Futaba, Fukushima Pref. – 

On the first weekend of November, dozens of poets, novelists, translators and other literary aspirants descended on Futaba, Fukushima Prefecture, bringing an international presence to a quiet coastal town on the rebound.

This year marked the 18th edition of the Japan Writers Conference (JWC) and only the second fully in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic. Across more than two dozen sessions over a day and a half, presenters and attendees grappled with a range of professional and aesthetic concerns in the domain of English-language writing.

Held in partnership with the Futaba Area Tourism Research Association, this year’s program took place in a town still vying to reinvent itself in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. (The Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant is located between Futaba and neighboring Okuma and is still in the lengthy process of decommissioning.)

JWC sessions are notably brisk, typically consisting of single presentations followed by a Q&A within 50-minute blocks of time. C.E.J. Simons, a British Canadian senior associate professor of British literature and creative writing at International Christian University, helmed an early morning session on poetry and photography inspired by the post-disaster landscapes of Fukushima, interrogating the ethical stakes of such observation and engagement. The role of climate change in literary world-building and speculative fiction was the focus for Sara Ellis, 57, an American senior assistant professor at Meiji University, who concluded her session with a writing prompt for participants to consider the impact of environmental degradation on cultural memory.

Source: The Japan Times

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