Mom Writer’s Literary Magazine

 

An Interview with Suzanna Kamata
by Jackie Papandrew

 

Suzanne Kamata was born and raised in Michigan until she was 16, when her family moved to South Carolina. After graduating from the University of South Carolina, she went to Japan to teach English for a year and ended up staying there. She lives and writes in Tokushima Prefecture with her husband and twins. Her first novel, Losing Kei, was published in January 2008. Kamata also published in 2008 an   anthology featuring the writing of mothers raising children with special needs called Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs and a Spanish-English picture book for children called Playing for Papa. Her next book, Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering – an anthology of essays by women around the world – will be published in May of 2009. You can visit Kamata’s Web site at www.suzannekamata.com.

MWLM:Tell us about the life of an expatriate writer in Japan. Did you start writing after you moved to Japan or were you writing before then?

SK: I've been writing since childhood, when I wrote stories on demand for my friends. I decided early on that I wanted to be an author. The first stories that I published were written in the United States, but I didn't start sending my work out in a serious way until I came to Japan at the age of 22. I had to prove to myself that I could succeed as a writer while living in rural Japan before I could commit to marrying my now-husband and staying (in Japan).

MWLM: How has living overseas changed your writing and changed you as a person? 

SK: Probably the biggest change in my writing would have to do with subject matter. Living in Japan has certainly given me a lot to write about. I sometimes wonder what on earth I would write about if I were still living in Michigan where I grew up, or in South Carolina, which is teeming with wonderful writers.  Being a minority also helps me to see things from a different point of view. I think that I was blissfully ignorant of many things when I was growing up blonde and blue-eyed in the Midwest, where there were hardly any minorities. Now that I have some idea of what it's like to not fit in, I am more interested in diversity. I don't set out to write political fiction, but since I am more interested in human rights than I might have been before, these themes find their way into my stories.

In Japan, motherhood is all about self-sacrifice. Women actually quit their jobs so that they can be active in the PTA. I sometimes get the feeling that anything I do that isn't connected to my children is selfish. In the States, however, and maybe the West in general, people tend to believe that a happy, self-fulfilled mother is a good mother. I try to keep that in mind. I think it's important for my children to see me doing something that I'm passionate about that isn't necessarily connected to them. A few years back, someone asked my son what his father did and what his mother did. He said that I did nothing! I was shocked, and ever since then I've made an effort to share my writing successes with my kids. I take them along to readings and book signings, and I show them my essays and stories in magazines. They don't like it so much when I'm gone overnight, but they're very proud of me. 

MWLM: Tell us about the books you’ve written. First, your novel, Losing Kei, which tells the story of an American woman living in Japan who faces the prospect of losing her Japanese-born son. What motivated you to write this book, and how did you come up with the plot? 

SK: Several years ago, I came across a magazine article about expatriate parents in Japan who'd lost custody of their children and were then denied access to them. In Japan, there is no such thing as joint custody. I think that some Japanese parents feel that it is less confusing for children if they have no contact with the non-custodial parent. Or maybe Japanese divorces are just more vindictive than what we Westerners are used to. At any rate, one of the parents profiled in this article was an American journalist who had lost custody of her son to her Japanese ex-husband. At first, she was allowed to see him, but the boy's father and his new wife gradually turned the boy against his mother until he no longer had any desire to see her. I wondered what that would be like – to lose custody of one's son and to have no legal recourse – and I thought it might be interesting to explore in fiction. I originally wrote it as a short story.  In the end, the mother is getting on a plane bound for the United States, resigned to losing her son. Then I had children of my own, and I realized that she would not have gone away so quietly. She would have done whatever it took to get her son back.

MWLM: How long did it take you to write it?

SK: It took about three years. I was taking care of toddler twins while I was writing it.

MWLM: What kind of reader reaction have you received to the book?

SK: The reaction has been very positive. Parents in Japan are very aware of custody issues here and tend to focus on that aspect, but I think that mothers from all over – and readers who don't have children – get it. There are a lot of novels about expatriates in Japan, but the protagonists are usually single and gallivanting around Tokyo. Very few novels show what it’s like to be part of a Japanese family as an expat. I think this makes Losing Kei unique.

MWLM: Has the book also been published in Japan?

SK: It hasn't been translated into Japanese, no. I think it would have a better chance of being translated if it presented a glowingly positive image of Japan.   

MWLM: You’ve also published an anthology called Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs. What led you to put together this anthology?

SK: My twins were born 14 weeks premature, and as a result, my daughter is deaf and has cerebral palsy.  When she was diagnosed, I was eager to read serious novels and memoirs concerning families of special needs kids. I found a lot of, "Don't worry, be happy," type essays, but what I really wanted to know was how having a child with special needs would impact my marriage and my son. I wanted an idea of what was to come in the months and years ahead. I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and I wanted to hear it (or read it, rather) straight. Amazingly, at the time, there was very little on the subject, so I decided to put a book together on my own. As I wrote in the introduction, the book is intended to be a portable support group for readers in far-flung places. I also hope that it will help relatives, teachers and care-givers to understand the lives of families of special needs kids. It's, at times, a brutally honest book, but I think it's also filled with beauty, if I do say so myself.

MWLM: Does the anthology include writers from different countries and cultures?

SK: Most of the writers are American. Different cultures have different views of disability. As an American, I sometimes have a hard time relating to the way Japanese mothers feel about disability (worrying about siblings' marriage prospects, etc.), and I was eager to connect with Westerners with similar points of view. One writer, Sheila Kohler (who happens to be one of my favorite writers), is originally from South Africa. Another, Darshan Perusek, is from India but now lives in the United States.  She served for many years as editor of Kaleidoscope, a fine literary magazine devoted to disability issues.  Her daughter has cerebral palsy, but in the essay in the book, she writes about her brother Manu and his developmentally disabled son in India. My contribution, of course, is about mothering a disabled child in Japan. Contributor Marie Myung-Ok Lee is Korean-American, and Carol Zapata-Whelan comes from the Latino community.

