Beginning on January 9, 2021 and continuing on the first Saturday of each month in Spring and Summer 2021, Mata Ashita will host Japanese Canadian artists over Zoom and invite the community to participate in an online creative writing workshop inspired by their work.
The workshops begin at 12 pm pacific/3 pm eastern and feature a 30-minute Q&A followed by an hour-long writing exploration. Each session will be led by an experienced writing-for-wellness facilitator and will include a community support specialist.
We hope that these workshops will help us engage in meaningful conversations around creativity, connection, and mental health, especially at a time when it is harder than ever for us to be together. We are also looking forward to highlighting classic Japanese Canadian works and new material from rising stars in the literary community.
Mata Ashita means see you tomorrow, and for us, that means a promise to take care of ourselves and each other during this difficult time. Japanese Canadian writing has long been a medium through which our community has found incredible power and meaning, and we hope to continue this tradition with writers new and old.
Mata Ashita is made possible by the Tomoko Makabe Legacy Fund, which honours her contribution to Japanese Canadian research and writing.