Emily Midorikawa
@emilymidorikawa.bsky.social
Author of Out of the Shadows. Coauthor of A Secret Sisterhood. English-Japanese woman in Washington DC.
@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'.
'But Winnie decided that "no woman (it is not my business to consider a man’s life) has any excuse for living a life that is not worth living".' A sad & ultimately inspiring essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social on 19th-century women's education, female solidarity & the importance of good teachers.
I wrote about this moving biography of Winnie Seebohm, who fought to have the right to study at Cambridge in 1885. ‘Do not be misled into thinking that because it is history it has nothing to do with you' Victoria Glendinning writes. '1885 is yesterday. It is probably tomorrow too.’
A life worth living
Winnie Seebohm and the marvellous Mrs Marshall
akennedysmith.substack.com
October 3, 2025 at 1:00 PM
'But Winnie decided that "no woman (it is not my business to consider a man’s life) has any excuse for living a life that is not worth living".' A sad & ultimately inspiring essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social on 19th-century women's education, female solidarity & the importance of good teachers.
'For most of my students, the benchmark of whether they fall in love with a work of literature is if they can ‘relate’ to it ... I often suggest that they should go to fiction for the opposite reasons: that it opens up new fields of experience, new worlds, new cultures.' Via @judecook.bsky.social.
A September Substack essay from me on the last day of the month. Read What I Love There: On Literary Subjectivity for FREE here: judecook.substack.com/p/what-i-lov...
September 30, 2025 at 4:15 PM
'For most of my students, the benchmark of whether they fall in love with a work of literature is if they can ‘relate’ to it ... I often suggest that they should go to fiction for the opposite reasons: that it opens up new fields of experience, new worlds, new cultures.' Via @judecook.bsky.social.
'It must have appeared to the young Virginia Stephen as if they were worlds apart; while she was stuck at home with her father and her tedious domestic duties, ‘Miss Harrison’ was a brilliant Cambridge scholar who was already famous for her lectures.' Interesting essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social.
Who's afraid of Jane Harrison? I wrote about the Cambridge classicist who inspired Virginia Woolf.
The ghost of Jane Harrison
The woman who haunts Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own
open.substack.com
September 16, 2025 at 3:38 PM
'It must have appeared to the young Virginia Stephen as if they were worlds apart; while she was stuck at home with her father and her tedious domestic duties, ‘Miss Harrison’ was a brilliant Cambridge scholar who was already famous for her lectures.' Interesting essay by @akennedysmith.bsky.social.
Wonderful essay by Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's beautiful, yet quietly devastating, late-career novel The Sweet Dove Died, which Boyt argues may have remained unpublished for so long 'not because it was too quaint but because it was too uncomfortable'. It's a real favourite of mine.
"The text is a matrix of longing and loathing, the two states often indistinguishable."
Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's The Sweet Dove Died at @literaryhub.bsky.social
Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's The Sweet Dove Died at @literaryhub.bsky.social
The Art of Caustic Cosiness: On Barbara Pym’s The Sweet Dove Died
In December 1967, eleven years before The Sweet Dove Died was published, Barbara Pym wrote to Philip Larkin, enclosing her first draft. (The two maintained a correspondence for fourteen years, befo…
lithub.com
September 16, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Wonderful essay by Susie Boyt on Barbara Pym's beautiful, yet quietly devastating, late-career novel The Sweet Dove Died, which Boyt argues may have remained unpublished for so long 'not because it was too quaint but because it was too uncomfortable'. It's a real favourite of mine.
Reposted by Emily Midorikawa
‘For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: “Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.” David Lynch wasn’t just American, but freakishly American, and like any good scout was both pathologically self-assured and incurably naive.’
Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton · Things go kerflooey: David Lynch’s Gee-Wizardry
For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: ‘Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.’ David Lynch...
www.lrb.co.uk
September 3, 2025 at 4:15 PM
‘For years, his biography on press releases was just four words long: “Eagle scout, Missoula, Montana.” David Lynch wasn’t just American, but freakishly American, and like any good scout was both pathologically self-assured and incurably naive.’
Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Ruby Hamilton on Lynch: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
'The Victorians had turned death into something of a pageant...The Great War, however, turned death into something sudden, cruel and unknowable.' Having written about Victorian Spiritualism in my last book, Out of the Shadows, I found this idea, & @alicevernon10.bsky.social's essay, so interesting.
I'm thrilled to have an extract from Ghosted on @literaryhub.bsky.social today! The chapter on Spiritualism in the aftermath of WWI really broadened my understanding of ghost-hunting, and made me realise just how much grief is tangled up in our search for spooks.
lithub.com/the-rise-of-...
lithub.com/the-rise-of-...
The Rise of Spiritualism (and Séances) After the First World War
The First World War began in July 1914, and by its conclusion in November 1918, over nine million soldiers had been killed in the conflict. Each death was devastating to relatives and friends left …
lithub.com
September 8, 2025 at 3:35 PM
'The Victorians had turned death into something of a pageant...The Great War, however, turned death into something sudden, cruel and unknowable.' Having written about Victorian Spiritualism in my last book, Out of the Shadows, I found this idea, & @alicevernon10.bsky.social's essay, so interesting.
Morning reading. I love the way that this essay by @judecook.bsky.social captures the essence of a place, & intertwines the author's personal memories with his literary work. It also made me miss Paris. 'Paris in the Blood': open.substack.com/pub/judecook...
Paris In the Blood
How To Research a Novel
open.substack.com
September 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Morning reading. I love the way that this essay by @judecook.bsky.social captures the essence of a place, & intertwines the author's personal memories with his literary work. It also made me miss Paris. 'Paris in the Blood': open.substack.com/pub/judecook...
'Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word? "Home. Both places are home."' So much chimed with me in this interview with Emily Itami, author of Kakigori Summer: mixedmessages.substack.com/p/emily-itam...
Emily Itami: “I don’t know how else to be – I cannot exist any other way”
The author on being one of the crowd, interrogating mixed identity and language as the root of thought
mixedmessages.substack.com
September 3, 2025 at 1:56 PM
'Can you sum up your mixed experience in one word? "Home. Both places are home."' So much chimed with me in this interview with Emily Itami, author of Kakigori Summer: mixedmessages.substack.com/p/emily-itam...
Entries are open for The Book Edit Writers' Prize 2025 judged by @janiceokoh.bsky.social (deadline 13 October). More details here: www.thebookedit.co.uk/writers-prize
The Book Edit Writers' Prize — The Book Edit
The Book Edit Writers' Prize for unpublished, unagented novelists from communities currently under-represented in British publishing.
www.thebookedit.co.uk
September 3, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Entries are open for The Book Edit Writers' Prize 2025 judged by @janiceokoh.bsky.social (deadline 13 October). More details here: www.thebookedit.co.uk/writers-prize
'As a teenager who once ached for stories of young people like me, my oft-stung adult heart fills to think that we can now share Tsujimura’s tales with the people we’ve grown up with, grown up around, and grown apart from.' Wonderful LitHub essay by @yukitejima.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mwv7f6dm
On Bringing the Novels of Mizuki Tsujimura to English Readers
As a literary translator who was born in Tokyo, raised in Los Angeles, and now ping-pongs between the two cities, I often find myself describing books (that I neither wrote nor translated) to reade…
tinyurl.com
August 26, 2025 at 4:58 PM
'As a teenager who once ached for stories of young people like me, my oft-stung adult heart fills to think that we can now share Tsujimura’s tales with the people we’ve grown up with, grown up around, and grown apart from.' Wonderful LitHub essay by @yukitejima.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mwv7f6dm
Back at my desk today after a summer break & catching up with reading. And what a joyful & inspiring post to get me back into the swing of things: 'Libraries to fall in love with' by @akennedysmith.bsky.social. open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
Libraries to fall in love with
And lots of other good things coming up
open.substack.com
August 25, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Back at my desk today after a summer break & catching up with reading. And what a joyful & inspiring post to get me back into the swing of things: 'Libraries to fall in love with' by @akennedysmith.bsky.social. open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
From @oliviacampbell.bsky.social's always interesting Substack - an essay focusing on inventor Leona W. Chalmers and a history of period protection products (a real window into past women's lives) open.substack.com/pub/oliviaca...
