Emily Midorikawa
@emilymidorikawa.bsky.social
Debut novel, A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, out July 2026. Also the author of group biographies OUT OF THE SHADOWS, & A SECRET SISTERHOOD (coauthored with Emma Claire Sweeney).
Pinned
So happy that my next book - & debut novel - will be published by @manillapress.bsky.social in July 2026. A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, set in Japan in the early 2000s, is the story of two young friends - a nightclub hostess & a school teacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.
'The two women turned what was little more than a collection of old sheds into a purpose-built, stylish studio and shop...' @akennedysmith.bsky.social on the creative & entrepreneurial collaboration between friends & photographers Lettice Ramsey & Helen Muspratt.
I wrote about Cambridge photographer Lettice Ramsey (1898–1985) and why she should be better known. #Ramsey&Muspratt
Woman with a camera
Lettice Ramsey (1898–1985)
open.substack.com
February 17, 2026 at 5:03 PM
'The two women turned what was little more than a collection of old sheds into a purpose-built, stylish studio and shop...' @akennedysmith.bsky.social on the creative & entrepreneurial collaboration between friends & photographers Lettice Ramsey & Helen Muspratt.
From today until Friday (17 Feb), @waterstones.bsky.social is offering 25% off preorders for my debut novel, A TINY SPECK OF BLACK & THEN NOTHING. Set in Osaka in the early 2000s, it's the story of 2 young friends - a nightclub hostess & a schoolteacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.
February 17, 2026 at 3:04 PM
From today until Friday (17 Feb), @waterstones.bsky.social is offering 25% off preorders for my debut novel, A TINY SPECK OF BLACK & THEN NOTHING. Set in Osaka in the early 2000s, it's the story of 2 young friends - a nightclub hostess & a schoolteacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.
So happy that my next book - & debut novel - will be published by @manillapress.bsky.social in July 2026. A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, set in Japan in the early 2000s, is the story of two young friends - a nightclub hostess & a school teacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.
February 16, 2026 at 6:39 PM
So happy that my next book - & debut novel - will be published by @manillapress.bsky.social in July 2026. A TINY SPECK OF BLACK AND THEN NOTHING, set in Japan in the early 2000s, is the story of two young friends - a nightclub hostess & a school teacher - & what happens when one of them disappears.
This episode of the @readjapaneseliterature.com provides some really interesting historical & literary context for those only acquainted with the later filmic versions of these kaiju.
RJL's latest is now available.
We look at the writers behind two of Japan's greatest movie monsters—Godzilla and Mothra.
Context, authors, stories, and a close with a reflection on why the stories behind the movies are important, even for people who have already seen the films.
We look at the writers behind two of Japan's greatest movie monsters—Godzilla and Mothra.
Context, authors, stories, and a close with a reflection on why the stories behind the movies are important, even for people who have already seen the films.
Episode 48—Japanese Monster Stories on the Big Screen - Read Japanese Literature
In this episode, we look at the writers behind two of Japan's greatest movie monsters—Godzilla and Mothra. We'll start out by looking at Godzilla—its context, author, and story—before we turn to Moth…
https://readjapaneseliterature.com/Podcast/Episode+48—Japanese+Monster+Stories+on+the+Big+Screen
February 12, 2026 at 7:43 PM
This episode of the @readjapaneseliterature.com provides some really interesting historical & literary context for those only acquainted with the later filmic versions of these kaiju.
'When I was a child, my father recounted tales about our ancestors, and his stories were so fantastical they seemed like fairy tales.' As a fellow author who's worked elements of family stories & research-based history into their books, I was fascinated by this Lit Hub essay by Janie Chang.
How writing historical fiction helped Janie Chang understand her Chinese parents and her family history.
How Writing My Books Helped Me Understand My Chinese Parents
I was one of those: a rebellious teenager with traditional Chinese parents. I chafed at my father’s strictness, at his expectations of absolute obedience, his insistence on perfect grades. I ran in…
buff.ly
February 11, 2026 at 5:36 PM
'When I was a child, my father recounted tales about our ancestors, and his stories were so fantastical they seemed like fairy tales.' As a fellow author who's worked elements of family stories & research-based history into their books, I was fascinated by this Lit Hub essay by Janie Chang.
