Suzanne Kamata

Japan, Tokushima

Writer at Freelance

Author of Cinnmon Beach, Indigo Girl, Squeaky Wheels, The Baseball Widow, and more. Permanent resident of Japan.

Articles

What it’s Like to be Black and Married in Japan

3 weeks ago | medium.com | Suzanne Kamata

Japonica: the publication for everything Japan: culture, life, business, language, travel, food, and everything else. A review of “Words by Baye, Art by Miki”Baye McNeil is familiar to many readers and writers in Japan.
Review of Soft as Bones

3 weeks ago | forewordreviews.com | Suzanne Kamata

A Memoir Chyana Marie Sage House of Anansi Press (May 27, 2025) Softcover $20.99 (296pp)978-1-4870-1302-8 In her gritty yet lyrical memoir Soft as Bones, Chyana Marie Sage confronts generational trauma. Sage, who is of Cree, Metis, and Salish heritage, was born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta. Her earliest memories are happy ones of running wild with her sisters on her family’s land. She adored her father, Frank, a charismatic but ill-tempered drug dealer who taught her traditional stories.
Minato Sketches: Radioactive Wild Boar, Super Mario Kart and Mid-life Desire

2 months ago | medium.com | Suzanne Kamata

A review of a novel by Sharon WhiteSuzanne Kamata·FollowPublished inJaponica Publication·3 min read·--Minato Sketches by Sharon White (published by Minerva Press)In Minato Sketches, Gigi, an American art historian recovering from a stroke, travels to post-COVID Tokyo to spend the summer teaching at a university. Her husband, also a scholar, and her two grown sons stay behind. Away from her family’s well-meaning but oppressive solicitude, Gigi can redefine herself.
How a Canadian missionary found spiritual transformation in Shikoku

2 months ago | japantimes.co.jp | Suzanne Kamata

Shikoku, with its lushly forested mountains and dramatic coastline, has long been ignored by most foreign tourists. No bullet trains connect the southern island to Japan’s larger cities, and English is a relative rarity. Recent years, however, have seen a surge in visitors who have come to embark on the Shikoku 88-Temple Pilgrimage. David Moreton is among the foreign-born devotees of the historic route, with decades of research and experience under his belt.
Review of I Know What UFO Did Last Summer

2 months ago | forewordreviews.com | Suzanne Kamata

Kevin Garone Temor Press (Mar 11, 2025) Softcover $12.99 (208pp)979-899132840-1 In Kevin Garone’s zippy novel I Know What UFO Did Last Summer, an alien-obsessed boy tries out his survival skills when a “spaceship” appears in a cornfield near his house. Twelve-year-old Marv, who lives in suburban Delaware, has just about memorized his guidebook on surviving an alien invasion (quotes from which precede each chapter).
Rusutsu Ski Resort

2 months ago | travel.gaijinpot.com | Suzanne Kamata

Rusutsu Resort is a year-round vacation spot in Hokkaido. The six on-site hotels can accommodate up to 4,000 guests. More than 30 restaurants serve a variety of cuisines, ranging from Mongolian lamb to snow crab to sushi to Chinese, at a range of prices. While visitors can enjoy golf and the amusement park in warmer weather, in winter, its slopes attract skiers and snowboarders from within Japan and abroad.
Inspired by Japanese Dolls and a Celebration of Girls - Women Writers, Women's Books

Feb 10, 2025 | booksbywomen.org | Suzanne Kamata

By Suzanne KamataIn February in Japan, where I have lived for the past 35 years, households with young daughters display hina ningyo, beautiful ornamental dolls representing the Emperor, Empress, and various courtiers. The dolls are arranged on tiered shelves, with the Emperor and Empress on the top. The full set is expensive, costing thousands of dollars. Typically, they are gifted to baby girls by their grandparents, and they are rarely passed on from generation to generation.
A Japanese-Style School in Rwanda

Oct 17, 2024 | medium.com | Suzanne Kamata

This primary school in Kigali incorporates some of the best practices Towari Marie Louise learned in JapanSuzanne Kamata·FollowPublished inJaponica Publication·4 min read·--The gate to the Umuco Mwiza School in Kigali, Rwanda (photo by the author). Just beyond the blue gates of the Umuco Mwiza School in Kigali, Rwanda, there is an outdoor sink, much like those at schools in Japan.
Review of Portrait in Red

Oct 14, 2024 | forewordreviews.com | Suzanne Kamata

A Paris Obsession L. John Harris Heyday (Nov 5, 2024) Hardcover $35.00 (320pp)978-1-59714-649-4 In his memoir Portrait in Red, L. John Harris pursues multiple avenues (and delightful detours) in an attempt to solve an art mystery in Paris. Harris, who attended art school at Berkeley in the 1960s, arrived in Paris on magazine assignment, having been asked to assess the croque-monsieur. On his first day there, he stumbled upon a discarded painting of a girl with a red head covering.
Review of Deep Fried

Aug 28, 2024 | forewordreviews.com | Suzanne Kamata

Mark Doyon Wampus Multimedia (247pp)979-898503534-6 Clarion Rating: 3 out of 5 Consequential connections form among the denizens of a food truck lot in the intriguing novel Deep Fried. A food truck lot just outside of a county courthouse serves as the primary setting of Mark Doyon’s polyphonic novel Deep Fried. Over the course of a year, starting in May of 2014, various dramas are enacted by a motley crew that serves as a microcosm of their community near Washington, DC.