An Inventor Ahead of Her Time
Leona W. Chalmers creates a sustainable, effective period product solution.
open.substack.com
August 1, 2025 at 3:00 PM
From @oliviacampbell.bsky.social's always interesting Substack - an essay focusing on inventor Leona W. Chalmers and a history of period protection products (a real window into past women's lives) open.substack.com/pub/oliviaca...
Reposted by Emily Midorikawa
Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!
The founders of independent publisher Bloodhound Books have launched a new AI fiction translation service, Globescribe.ai 👇 #BookSky
Bloodhound Books founders launch AI fiction translation company
ebx.sh
July 7, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Writers! Note that AI translation (under the guise of "global access") is being seen/used as the weak point to get AI into publishing (possible bc Eng lang publishing is weak on translation). Stand with translators & for more human translation, fairly paid!
Reposted by Emily Midorikawa
Great review of Nancy Wu’s narration of Vanishing World, clearly pointing out the ways in which she brings her humanity and skill to the job. A timely reminder why we shouldn’t let AI replace human narrators!
VANISHING WORLD by Sayaka Murata Ginny Tapley Takemori Trans Read by Nancy Wu | Audiobook Review | AudioFile Magazine
AudioFile Audiobook Review: Nancy Wu narrates a story of an alternate reality in Japan in which children are created artificially, not by intercourse. Wu brings a measured clarit
www.audiofilemagazine.com
July 21, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Great review of Nancy Wu’s narration of Vanishing World, clearly pointing out the ways in which she brings her humanity and skill to the job. A timely reminder why we shouldn’t let AI replace human narrators!
Thanks @akennedysmith.bsky.social! It was an honour to see my book Out of the Shadows featured in your excellent Substack newsletter. It's great to see Emma Hardinge Britten - famed orator & spirit medium - getting more of the interest she deserves.
In her lectures Emma Hardinge Britten spoke up for female emancipation, claiming to be channelling the views of dead male spirits. My post on her early career and the spiritualist craze that crossed the Atlantic (Queen Victoria was a fan). Thanks to @emilymidorikawa.bsky.social for her inspiration!
The Englishwoman and the President
Speaking up for Abraham Lincoln
open.substack.com
July 22, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Thanks @akennedysmith.bsky.social! It was an honour to see my book Out of the Shadows featured in your excellent Substack newsletter. It's great to see Emma Hardinge Britten - famed orator & spirit medium - getting more of the interest she deserves.
Love and good London novel, and there are some great recommendations in this interesting piece by @jacquiwine.bsky.social.
New on the blog today, I've written about some of my favourite novels set in London.
Featuring books by Patrick Hamilton, Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner, Olivia Manning and more! #BookSky 💙📚
jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/l...
Featuring books by Patrick Hamilton, Muriel Spark, Anita Brookner, Olivia Manning and more! #BookSky 💙📚
jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2025/07/10/l...
London Novels – ten favourites from my shelves
Back in May, Faber and Faber reissued Alexander Baron’s brilliant novel The Lowlife, the entertaining, picaresque story of an amiable Jewish charmer trying to get by on his wits in seedy post-war L…
jacquiwine.wordpress.com
July 17, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Love and good London novel, and there are some great recommendations in this interesting piece by @jacquiwine.bsky.social.
Reposted by Emily Midorikawa
Jane Harrison was also a notable Town figure in #Cambridge - she was in the first cohort of new women magistrates to serve the Borough (with Florence Ada Keynes, Clara Rackham, & Leah Manning IIRC) in 1920 following a change in the law removing the ban on women magistrates.
Lots of great cultural recommendations, plus an interesting profile of classical scholar Jane Ellen Harrison, in @akennedysmith.bsky.social's latest Substack: Cambridge Notebook #16 open.substack.com/pub/akennedy...
Cambridge Notebook #16
Summer heat, cool nonfiction and the legendary Jane Ellen Harrison
open.substack.com
July 15, 2025 at 12:03 PM
Jane Harrison was also a notable Town figure in #Cambridge - she was in the first cohort of new women magistrates to serve the Borough (with Florence Ada Keynes, Clara Rackham, & Leah Manning IIRC) in 1920 following a change in the law removing the ban on women magistrates.