Bluebell Magazine is open for submissions again (until 1 March): bluebellmagazine.substack.com/p/february-s...
February Submission Call: The Day that Changed Everything
Bluebell looks to showcase new talent from around the world. After graduating from UEA's Creative Writing Master’s Program, we were inspired to build an international community that uplifts new perspe...
bluebellmagazine.substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Bluebell Magazine is open for submissions again (until 1 March): bluebellmagazine.substack.com/p/february-s...
This brought back some comparable memories of my own past days as a bookseller & library assistant. I'm really enjoying these insights by @ruppin.bsky.social on the new Substack for Little Goat Barn writing retreats & mentoring services: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...
Photos of dinosaurs
Or why bookselling is a calling for ontologists, bibliognosts and know-it-alls
open.substack.com
February 9, 2026 at 2:56 PM
This brought back some comparable memories of my own past days as a bookseller & library assistant. I'm really enjoying these insights by @ruppin.bsky.social on the new Substack for Little Goat Barn writing retreats & mentoring services: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...
I enjoyed this glimpse of the country life in this piece by @ruppin.bsky.social - one half of the team behind the Little Goat Barn writing retreats in North Wales, which will be opening in the Vale of Clywd later this year: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...
On being an industrial hazard
Or why some jobs are best left to people who actually know what they're doing
open.substack.com
February 3, 2026 at 5:51 PM
I enjoyed this glimpse of the country life in this piece by @ruppin.bsky.social - one half of the team behind the Little Goat Barn writing retreats in North Wales, which will be opening in the Vale of Clywd later this year: open.substack.com/pub/littlego...
I was very happy to spot a copy of A Secret Sisterhood, my group biography about female literary friendship (cowritten with Emma Claire Sweeney), in @akennedysmith.bsky.social's shelfie accompanying her essay on love, literature & cultural highlights for February: tinyurl.com/4673erpz
A Cambridge Love Letter
February 2026: celebrating love and other imperfections
tinyurl.com
February 3, 2026 at 5:38 PM
I was very happy to spot a copy of A Secret Sisterhood, my group biography about female literary friendship (cowritten with Emma Claire Sweeney), in @akennedysmith.bsky.social's shelfie accompanying her essay on love, literature & cultural highlights for February: tinyurl.com/4673erpz
Read as part of @readjapaneseliterature.com's #JanuaryinJapan season: I enjoyed the creepy open-endedness of 'The Farside' by Hideo Furukawa & translated by @ginnytkmr.bsky.social.
Hideo Furukawa writes often-avant-garde literary fiction. A native of Fukushima, some of his post 3/11 work like Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure takes up the aftermath of the Triple Disaster. He is also an author of genre fiction—some early work was tied to a 90s computer game.
January 20, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Read as part of @readjapaneseliterature.com's #JanuaryinJapan season: I enjoyed the creepy open-endedness of 'The Farside' by Hideo Furukawa & translated by @ginnytkmr.bsky.social.
@akennedysmith.bsky.social is so good at shedding light on often overlooked episodes in the history of female scholars at Cambridge, and placing them within their social & cultural context. This essay from her Substack 'Locked out of the Library' is no exception.
‘Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.’ (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own, 1929)
I wrote about the Cambridge women scholars who (politely) fought for more equal access to the University Library in 1891.
I wrote about the Cambridge women scholars who (politely) fought for more equal access to the University Library in 1891.
Locked out of the library
The 1891 petition, and the 24 extraordinary women who signed it
open.substack.com
January 20, 2026 at 5:39 PM
@akennedysmith.bsky.social is so good at shedding light on often overlooked episodes in the history of female scholars at Cambridge, and placing them within their social & cultural context. This essay from her Substack 'Locked out of the Library' is no exception.
Over the years I've been writing, I've been fascinated by the no of Japanese words, once unfamiliar to English-reading audiences, that have become widely recognisable (no longer requiring clarifications on the page). On this note, I enjoyed @wheatfu.bsky.social's article: tinyurl.com/yzmewfca
From ‘senpai’ to ‘love hotel’: 11 new Japanese words enter the Oxford dictionary
Japanese culture keeps reshaping the English language — sometimes in unexpected ways.
tinyurl.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Over the years I've been writing, I've been fascinated by the no of Japanese words, once unfamiliar to English-reading audiences, that have become widely recognisable (no longer requiring clarifications on the page). On this note, I enjoyed @wheatfu.bsky.social's article: tinyurl.com/yzmewfca
Post-winter break, I'm still working through the contents of my inbox and finding some great things to read. I enjoyed this piece by @judecook.bsky.social, which asks if 'politics and fiction make for uneasy bedfellows? Does one, as it were, fatally undermine the other?'