MWLM: What did you learn from the stories in the anthology?

SK: I learned that I'm not alone, that others have felt the same emotions that I felt – anger, grief – and also joy. A lot of people think that having a disabled child is an inherently negative experience, but I think that these essays, stories and poems show that families with special needs kids have a lot in common with other families.     

MWLM: You’ve also published a bilingual (Spanish and English) picture book called Playing for Papa. Tell us how this book came about and what led you, an American living in Japan, to do a bilingual picture book.

SK: I started writing stories for my children when they were small, and I published a few stories in magazines like Ladybug and Skipping Stones. My son asked me to write a story about him playing baseball with his dad, who is a high school baseball coach. Playing for Papa was the result. It was first published in a magazine in the States, but out of all my children's stories, this was the one I most wanted to see published as a picture book. I sent it to several children's book publishers in the States, and got some encouraging replies, but no contracts. Although a lot of American publishers are interested in publishing books featuring multicultural families in the United States, they are not so interested in publishing books about multicultural families elsewhere. Then I stumbled across a blog post on the Internet on a book about a deaf girl published by Topka Books in Spain. I checked out the publisher's Web site and found that they were committed to publishing bilingual books about multicultural kids and kids with disabilities engaged in ordinary activities. Since Playing for Papa involves a multicultural family with a special needs child, I felt that the press was perfect for my story, and they agreed. Playing for Papa was published last November.

MWLM: Tell us about your children and about some of the differences you’ve found raising children in Japan versus the United States. Are your children bilingual?

SK: School is pretty intense here, so it seems that I spend a lot of time telling my kids to do their homework. My son is often jealous of his American cousins who hardly have any homework at all and who have long, long summer vacations. Also, teachers are always reminding me that my daughter's future success depends entirely upon me! As I mentioned above, mothers are expected to devote their lives to their children. My parents would sometimes hire a babysitter and go out as a couple, but that doesn't happen much here.   

My son is fluent in both English and Japanese, and knows a little Japanese sign language. My daughter's first language is Japanese Sign Language, though she is learning Japanese as well.

MWLM: Do you have a writing schedule? How do you juggle the responsibilities of motherhood and all the other activities/duties we all have nowadays with writing? 

SK: When my kids were smaller, I wrote during naptimes or I'd have my husband or a friend look after the kids while I went to a cafe to write for an hour or so. Now that they are in school, I have a few free hours in the week for writing. But I also teach part-time, and there are many school events which I am expected to attend, so it's hard to keep to a schedule. Basically, I try to write when I have the chance. Some things fall by the wayside. As I write this, there is a pile of laundry at the foot of my bed waiting to be put away. 

MWLM: How were you able to find publishers for your books?

SK: I published a couple of excerpts from my novel in literary journals. An agent read one of the excerpts, liked it and contacted me. She sold my novel to Leapfrog Press. I submitted Love You to Pieces to Beacon Press on my own. I knew that they had published books on disability, anthologies and poetry. It seemed like a good fit, and it was. I submitted Call Me Okaasan on my own, as well. I targeted Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing because I knew that the press specialized in non-fiction books by and about mothers, and that publisher Nancy Cleary had previously published a couple of books by expatriate writers. Also, with a multicultural presidential candidate in the news, the timing seemed right. Nancy seemed to agree.  

MWLM: What advice would you have to mom writers, both those in the United States and expatriate moms who’d like to incorporate their experiences living in other countries into their writing?

SK: As they say, write about what you know. There is a boom in writing related to motherhood at the moment, so I think now is a great time to be a mom writer. I would personally love to read more about the lives of expatriate mothers. Not so long ago, I was asked to write up some novels/memoirs about mothers abroad, but I couldn't come up with any. I was then compelled to put together a collection of essays on mothering across cultures. The result is Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering.  I'm sure there are more great stories on the topic out there. My advice would be to get your words on paper (or on disc, as the case may be), and share your work with fellow writers. Get feedback. Revise. Research the markets. And then submit, submit, submit. Once your work is out there in print or online, amazing things can happen. Persistence is key.

MWLM: Who are some of your favorite authors?

SK: Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Julio Cortázar, Michael Ondaatje, Louise Erdrich, Jayne Anne Phillips, Marguerite Duras

MWLM: Do you always have more books piled on your nightstand than you can read?

SK: Of course!

MWLM: What’s on that nightstand right now?

SK: One Big Happy Family, the latest anthology by Rebecca Walker; Saffron Dreams, a novel about a Muslim Pakistani widow in post-9/11 America by Shaila Abdullah; Mother in the Middle: A Biologist's Story of Caring for Parent and Child by Sybil Lockhart; Teeth, a collection of poetry by Aracelis Girmay; and Death of a Circus by Chandra Prasad. Plus, quite a few magazines.

MWLM: Anything else you’d like to add?

SK: I think it's sometimes hard for mothers to give themselves permission to write. But if you've got a story to tell, don't let anything stop you. There's always time in the day to write – five minutes while you're waiting for the pot to boil, 10 minutes while waiting to pick your kid up from school, or maybe during your kid's soccer practice or ballet lesson. Carry a pen and notebook everywhere you go. Don't give up, no matter what.

 

 

 

 

Jackie Papandrew is an award-winning writer and editor. Her humor column – Airing My Dirty Laundry – appears in several newspapers in the United States and Canada. Visit www.jackiepapandrew.com to read more of her work.