19 Oct 2023
Posted by Mata Ashita 
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Erica H. Isomura (left) and Megan Kiyoko Wray (centre) join Nico Koyanagi (right) as the new facilitators and curators for the upcoming Mata Ashita season. Photos supplied.
ONLINE — Mata Ashita: An Intergenerational Japanese Canadian Writing Circle is kicking off its new season with a free writing workshop!
Celebrate the launch of Mata Ashita’s new season with Yonsei writers Erica H. Isomura and Megan Kiyoko Wray. Erica and Megan are excited to join Nico Koyanagi as facilitators and curators for the upcoming year.
In this fall kick off event, community members are invited to join the new Mata Ashita team for a writing workshop led by Erica to explore personal roots, identity, and family history. Megan will open the event with a special poetry reading.
Writing Workshop with Erica H. Isomura
Re-making memory: Exploring family, ancestry, & origin stories
Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023, 2 to 4 p.m. ET // 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. PT
Zoom online workshop
Free to attend – registration required
In this workshop, participants are invited to join Erica to explore ways of writing about family, ancestry, and personal origin stories. Through childhood objects and family “artifacts,” we will consider both known and unknown histories and how formed memories shape us today.
This workshop is suitable for all genres and forms of writing, including poetry, fiction, non-fiction, comics, and hybrid forms. No previous writing experience is necessary—just a commitment to holding space for yourself and others as we navigate what it means to be together in a community.
Mata Ashita means see you tomorrow, and for us, that means a promise to take care of ourselves and each other during difficult times.
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.
To stay up-to-date on this next season of Mata Ashita, follow along on our Instagram @mataashitawriting or sign up for our newsletter here.
Mata Ashita is made possible by support from the National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) and the Tomoko Makabe Legacy Fund, which honours Makabe’s contributions to Japanese Canadian research and writing.
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