A final Substack essay for 2025 from me. Read The Golden World: Do Politics and Fiction Mix? for FREE here: judecook.substack.com/p/the-golden... Happy New Year!
The Golden World
Do Politics and Fiction Mix?
judecook.substack.com
January 7, 2026 at 7:48 PM
Post-winter break, I'm still working through the contents of my inbox and finding some great things to read. I enjoyed this piece by @judecook.bsky.social, which asks if 'politics and fiction make for uneasy bedfellows? Does one, as it were, fatally undermine the other?'
Great seasonal historical and cultural roundup from @akennedysmith.bsky.social. I look forward to another year of her excellent Substack essays: open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
A Cambridge Letter on Twelfth Night
January 2026, going forward
open.substack.com
January 6, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Great seasonal historical and cultural roundup from @akennedysmith.bsky.social. I look forward to another year of her excellent Substack essays: open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
I enjoyed this New Year essay by @samanthaellis.bsky.social with its focus on training & recovery, rereading & rewriting. And I completely agree with Samantha about this: 'I’m a huge advocate of rereading and how books change for you when you go back to them, and what that can give you.'
January 5, 2026 at 3:02 PM
I enjoyed this New Year essay by @samanthaellis.bsky.social with its focus on training & recovery, rereading & rewriting. And I completely agree with Samantha about this: 'I’m a huge advocate of rereading and how books change for you when you go back to them, and what that can give you.'
Congratulations to Better Known on reaching its 400th episode! I've discovered so many new things from this podcast 'about people’s passions which they think should be better known', & being interviewed (with Emma Claire Sweeney) back in 2017 was great. I recommend this series! tinyurl.com/4zaf73bh
400th episode | Better Known
Each week, a guest makes a series of recommendations of things which they think should be better known. Our recommendations include interesting people, places, objects, stories, experiences and ideas ...
tinyurl.com
November 26, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Congratulations to Better Known on reaching its 400th episode! I've discovered so many new things from this podcast 'about people’s passions which they think should be better known', & being interviewed (with Emma Claire Sweeney) back in 2017 was great. I recommend this series! tinyurl.com/4zaf73bh
In Jane Austen's 250th birthday year, it's great to see so many libraries marking the occasion. Lovely to discover this mention of A Secret Sisterhood (which I cowrote with Emma Claire Sweeney) in the Berlin-Peck Library's list of works associated with the great author: tinyurl.com/yjsvkj7h
Berlin-Peck Library Celebrating Iconic Writer's 250th Birthday
2025 marks 250 years since the author was born, with the Berlin library featuring many of Austen's books in circulation.
tinyurl.com
November 26, 2025 at 5:18 PM
In Jane Austen's 250th birthday year, it's great to see so many libraries marking the occasion. Lovely to discover this mention of A Secret Sisterhood (which I cowrote with Emma Claire Sweeney) in the Berlin-Peck Library's list of works associated with the great author: tinyurl.com/yjsvkj7h
@akennedysmith.bsky.social's essay on DNA pioneer Dr Rosalind Franklin reminds us of the continued importance of giving women's historic scientific discoveries their due.
As Francis Crick put it, ‘I’m afraid we always used to adopt – let’s say, a patronizing attitude towards her.’ I wrote about DNA pioneer Dr Rosalind Franklin, and how she was deliberately excluded from her male colleagues' conversations.
Conversations with scientists
British chemist and X-ray crystallographer, Dr Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)
open.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 8:33 PM
@akennedysmith.bsky.social's essay on DNA pioneer Dr Rosalind Franklin reminds us of the continued importance of giving women's historic scientific discoveries their due.
Bluebell magazine is open for submissions again. Deadline 1 December: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...
November Submission Call: Unspoken
What do you wish you'd said?
open.substack.com
November 5, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Bluebell magazine is open for submissions again. Deadline 1 December: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...
