Tomo Still Giving

All proceeeds from sales of the book Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction--An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories are donated to support teens in the 3/11 tsunami- and earthquake-affected areas of Tohoku. 

Recently another 20,000 yen was donated to the Japanese NPO Hope for Tomorrow, which is providing educational support grants to high school students in the three hardest hit prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi, and Iwate. 

source: Wikimedia commons

In 2014, educational support grants went to 127 students in the following schools:

• Fukushima Prefectural Haramachi High School (Minami Soma City)
• Miyagi-ken Ishinomaki High School (Ishinomaki City)
• Miyagi-ken Kesennuma High School (Kesennuma City)
• Iwate Prefectural Ofunato High School (Ofunato City)
• Iwate Prefectural Takata Senior High School (Rikuzentakata City; temporarily located in Ofunato City)

Thank you to our publisher, Stone Bridge Press, and to everyone who continues to purchase copies of Tomo either in print or as an ebook. Your purchase does make a difference to teens in Tohoku. 

We hope that the stories in Tomo offer windows and mirrors to our many readers. 

In the Wake of 3/11

Today, March 11, 2015, marks the four-year anniversary of 3/11, the date of the massive earthquake and tsunami that caused tremendous devastation in northern Japan, particularly in Tohoku. There is still much struggle and hardship in the region, and Tomo has continued to support teens in Tohoku through the NPO Hope for Tomorrow. 

Ishinomaki, May 4, 2011 (photo by Holly Thompson)

Have you read the 36 stories in the Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction anthology? On this Tomo Anthology blog is an extensive Readers' Guide to the anthology, as well as many, in-depth interviews featuring author and translator contributors.

Below are some articles that may be of interest on this fourth anniversary, two of them by Louise George Kittaka, a Tomo anthology contributing author:

Putting a foreign face on the 3/11 recovery effort Japan Times

Artist delivers heartfelt tribute to 3/11 cleanup workers Japan Times

Labor of love left to wither and die in Fukushima  Japan Times

In lycra and online, foreigners are doing their bit for Tohoku Japan Times

NGOs looking out for little lives in the wake of 3/11 Japan Times

Various Tohoku stories TimeOut Tokyo

Tohoku man honors brother killed in tsunami with hundreds of carp streamers Rocket News

Japan marks 4th anniversary of 3/11 disaster NHK

And below is a free webinar to be held on April 15 by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia featuring works in two concurrent exhibits at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston: 

The Great Wave of Hokusai and the Great Wave of 3/11: Japanese Artists' Responses to Nature

Wishing all in Tohoku love and wellness--from the Tomo Anthology community of authors, translators, illustrators and the generous publisher Peter Goodman of Stone Bridge Press. 

Artistic and Activist Responses to 3/11

Soon the four-year anniversary of the March 11, 2011 Great Eastern Japan Tsunami and Earthquake will be upon us. Sales of Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction--An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories published by Stone Bridge Press continue to support teens in the tsunami and quake affected areas--teens impacted by the Tohoku Triple Disaster--via the NPO Hope for Tomorrow.

The Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction Reader's Guide continues to provide guidance for book groups, teachers and students, and is supported by the many in-depth contributor interviews featured on this blog.

This month Asia-Pacific Journal (Vol. 13, Issue 6) focuses on artistic and activist responses to the 3/11 disaster.

Alexander Brown and Vera Mackie, "Introduction: Art and Activism in Post-Disaster Japan", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 6, No. 1, February 16, 2015

The introduction by Alexander Brown and Vera Mackie contains a footnote with recommended reading that includes Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction and serves as an excellent reading list:

In addition to the extensive coverage in The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, see, inter alia, Jeff Kingston, ed., Tsunami: Japan’s Post-Fukushima Future, Foreign Policy Magazine, Washington D.C., 2011; Jeff Kingston, ed., Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan’s 3/11, Routledge, Oxford, 2012; Holly Thompson, ed., Tomo: Friendship through Fiction: An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories, Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley; David Karashima and Elmer Luke, eds, March was Made of Yarn: Reflections on Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami and Nuclear Meltdown, Vintage, New York, 2012; Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill, eds, Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan’s Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012; Mark Willacy, Fukushima: Japan’s Tsunami and the Inside Story of the Nuclear Meltdown, Pan Macmillan Australia, Sydney, 2013; Hiroshima City University 3/11 Forum, Japan’s 3/11 Disaster as Seen From Hiroshima: A Multidisciplinary Approach, Sanseidō, Tokyo, 2013; Roy Starrs, ed., When the Tsunami Came to Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan, Global Oriental, Leiden, 2014; and Japan Forum, Vol. 26, No 3, 2014.

In this Asia-Pacific Journal focus, there are eight articles in addition to the introductory piece, all tackling some aspect of artistic and activist response to the 3/11 disasters. The series makes for important reading regarding the profound effect of the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster on the lives of people in Tohoku and throughout Japan. May we never forget.