Holly Thompson (author of the foreword and editor of
Tomo) earned an MA from the NYU creative writing program and is the author of fiction set in Japan: the novel
Ash, the picture book
The Wakame Gatherers, and the verse novel
Orchards, which received the 2012 APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. A longtime resident of Japan, she teaches creative and academic writing at Yokohama City University and is regional advisor of the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Visit her website:
www.hatbooks.com
Debbie Ridpath Ohi (author/illustrator of the
Tomo story "Kodama") interviewed Holly Thompson for Debbie's Inkygirl.com website. See the full interview
here; you can post a comment there for a chance to win a copy of the
Tomo anthology.
Holly's message to Tohoku teens lies in the words at the end of the foreword to Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction:
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| Holly Thompson doing tsunami cleanup work in Ishinomaki |
"May the hard-hit communities of northern Japan find the strength to move forward. May the young people of Japan cultivate a spirit of compassion and play key roles in reviving Tohoku.
Tomo 友 means "friend," and I am profoundly grateful to everyone who joins me in saying to the people of Tohoku: We are with you, we will help you, we will cheer you as you take your steps to recover."
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