OK, I sort of have an interest in this subject already but I really liked this atmospheric @japantimes.co.jp article by @alexktmartin.bsky.social on Tokyo's 'phantom stations': www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/10...
Inside Tokyo's 'phantom' stations — and the stories they tell
A sealed 1930s subway platform beneath Shimbashi Station still holds traces of what the capital looked like before the war.
www.japantimes.co.jp
October 27, 2025 at 2:43 PM
OK, I sort of have an interest in this subject already but I really liked this atmospheric @japantimes.co.jp article by @alexktmartin.bsky.social on Tokyo's 'phantom stations': www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/10...
'Motherhood has opened up a new seam of creativity for me. It’s given me access to new feelings and to new ideas. I did not switch off my brain when I became a mother.' Couldn't agree more, @samanthaellis.bsky.social. Loved this honest & inspiring essay: tinyurl.com/y889he4c
Motherhood can nourish your writing
(and so can any huge life experience)
tinyurl.com
October 22, 2025 at 5:52 PM
'Motherhood has opened up a new seam of creativity for me. It’s given me access to new feelings and to new ideas. I did not switch off my brain when I became a mother.' Couldn't agree more, @samanthaellis.bsky.social. Loved this honest & inspiring essay: tinyurl.com/y889he4c
Nice to read this review by Sophia Rose of the forthcoming @aurorametro.bsky.social anthology Encounters with Jane Austen. My Secret Sisterhood coauthor, Emma Claire Sweeney, & I were pleased to be contributors - & to see our essay given a particular mention here. www.thequillink.com/post/guest-r...
Guest Review: ENCOUNTERS WITH JANE AUSTEN edited by Cheryl Robson
Sophia Rose reviews a multi-author anthology curated by Cheryl Robson, including work from heavy hitters like Bridgerton author Julia Quinn, actor and writer Talulah Riley, bestselling authors Charlie...
www.thequillink.com
October 20, 2025 at 12:50 PM
Nice to read this review by Sophia Rose of the forthcoming @aurorametro.bsky.social anthology Encounters with Jane Austen. My Secret Sisterhood coauthor, Emma Claire Sweeney, & I were pleased to be contributors - & to see our essay given a particular mention here. www.thequillink.com/post/guest-r...
I wrote the introduction for the 1st issue of Bluebell literary mag (submissions for the 2nd issue are open now). This essay by Eugenia Webster is one of the pieces that has really stayed with me. I look forward to issue 2: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...
What Would You Do If War Began Tomorrow?
by Eugenia Webster
open.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 1:42 PM
I wrote the introduction for the 1st issue of Bluebell literary mag (submissions for the 2nd issue are open now). This essay by Eugenia Webster is one of the pieces that has really stayed with me. I look forward to issue 2: open.substack.com/pub/bluebell...
Always happy to share news about the fantastic Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize! Deadline: 7 Jan, 2026. @lucycavcoll.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/lcfictio...
LUCY CAVENDISH FICTION PRIZE 2026
Now open for entries!
open.substack.com
October 13, 2025 at 1:25 PM
Always happy to share news about the fantastic Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize! Deadline: 7 Jan, 2026. @lucycavcoll.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/lcfictio...
I thought this essay by @ypathak.bsky.social on motherhood, food & love was wonderful. And I personally related to this bit: 'every time I put a spoonful of food into one of my babies’ mouths, my mouth opened unconsciously, as though I was taking a ghost-bite for every bite they ate'.
“In all the time I was struggling to nurture my babies, the key to understanding true nourishment lay in satisfying my own body.” @ypathak.bsky.social on motherhood and acts of care.
Love and Sustenance: Why Indian Mothers Obsess Over Feeding Our Kids
Ma mixed boiling dal with buttered rice scooped with her fingers taste of her skin lilt of her tale in my mouth as she sang, bite after bite: one for the village children one for you –“I Have Eaten…
buff.ly
October 9, 2025 at 9:14 PM
I thought this essay by @ypathak.bsky.social on motherhood, food & love was wonderful. And I personally related to this bit: 'every time I put a spoonful of food into one of my babies’ mouths, my mouth opened unconsciously, as though I was taking a ghost-bite for every bite they ate'.