun had disappeared behind the trees. His heart knew that she would never return, but his head was stubborn.
A traditional Japanese neighbourhood is a lot like a small fiefdom; it rolls with its own rules and rosters, elects its own committees, demands that its denizens perform seasonal duties such as river cleaning and shouldering a portable Shinto shrine at festival time, and is usually presided over by a big kahuna and his/her sidekick, a treasurer.
by Preston Houser There once was a monk from Great Plains Who was stunned by Love’s cryptic claims. Love liberates from bondage Lonely hearts taken hostage And sets the free in chains. There once was a monk from St. Klaus Perplexed by love because Unlike the shadow it casts It’s fun while it …Read More
This is the second part of a short story by Tina deBellegarde. For Part One, please see here. ************ It is a quiet Saturday and Aki finds herself alone. Natsumi was out late drinking the night before and won’t be coming into the store. She doesn’t mind. Aki enjoys the walk to work. She carries …Read More
LOVELY!A short story by Tina deBellegarde A buffeting wind shakes the display window and Aki looks up from the register. Outside is a tall young man, certainly a foreigner, his back to the window, reading off of a scrap of paper in one hand, holding the handlebar of his bicycle with the other. The wind …Read More
Considering Sōseki’s「京に着ける夕」”Kyō ni tsukeru yūbe” as a haibunBy Richard Donovan In the first part of Natsume Sōseki’s account of a visit to Kyoto in the spring of 1907, the author and his hosts run their rickshaws ever further north. At the same time, Sōseki and his thoughts rush onwards across the psychological terrain of memory and …Read More
by Preston Keido Houser There once was a monk from Tangier Whose prayers left him nothing to hear But by embracing the violence Of interminable silence Did a mantra appear to his ear There once was a monk from Bayonne Who was blind to the beam he was shown But by loving his eyes Did …Read More
Meet Your Inner Witch in Just Five Easy Stepsby Marianne Kimura Introduction: I’ve had to find out a lot about witches in the course of writing academic pieces about Shakespeare’s plays with witches, such as Macbeth, or in which some sort of magic occurs, like The Winter’s Tale. From my gleanings, I wrote this brief …Read More
WiK Writing Competition
Eighth Annual Writing Competition Winners (2023)
Previous years:
Seventh Annual Writing Competition Winners (2022)
WiK Anthologies
The Nature of Kyoto (2023)
Eds. Lisa Twaronite Sone & Robert Weis
Foreword by Pico Iyer
Structures of Kyoto (2021)
Eds: Rebecca Otowa & Karen Lee Tawarayama
Foreword by Judith Clancy
Encounters with Kyoto (2019)
Eds: Jann Williams & Ian Josh Yates
Foreword by Juliet Winters Carpenter
Echoes (2017)
Eds: John Dougill, Amy Chavez, & Mark Richardson
Preface by Alex Kerr
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